Floyd trained with particular intensity. He also put on weight, knowing that he would have to be ready to brawl with Chuvalo if necessary. As Floyd’s training camp was winding down, he had muscled up to 197¼ pounds, which was the most he’d ever weighed as a boxer. Oddsmakers took heed of Floyd’s impressive size and the determination he’d shown at training camp. Patterson was a seven-to-five favorite, but one very noticeable voice was proclaiming that Chuvalo would win: Muhammad Ali.
The fight stirred much interest in New York. Madison Square Garden sold out, which was the first time it had done so for a boxing contest in more than two years, suggesting to some that the involvement of a white combatant who stood a chance to win was boosting sales. But no doubt Ali played a role as well. Ali was a genius at creating publicity, and he actively involved himself in the promotion of Patterson-Chuvalo. One day he showed up at Patterson’s Marlboro, New York, training camp. Ali carried two heads of lettuce and a half dozen carrots.
“Hey,” he shouted to the reporters and others in the makeshift gym, “anybody seen the Rabbit?”20 Ali’s nickname for Patterson derived from his belief that Floyd was timid and scared. (Ali also gave Chuvalo a nickname: the Washer Woman. The moniker came from an earlier fight in which Ali thought Chuvalo, working on an opponent pinned against the ropes, looked like a woman washing laundry with a scrub board.) Patterson came downstairs into the gym. Ali, flanked by two Black Muslims, immediately approached Floyd with the lettuce and carrots. Patterson extended his hand to the brash young champ, who knocked it away as members of the press looked on. Ali declared to Floyd that if he could defeat the Washer Woman, he might cease to be a nobody in the young champion’s eyes and get a chance to reclaim the heavyweight title. The performance continued for a while, and then Patterson began to address some of the reporters present: “Despite the lettuce and the carrots, I am glad that the heavyweight champion, Mr. Cassius Clay . . .”
“That’s not my name—call me by my right name Muhammad Ali!” Ali said. Some banter followed, ending with Ali saying, “Cassius Clay is a slave name . . . I’m free . . . you got a slave name . . . you ain’t nuthin’ but an Uncle Tom Negro . . . You Uncle Tom, I’ll jump right in there on you now.”
“Well, do it,” Patterson said.21
Ali, employing soon to be all-too-familiar antics, made an exaggerated attempt to free himself from his Black Muslim handlers and climb into the ring. But of course no fisticuffs were exchanged. Patterson sparred for a couple of rounds to the accompaniment of disparaging remarks from Ali about his abilities. Then Patterson left the circus, and Ali climbed into the vacant ring to dance and shadowbox for the benefit of the reporters.
No doubt all this was a distraction for Patterson, who still had to defeat a very tough Chuvalo before he’d get a chance to fight Ali. But at the same time, he understood Ali’s underlying purpose for the performance, which was to build up publicity for the Patterson-Chuvalo bout. About these kinds of encounters with Ali, Patterson would say, “I guess it all helped sell tickets to the fight. But in that split second that Cassius Clay’s eyes met with mine, I could sense that he was a little embarrassed about it all. He seemed to be apologizing, saying, ‘This is what I have to do.’” (Later still, Ali was at a press conference with Patterson, screaming and bragging as was his wont. But then he leaned over to Patterson and whispered, “You want to make some money, don’t you, Floyd? You want to make lots of money, don’t you?”22 Yes, Patterson did, and he understood what his role was, there alongside Ali. “This is only one of the peculiarities of the fight promotion in the era of Muhammad Ali,” said the New York Herald Tribune’s boxing sage Jesse Abramson, “who, on the one hand, claims all the credit for building the gate and stirring interest in boxing, and then airily asserts, ‘I’m going to be the last of the champions. There will be no boxing after me.’”23) One thing was clear. As Cassius Clay, growing up in Louisville, Ali had idolized Patterson. But that was all long in the past. Ever since he became a professional boxer, Ali idolized only himself.
Ali did not limit his promotional efforts to Patterson alone for the Patterson-Chuvalo fight. He made a similar stop at the Washer Woman’s camp. Only this time, he bore buckets and mops instead of carrots and lettuce and was joined by a retinue of reporters who’d ridden on Ali’s beloved red-and-white tour bus. They almost didn’t make it. Ali, notorious for his lack of skill behind the wheel, had been driving the bus when it ran off the road and into a ditch. He and the reporters were forced to walk from the scene of the accident to Chuvalo’s camp outside Monticello, New York. Chuvalo played along, asking, “When do I get my bucket?” After Ali gave it to him, Chuvalo said, “Thanks, Popeye.”24
Having crashed their training camps, Ali wasn’t through with Patterson-Chuvalo. He signed on to provide the between-rounds commentary for the closed-circuit broadcast of the February 1, 1965, fight. At ringside before the opening round, Ali said he’d visited both camps, and to him both “boys are in tip-top condition.” He pronounced Patterson’s punches as looking sharp, adding that Floyd was determined to win back the championship. For Chuvalo, Ali saw the contest as a do-or-die affair. “This should be a great, great fight,” he said. He picked Chuvalo to win, “because Floyd has a rather glass jaw.” He added that the boxer who won at Madison Square Garden that night deserved a shot at his crown.25
In the first round, Chuvalo seemed to have little defense against Patterson, especially his left jabs. Chuvalo tried to tie up the faster Floyd and slip in some punches. Patterson opened up Chuvalo’s nose before the two-minute mark. Although Floyd didn’t seem overly dominating, it was clearly Patterson’s round, and it impressed observers at ringside. An excited Ali shouted between rounds, “Floyd Patterson surprised me and I believe I have to change my mind. I’m a man who tells the truth, and I believe that this man won—he won the first round. He surprised me. I believe that George is fighting a little rough, a little dirty as far as boxing is concerned, hitting behind the head, holding, hitting on the clinches, and he’s not doing like I thought he would. But Floyd is determined, and I believe he is a threat to my title.”26
Patterson’s resolve was impressive. Floyd was the most intense he’d been in the ring since the second Johansson fight. But Chuvalo was his match in that department. Chuvalo’s team had devised a good plan: attack Patterson’s body repeatedly in the early rounds, and when he started lowering his elbows to protect his belly, attack his exposed head. Chuvalo pursued Patterson relentlessly, forcing Floyd to backpedal, and that disallowed him from throwing left hooks effectively. “He slammed Floyd in the belly with the impact of a man tamping dirt with a four-by-four,” said Sports Illustrated’s Tex Maule. Chuvalo also landed some of his jackhammer shots to Patterson’s vulnerable chin, but this time, Patterson kept his feet. “I think I proved after thirteen years tonight that I can take a much better punch than you gentlemen have given me credit for,” Patterson would say to reporters afterward. “He hit me well at times—in the belly and on the chin. Several times these punches hurt me, but never seriously. I thought at one time in the fight I was behind, and my corner told me so—I guess somewhere around the eighth or ninth round. They told me—I guess it was just before the tenth round—that if I would start punching and become more aggressive I could win.”27 Patterson was indeed particularly aggressive in those later rounds and finished with a flourish in the twelfth and final round to bring the Madison Square Garden crowd to its feet.
Floyd wept in his corner as the closely scored but unanimous decision in his favor was announced, in part because of the appreciative applause from his hometown fans in the Garden but also because he felt he had redeemed himself.28 At least to a degree. He told Chuvalo afterward, “You gained more prestige in defeat than I did in victory.”29 In fact, both combatants gained prestige. The Ring magazine named the hard-fought bout its fight of the year for 1965. The never-say-die Patterson, who seemed washed up after the second Liston fight, moved to the top of the list of heavyweight contende
rs. Now he set his aim on Ali.
Shortly after the Chuvalo fight, D’Amato reemerged in the boxing headlines. José Torres, Patterson’s longtime friend and gym mate, defeated Willie Pastrano to become world light-heavyweight champion, with D’Amato guiding the way. Sort of. D’Amato functioned as a manager without portfolio at the time of the fight, because he still had not regained a New York license. Also, the matchmakers in charge of the title fight had told Torres that they would not let him participate if D’Amato were involved—bad blood from the old IBC days. Moreover, Torres was encountering some of the same frustrations with D’Amato that Floyd had, and was in the process of pushing Cus aside. But to the boxing press, Cus was regarded as the new champion’s overseer, and after Torres won, Cus was newsworthy again. Cus used the opportunity to defend himself for his handling of Patterson and to state his belief that he had been treated unfairly by Floyd and the people now surrounding him. He even took a swipe at Floyd’s victory over Chuvalo. Yes, he said, Patterson had been successful in the ring, but he’d been technically unsound. Floyd had deteriorated as a boxer because Cus had not been allowed to pressure him in training to keep his skills sharp. Floyd made no public comments on Cus’s statements. The spotlight on Cus following the Torres victory amounted to one of the last times D’Amato basked in the glow of New York media. Over the next eighteen months, Torres would successfully defend his title three times, but by the end of that time, he and D’Amato had gone their separate ways.
Before Patterson could challenge the champion, Ali had to give Sonny Liston a rematch. This had been delayed for six months after Ali developed a hernia. Liston said that Ali’s hernia was the result of all the champ’s hollering. During that six months, Malcolm X, who had proselytized Ali to the Nation of Islam, was assassinated by individuals loyal to Elijah Muhammad after a particularly acrimonious split between the Black Muslims and Malcolm X. As the most famous member of the Nation of Islam, Ali conceivably was a likely target for Malcolm X loyalists seeking revenge. With violence outside the ring a real possibility, the fight was rejected by city after city until tiny Lewiston, Maine, agreed to host it. The glittery throng that normally flocked to heavyweight championship bouts stayed away, fearing the possibility of gunfire in the arena. On May 25, 1965, just 2,434 fans showed up at St. Dominic’s Hall in Lewiston, the all-time-record low attendance for a heavyweight championship fight. One of the people who braved whatever might happen in Lewiston was Floyd Patterson.
At 1:42 of the first round,30 Ali clipped Liston’s chin with a fast straight right. To many spectators, it seemed like nothing more than a glancing blow, but it was enough to knock Liston down. Was it enough to knock him out? That question has been the subject of intense debate for nearly half a century. Liston’s wallowing on the mat seemed exaggerated. While Liston was on his back, Ali preened over him, refusing to go to a neutral corner as referee Jersey Joe Walcott struggled to get him to do so, losing track of the count in the meantime. After Ali had retreated, Liston stood up and appeared set to resume fighting. Walcott readied the fighters to continue. But an official had ticked off twelve seconds while Liston was down. Fight writer Nat Fleischer shouted this information to Walcott. Walcott stopped the fight and raised Ali’s arm as the victor.
The few spectators in the arena became irate, shouting, “Fake! Fake! Fake!” It certainly had the look of being fixed. Floyd was not focused on the question of whether the fight was legitimate. He knew what Liston had to be feeling. This knockout was much more humiliating than either of the ones Floyd had experienced at Liston’s hands. Patterson decided to seek Liston out:31
I went in the back, in the dressing room, and he was all by himself. I said to him, “I know how you feel. I’ve experienced this myself.” And he didn’t say one word. He didn’t say anything. He just kept looking and looking, [and] he had that mean look on his face. I don’t think he knew he had the mean look. But I kept on talking anyway. And finally I said [to myself] I don’t think I’m reaching him. So I said, “Okay, I’ll see you later.” So I went to walk out the door and before I could get out the door, he ran up and put his arms on my shoulder and I turned around, and he said, “Thanks.” I knew then that I’d reached him.32
Thereafter, the one-time rivals were friendly for the few years remaining in Liston’s life.
Once Ali had finished with the fighter he dismissed as the Big Ugly Bear, the road was clear for a matchup with Floyd. The fight was set for the same convention center in Las Vegas where Patterson had lost to Liston for the second time. The date was to be November 22, 1965, exactly two years after President Kennedy’s murder in Dallas. America seemed a very different place from what it had been before that tragic Friday. Hope had given way to chaos.
In the summer of 1965, racial violence spread beyond the South to Los Angeles.33 What seemed to be a simple traffic stop involving a white California Highway Patrol motorcycle officer and a black driver evolved into a riot in the Watts section of the city. Matters worsened gravely when the city’s longtime powerful police chief, William Parker, referred to the rioters as monkeys in a zoo. Soon, dozens of buildings were burning. Black rioters targeted white-owned businesses. The Watts violence received massive media coverage, and, in ways, the riot came to symbolize the state of race relations in America. LA was no backwater burg run by vicious, ignorant Dixie crackers. In the mid-1960s, many Americans viewed the city as a kind of dream land, offering freedom from the kinds of prejudices that hobbled much of the rest of the nation. If a race riot of this magnitude could happen here, it could happen anywhere. Watching the flames and bloody confrontations on the evening news, many white Americans who had been fervent supporters of the civil rights movement were appalled by what they perceived as the unbridled violence of black rioters in Watts.
The heavyweight title fight in the fall of 1965 came to mirror the Watts riots in some ways. Ali became the face of the black anger that had erupted in Los Angeles. Floyd, who just a few years earlier had stood as the groundbreaking liberal who demanded and received fair treatment as a black athlete, became the representative of the establishment. At the time, Ali was an unpopular champion among fight fans, who thought him to be a loudmouth who eschewed time-tested fundamentals, a brash young man who deserved a comeuppance. They turned to Floyd to deliver it—none more so than Frank Sinatra, the best-known fight fan in the world. Sinatra had grown closer to Floyd since the two had met a few years earlier, and he urged him to bring respectability back to the heavyweight crown by defeating Ali. Ali had a response to the Sinatras of the world: “I am America. Only I’m the part you won’t recognize. But get used to me. Black, confident, cocky; my name, not yours; my religion, not yours; my goals my own—get used to me! I can make it without your approval! I won’t let you beat me and I won’t let your Negro [in this case, Patterson] beat me!”34 Floyd now appeared to be a cultural leftover, a man still listening to Billy Eckstine and Patti Page at a time when Soul Brother No. 1 James Brown topped the R & B charts.
Many radicalized young African Americans felt free at this time to load negative symbolism on Patterson. Poet, playwright, and essayist LeRoi Jones, soon to drop his “slave name” to become Amiri Baraka, found Patterson to be a disgusting presence: “Patterson was to represent the fruit of the missionary ethic; he had found God, reversed his underprivileged (uncontrolled) violence, and turned it to work for the democratic liberal imperialist state. The tardy black Horatio Alger offering the glad hand of integration to welcome twenty million into the lunatic asylum of white America . . .” Baraka loved to see Patterson get knocked down in a fight. “And each time Patterson fell, a vision came to me of the whole colonial West crumbling in some sinister silence.”35
Even from the grave, Malcolm X weighed in on Floyd. Malcolm X’s autobiography was compiled from a series of interviews Alex Haley conducted over the two years prior to his assassination. It hit the bookstores just weeks before Patterson’s fight with Ali. It included Malcolm’s take on the contest, which he beli
eved would be a battle over the truth: “Nothing in all the furor which followed was more ridiculous than Floyd Patterson announcing that as a Catholic, he wanted to fight Cassius Clay—to save the heavyweight crown from being held by a Black Muslim. It was such a sad case of a brainwashed black Christian ready to do battle for the white man—who wants no part of him.”36
In prison in California, black radical Eldridge Cleaver noted that many black Americans supported Ali because Patterson “was an anachronism light years behind” Ali, who was “more in harmony with the furious psychic stance of the Negro today.” Cleaver also said: “The white hope for a Patterson victory was, in essence, a counterrevolutionary desire to force the Negro, now in rebellion and personified in the boxing world by Ali, back into his ‘place.’ The black hope, on the contrary, was to see Lazarus crushed, to see Uncle Tom defeated.”37 Ali himself began to refer to Patterson as the “black white hope” as the fight approached.38 Like Cleaver, Ali viewed pro–civil rights activists like Patterson as Lazaruses—dead men who had not been brought to life through the teachings of Elijah Muhammad.
Such was the surface rhetoric. But both Patterson and Ali also understood how they could use their dispute over religion and the civil rights movement to ensure their bout would be a box-office success, starting with the issue of Ali’s name. Floyd’s insistence on referring to Ali as Cassius Clay unquestionably was a suitable device for adding tension to the morality play about to take place in Las Vegas. But during a private moment around this time, Patterson said to Ali, “It’s all right if I call you Cassius, isn’t it?” Ali smiled and said, “Anytime, Floyd.”39 Patterson once told W. C. Heinz that he continued to call the new champ Cassius Clay because he found it difficult to pronounce “Muhammad.” It sounded suspicious—Floyd wasn’t known for having trouble pronouncing other words—but perhaps it was true. And perhaps Ali knew that and permitted Patterson to call him Cassius in private moments for that reason. But all that was indeed in private.40 In public, Ali roiled when Floyd referred to him by his old “slave name,” because it played into the idea that Floyd wasn’t anything but an Uncle Tom, subservient to his white Christian masters. Ali promised to punish Floyd in the ring and “give him a good beating.”41
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