by Jonathan Eig
wearing a white tank top: “Cassius Clay vs. Yvon Becot (Rome, 1960 Olympics),” www.youtube.com.
“He’s very tall and has a very fast left hand”: Tony Madigan interview, n.d., www.youtube.com.
“Do southpaws bother other fellows?”: “Cassius II,” Warren (PA) Observer, August 26, 1960.
His coaches begged him: “Fleischer Talked Harmonica Boy Clay out of Jeopardy at Olympic Games in Rome,” Ring, August 1967.
He wasn’t dancing much: “Muhammad Ali (Cassius Clay) vs. Zigzy Pietrzykowski HQ,” www.youtube.com.
For every punch Pietrzykowski landed: Punch counts tabulated for the author by CompuBox, Inc.
a three-tiered podium: “Muhammad Ali (Cassius Clay) vs. Zigzy Pietrzykowski HQ.”
8. DREAMER
“it’s gonna be great to be great”: “The Happiest Heavyweight,” Saturday Evening Post, March 25, 1961.
“Look at me!”: Budd Schulberg, Loser and Still Champion: Muhammad Ali (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1972), 33.
He wore his medal: Cottrell, Muhammad Ali, Who Once Was Cassius Clay, 30. Waldorf Towers Hotel: Ibid., 31.
two steaks at $7.95 each: Thimmesch, “The Dream,” 79.
He vowed that within three years: “Cass Clay to Turn Pro,” Phoenix Arizona Republic, September 12, 1960.
“Cassius Signs for Patterson Fight”: Cottrell, Muhammad Ali, Who Once Was Cassius Clay, 32.
“Back home they’ll think it’s real”: Remnick, King of the World, 104. $2.50 check: Ibid.
“I dream I’m running down Broadway”: “The Happiest Heavyweight.”
“You really know who I am?”: Ibid.
“You mean your wife know who I am, too?”: Ibid.
“To make America the greatest is my goal”: Remnick, King of the World, 106.
“Uncle Sam’s defenses are down”: Lyman Johnson, statement to FBI, June 6, 1966, Archives and Special Collections, University of Louisville, Louisville, Kentucky.
boxing royalty lined up with offers: Cottrell, Muhammad Ali, Who Once Was Cassius Clay, 32.
“I did some research”: Gordon B. Davidson, interview by author, April 18, 2014.
Cassius Clay Sr. didn’t want Joe Martin: Ibid.
Arab sheik: Typed notes, n.d., Jack Olsen Papers.
“Oh, my, he was so proud”: Dora Jean Malachi, interview by author, July 26, 2015.
“The old man, he don’t care”: Joe Martin, interview by Jack Olsen, typed notes, n.d. (c. 1963), Jack Olsen Papers.
a big, gravelly voiced: “The Eleven Men behind Cassius Clay,” Sports Illustrated, March 11, 1963.
contract was for six years: Gordon B. Davidson, interview by author, April 18, 2014.
Seven were millionaires: Cottrell, Muhammad Ali, Who Once Was Cassius Clay, 33.
“Ah wonder if you realize”: Ibid.
“to do something nice”: Ibid.
expected expenses of $9,015.86: Memorandum to the Louisville Sponsoring Group, December 19, 1960, George Barry Bingham Papers, Filson Historical Society, Louisville, Kentucky.
revealing a balance of $6,217.12: “ ‘I Don’t Want to Be a Joe Louis,’ Says Louisville’s Cassius Clay, ‘— Not with Income Tax Problems,’ ” Louisville Courier-Journal, November 2, 1960.
which had come to $2,500: Ibid.
get a driver’s license: Ibid.
“me and the Pied Piper”: “The Passion of Muhammad Ali,” Esquire, April 1968.
On October 29, 1960: Muhammad Ali boxing record, www.boxrec.com.
“He’s six-three for one thing”: “Young Cassius Clay Can Be the Champ,” Charleston Daily Mail, November 5, 1960.
“attractive but not probative”: A. J. Liebling, “Poet and Pedagogue,” The New Yorker, March 3, 1962.
base salary of $363.63: Budget, Louisville Sponsoring Group, December 19, 1960, George Barry Bingham Papers.
“Archie,” he said: Remnick, King of the World, 112.
paying two hundred dollars a week: Budget, Louisville Sponsoring Group, December 19, 1960, George Barry Bingham Papers.
“I think the boy needs”: Cottrell, Muhammad Ali, Who Once Was Cassius Clay, 49.
Dundee would stand calmly: Ibid., 50.
Dundee was the son: Angelo Dundee, My View from the Corner (New York: McGraw Hill, 2009), 17–20.
“the most engaging person”: Ferdie Pacheco, Tales from the Fifth Street Gym (Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2010), 13.
Dundee kept a record: Ibid., 14.
December 19, 1960: Hank Kaplan, notes, n.d., biographical file, box 1, folder 1, Hank Kaplan Boxing Archive.
“Training him was like jet propulsion”: Ibid.
“a pork and beaner”: “Clay Making Great Mileage in Publicity and Contacts.”
“one way to handle a kid”: “Champ 23: A Man-Child Taken in by the Muslims,” Life, March 6, 1964.
split of the gate: “Clay Making Great Mileage in Publicity and Contacts.”
“The old man teed off”: Typed notes, n.d., Jack Olsen Papers.
form signed March 1, 1961: “Classification Questionnaire,” Selective Service System, March 1, 1961, National Archives and Records Administration, College Park, Maryland.
“The world of the squared circle”: “ ‘Man, It’s Great to Be Great,’ ” New York Times, December 9, 1962.
“Six-foot-twenty”: Angelo Dundee, interview, ESPN Classic, transcript of broadcast interview, January 3, 2003.
“I’m not afraid of the fight”: Hank Kaplan, Note, n.d., Hank Kaplan Boxing Archive.
“He punches like a middleweight”: Ibid.
he made $100,000: “Perfumed, Coiffed and Grappling with Demons,” New York Times, September 18, 2008.
“I saw fifteen thousand people”: Torres, Sting Like a Bee, 104.
“He knocked me down”: Alonzo Johnson, interview by author, June 3, 2015.
gained fifteen pounds: “ ‘Who Made Me — Is Me!’ ”
“I just sit here”: Ibid.
Dundee told him after: Cottrell, Muhammad Ali, Who Once Was Cassius Clay, 58.
“I’m tired of being fed”: Cottrell, Muhammad Ali, Who Once Was Cassius Clay, 60.
9. “TWENTIETH-CENTURY EXUBERANCE”
left the rink at about 6: Muhammad Ali to Khalilah Camacho-Ali, n.d., personal collection of author.
“My brother”: Ibid.
“The Cartoon was about the first slaves”: Ibid.
“It gave him confidence”: Rahaman Ali, interview by author, August 30, 2014.
The front page of the issue: “What Is Un-American?” Muhammad Speaks, December 1961, 1.
“You are the man that is asleep”: Taylor Branch, Pillar of Fire: America in the King Years, 1963–65 (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1998), 3–4.
“The mind is its own place”: John Milton, Paradise Lost (Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing, 1997), book 1, page 13, lines 254–55.
Islam was a “facade”: Bennett Johnson, interview by author, January 22, 2014.
in a seersucker suit: Abdul Rahman (formerly Sam Saxon), interview by author, March 21, 2014.
“Why are we called Negroes?”: Abdul Rahman, interview by author, August 19, 2016.
“third best pool shooter”: Ibid.
“I pulled him in”: Ibid.
“This minister started teaching”: Alex Haley, “Playboy Interview: Cassius Clay,” Playboy, October 1964.
his recent immersion into the Nation: Remnick, King of the World, 135.
“Boxing is not as colorful”: “Clay Expects to Enliven Boxing as Well as Win World Crown,” New York Times, February 7, 1962.
“Whatever the other man”: A. J. Liebling, “Ahab and Nemesis,” The New Yorker, October 8, 1955.
It was no clash of titans: Ibid.
“I view this man with mixed emotions”: Cottrell, Muhammad Ali, Who Once Was Cassius Clay, 83.
“The money comes with the glory”: Einar Thulin, “Coffee with Cassius,” December 30, 1962, Hank Kaplan Boxing Archive.
Clay was booed
so lustily: Cottrell, Muhammad Ali, Who Once Was Cassius Clay, 82.
“Cassius’ love affair”: Jim Murray, “Cassius on Clay,” Los Angeles Times, April 20, 1962.
“I’ll take Sonny Liston right now”: Cottrell, Muhammad Ali, Who Once Was Cassius Clay, 87.
10. “IT’S SHOW BUSINESS”
“knocking out some bums”: “Clay Didn’t ‘Eat Crow’ but Will Devour Powell,” Chicago Defender, January 21, 1963.
“I don’t care if this kid can fight a lick”: Thimmesch, “The Dream,” 80.
“I got a headline for you”: “Headline Writing Pays Off,” Winnipeg Free Press, January 30, 1963.
with revenue of about $56,000: Cottrell, Muhammad Ali, Who Once Was Cassius Clay, 92.
“When he first hit me”: “Liston’s Edge: A Lethal Left,” Sports Illustrated, February 24, 1964.
“Now take those Associated Press reporters”: Story notes, March 13, 1963, Time magazine article, Nick Thimmesch Papers.
“I was marked”: Ibid.
“Seventy-five percent”: “A Split Image of Cassius Clay.”
“Before going out to greet the pretty girls: William Faversham, interview by Jack Olsen, n.d., Jack Olsen Papers.
fifty cents’ worth of gas: Ibid.
At the end of 1962, the financial ledger: Memo, James Ross Todd, treasurer, to the Louisville Sponsoring Group, January 30, 1963, George Barry Bingham Papers.
In a private meeting: “Minutes of the Meeting of the Louisville Sponsoring Group,” December 21, 1962, George Barry Bingham Papers.
“Cassius Clay is Hercules”: Thimmesch, “The Dream.”
In Esquire soon after: Tom Wolfe, “The Marvelous Mouth,” in The Muhammad Ali Reader, ed. Gerald Early (New York: Ecco, 1998), 20.
he felt like he “never got through”: Conversations with Tom Wolfe, ed. Dorothy Scura (Oxford: University of Mississippi Press, 1990), 11.
“Here you are, boy”: Wolfe, “The Marvelous Mouth,” 20.
“The Negroes of the country”: James Baldwin, “Letter from a Region in My Mind,” The New Yorker, November 17, 1962.
for taking away his driver’s license: “Cassius the Quiet Wins License Bout with State,” Louisville Courier-Journal, March 30, 1963.
Clay objected: “Clay Wary of Pictures with White Girl,” Chicago Defender, March 18, 1963.
and eventually helping to kill four: Scott Sherman, “The Long Good-Bye,” Vanity Fair, November 30, 2012, http://www.vanityfair.com/unchanged/2012/11/1963-newspaper-strike-bertram-powers.
“How tall are you?”: “A Comeuppance for the Cocksure Cassius,” Sports Illustrated, March 25, 1963.
“The Garden is too small for me”: Cottrell, Muhammad Ali, Who Once Was Cassius Clay, 96–97.
scalpers outside the Garden: Lewis, Cassius Clay, 62.
“I can’t believe it”: Cottrell, Muhammad Ali, Who Once Was Cassius Clay, 96.
“People come to see me”: Ibid.
When it was 9:47 p.m.: Lewis, Cassius Clay, 63.
“Get that loudmouth!”: Ibid.
landing 21 punches: Punch counts tabulated for the author by CompuBox, Inc.
Clay raised his arms: “1963–3–13 Cassius Clay vs Doug Jones (FOTY),” www.youtube.com.
Then he picked up a peanut: Cottrell, Muhammad Ali, Who Once Was Cassius Clay, 100.
old friends from Louisville: Story notes, March 14, 1963, Time magazine article, Nick Thimmesch Papers.
“I ain’t Superman”: Cottrell, Muhammad Ali, Who Once Was Cassius Clay, 101.
columnist Al Monroe tried: Al Monroe, “Reporters Missed Boat in Not Quoting Liston,” Chicago Defender, October 2, 1962.
In another column: Al Monroe, “What about ‘The Lip’ as Heavyweight King?” Chicago Defender, July 30, 1963.
“an insurrectionary assault”: Woodward, The Strange Career of Jim Crow, 175.
“Sonny Liston is the standard”: Cecil Brathwaite, “Ode to Cassius,” Chicago Defender, April 1, 1963.
Clay attended a victory party: Story notes, March 14, 1963, Time magazine article, Nick Thimmesch Papers.
“I got a little headache”: Story notes, March 15, 1963, Time magazine article, Nick Thimmesch Papers.
“You mean it’s a 50–50 split with us?”: Ibid.
He paid $10,956: Deed of Sale, May 9, 1963, Louisville, Kentucky, Jefferson County Clerk’s Office, Louisville.
They hired a cook: Story notes, March 15, 1963, Time magazine article, Nick Thimmesch Papers.
“Tomato-red Cadillac convertible”: Ibid.
“I won so many amateur fights”: Ibid.
11. FLOAT LIKE A BUTTERFLY, STING LIKE A BEE
Archie Robinson, a portly man: Hank Kaplan, “Boxing — From the South” (unpublished, n.d.), Hank Kaplan Boxing Archive.
“the clap doctor”: Bob Arum, interview by author, November 17, 2015; Gene Kilroy, interview by author, November 17, 2015.
“I got to go to the fights for nothing”: Ferdie Pacheco, interview by author, December 30, 2013.
“Blue eyes and brown eyes”: Drew Brown, interview by author, March 7, 2016.
“He was not an admirable character”: Gordon B. Davidson, interview by author, April 18, 2014.
A. J. Liebling had written of the “butterfly Cassius”: Liebling, “Poet and Pedagogue.”
“If he hated”: Ta-Nehisi Coates, Between the World and Me (New York: Spiegel and Grau, 2015), 36.
“Cassius came up and pumped my hand”: Malcolm X as told to Alex Haley, The Autobiography of Malcolm X (New York: Ballantine, 1965), 350.
playful uncle to the kids: Attallah Shabazz, interview by author, October 1, 2015.
“a public figure’s success”: Malcolm X as told to Haley, The Autobiography of Malcolm X, 350.
seven women who had been: Claude Andrew Clegg III, An Original Man: The Life and Times of Elijah Muhammad (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1997), 185.
“I felt like something”: Ibid.
he and his brother attended a Nation of Islam rally: Untitled photograph, Muhammad Speaks, December 20, 1963.
spotted Clay’s red Cadillac: “Muslims Great, Says Cassius Clay, in Interview on Right of Way,” Chicago Sun-Times, July 3, 1963.
“I don’t really know much about them”: Ibid.
Clay might thrive as an entertainer: Gordon Davidson to William Faversham, July 23, 1963, George Barry Bingham Papers.
Producers of the TV show: Ibid.
And Frank Sinatra inquired: William Faversham to Louisville Sponsoring Group, April 26, 1963, George Barry Bingham Papers.
Malcolm was “a charming sumbitch”: Gordon B. Davidson, interview by author, April 18, 2014.
it took a hiccup: Randy Roberts and Johnny Smith, Blood Brothers (New York: Basic Books, 2016), 121.
“There has never been anything”: Ibid., 119.
referring to Buckingham Palace: Dundee, My View from the Corner, 80.
The king weighed in at 207 pounds: “’E Said ’E Would and ’E Did,” Sports Illustrated, July 1, 1963.
Had specially made for the occasion: Ibid.
in a conservative suit and tie: Jack Wood, “Henry Cooper v. Cassius Clay,” Daily Mail, May 3, 2011, http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/othersports/article-1382819/Henry-Cooper-v-Cassius-Clay-The-punch-changed-world.html.
“stand-up old-lithograph style”: “’E Said ’E Would and ’E Did.”
“First blood to Cooper”: “Cassius Clay vs Henry Cooper 18.6.1963,” www.youtube.com.
“This is what we always feared”: Ibid.
he landed only eleven: Punch counts tabulated for the author by CompuBox, Inc.
“Cut out the funny business”: “Cassius Clay vs Henry Cooper 18.6.1963,” www.youtube.com.
“but Cooper’s getting tired”: “’E Said ’E Would and ’E Did.”
“I stuck my finger in the split”: Dundee, My View from the Corner, 83.
“We want you bad in September, Cassius”: “’E Said ’E Would and ’E Did.”
who called King’s march a “farce”: “Minister Malcolm Exposes ‘Farce’ of D.C. ‘March,’ ” Muhammad Speaks, October 25, 1963.
“I don’t stand for anything”: “Clay Here — ‘Ugly Bear to Fall,’ ” Oakland Tribune, September 28, 1963.
the Messenger warned that black people: Roberts and Smith, Blood Brothers, 134.
“Separation is absolutely necessary”: “Muhammad on Self-Defense — Defend Truth at All Costs,” Muhammad Speaks, October 25, 1963.
“He’s really got something important”: “Angry Cassius Clay Snubs Newsmen at Black Muslim Rally,” Philadelphia Tribune, October 1, 1963.
wealthy white businessmen expressed worry: “Far-from-Wealthy Clay Stays Solvent Because Louisvillians Twist His Arm,” Louisville Courier-Journal, February 9, 1964.
“For a change”: Jack Paar Show, www.youtube.com.
The album was recorded August 8: Ticket stub, Worth Bingham, August 8, 1963, George Barry Bingham Papers.
“Clay comes out to meet Liston”: Cassius Clay, “I Am the Greatest!” The Knockout (Columbia Records, 1963), side 2, track 4.
“is a delightful young man”: “Final Backward Look,” New York Times, July 25, 1963.
“Lingering behind those words”: Alex Poinsett, “A Look at Cassius Clay: The Biggest Mouth in Boxing,” Ebony, March 1963.
12. THE UGLY BEAR
“Look at that big, ugly bear”: Cottrell, Muhammad Ali, Who Once Was Cassius Clay, 113.
“Listen, you nigger faggot”: Hauser, with Ali, Muhammad Ali, 59.
how they whispered, “It’s Cassius Clay, Cassius Clay”: Tom Wolfe, The Kandy-Kolored Tangerine-Flake Streamline Baby (New York: Picador, 2009), 108.
“I felt good until I got hit”: Remnick, King of the World, 75.
“Clay Has a Very Big Lip”: Cottrell, Muhammad Ali, Who Once Was Cassius Clay, 116.
“widely acclaimed as the savior of boxing”: Houston Horn, “A Rueful Dream Come True,” Sports Illustrated, November 18, 1963.
“Everything [Clay] does is exciting”: “Clay — It’s the Mouth That Does It,” March 12, 1963, Hank Kaplan Boxing Archive.
After a short period of negotiation: “Draft, Not Liston Worries Clay,” Chicago Defender, December 30, 1963.