Prizefighting: Murder on the BBC

A diadem of burnished brass, inset with ersatz rubies and emeralds, adorned his handsome head, and big block letters on the back of his scarlet robe proclaimed: THE GREATEST. A Squad of Coldstream Guardsmen snapped to attention and raised their long-stemmed silver trumpets. Then, with the fanfare ringing in his ears, Cassius Marcellus Clay stalked boldly into the camp of the enemy.

London’s biggest boxing crowd in years—35,000—was on hand at Wembley Stadium hoping to see Henry Cooper, 29, button the Louisville Lip. Not that anyone really expected it. Cooper might be the British and Empire heavyweight champion, but he was older by eight years and outweighed by 21 Ibs.; then, too, there was all that tender scar tissue around Cooper’s battered eyes. “I’m afraid our ‘Enery will ‘ave to ‘it ‘im over the bonce with Bow bells to beat ‘im,” admitted one Londoner. But Clay was so brash, so, well, so American (“That cripple,” snorted Cassius. “I’ll whup him like I was his Daddy”) that Britons still paid up to 6 guineas ($17.64) for a rain-spattered seat, and raided the cooky jar to bet on Cooper (at odds ranging from 5-2 to 4-1). A 78-year-old lady even sent Cooper an embroidered pillow with a note pleading: “Knock out this Clay fellow in the first round, please!”

“This Is Unbelievable.” And that Cooper tried. Normally a slow starter, he rushed from his corner, nailed Clay with a flurry of whistling lefts that brought the blood rushing from yon Cassius’ pretty nose. “This is unbelievable,” a BBC announcer shouted into his ringside microphone. “Cooper is boxing magnificently.” All through the first round and into the second, Cooper kept flicking lefts inside Clay’s careless guard, keeping him off balance, forcing him to backpedal. The crowd howled. The BBC was ecstatic. “Oh, what a lovely sound for Henry Cooper here at Wembley. He shook Clay, and that was exactly the stimulus he needed to make him wicked. Clay is looking very bemused. He’s very worried.”

Not worried—just surprised. Toward the end of the second round, Cassius finally decided to fight, rapped a neat right to Cooper’s left eye. A tiny cut appeared—and the crowd quieted down. In the third round, blood began running into the Briton’s eye, blinding him, spoiling his aim. “Nothing very serious,” announced the BBC hopefully. But both Cooper and Clay knew better. A smile spread across Cassius’ face. The fight was his. But why hurry it?

“Cooper must fall in five,” Clay had boasted, and to be exact he made it “1 min. 35 sec. in the fifth.” Now he was going to keep that pledge. Refusing to throw even a tentative punch, Clay dropped his arms, began dancing aimlessly around the ring. Up to Clay’s corner stormed Bill Faversham, head of the eleven-man Louisville syndicate that has staked Clay to his pro career. “Angie,” he yelled to Clay’s trainer, Angelo Dundee. “Make him stop clowning.” Clay would not listen. He was picking the time. It was all a cup of tea.

1,000 to I. But there was one slip ‘twixt the Lip and his cuppa. In the fourth round, his left eye nearly closed, blood dribbling down his cheek, Cooper lurched around the ring—swinging blindly, charging his tormentor like a maddened bull. Clay was the contemptuous matador—casually eluding Cooper’s rushes, sticking his chin out, daring Cooper to hit him. Then it happened. “Clay is down!” screamed the BBC announcer. “Cooper has downed him! Oh, a beautiful punch there!” The “beautiful punch” was a sucker left hook; its chances of landing must have been 1,000 to 1. But land it did, flush on Clay’s jutting jaw. Eyes glazed, Clay tumbled backward onto the ropes. The referee began counting, and the crowd hoarsely took up the chant: “One, two, three, four, five”—and then the bell.

Dazed, Cassius staggered to his feet. He started to pitch forward, but his seconds caught him and dragged him to his corner. Trainer Dundee doused him with water, waved smelling salts under his nose. Sixty seconds of convalescence —that was all. Could he answer the bell? “You O.K.?” asked Dundee. “O.K.,” snarled Cassius.

Round 5—the magic number. Embarrassed and enraged, Clay snapped Cooper’s head back with a jab. Cooper reeled into the ropes. Instantly Clay was on him, smashing lefts and rights to Cooper’s slashed left eyebrow—so viciously that horsehair stuffing spewed from a split in one of his gloves. Blood spattered everywhere—over Clay, over Cooper, over the referee, over horrified fans in the 6-guinea seats. “Murder! Murder!” they screamed, leaping onto their seats, pelting the ring with wadded-up newspapers. “Stop it! Stop it!” At last the ref stepped in. The round was 1 min. 15 sec. old—20 sec. short of Cassius’ prediction. And groggy, gory Henry Cooper looked like a man who had just gone through the windshield of a car.

“If the Price Is Right.” Clay pranced about the ring, five fingers held high. His brother, Rudolph Valentino Clay, ran up with the brass crown; Cassius bowed his head to receive it—then thought better of the tawdry gesture and waved Rudolph off. As he left the ring, a bitter spectator swung at him. Clay ducked and grinned: “I’ll take my pistol to you.” In his dressing room, Cassius rubbed cold cream into his tender nose, vainly examined it in a mirror. “I’ve never had a bloody nose before,” he said. “That left hook—I’ve never been hit so hard by anyone.”

Jack Nilon, front man for Heavyweight Champion Sonny Listen, pushed his way through the swarm of admirers. “I’m ready for Liston,” Clay told him, “but only if the price is right. I’ll draw the crowd—not him.” Nilon nodded. “I’ve come 3,500 miles to get you,” he said. “The price will be right.”