Prizefighting: Playing Grownups

One thing about Cassius Clay. He is somebody new every time you look.

First he was the manchild, the impish chatterbox who dabbled in verse, ogled the girls (“foxes,” he called them), drove around in a tomato-red Cadillac, and made everybody laugh when he announced that he was going to be the heavyweight champion of the world.

Next he was the sneering champion in Miami last February hooting: “Hypocrites! Whaddya say now, huh? Who’s the greatest now?” And then he was the mysterious Black Muslim, Muhammad Ali, visiting the United Nations, stumping Africa, huddling with Nkrumah in Ghana.

What next? Goodbye Foxes. Last week Cassius was in Boston training for his Nov. 16 rematch with ex-Champion Sonny Liston. The tomato-red Caddy was gone, replaced by a block-long black limousine and a Muslim chauffeur who wore a fuzzy fur hat. Gone, too, were the foxes-Clay is a married man now-and most of the 25 extra pounds he had put on this summer. This time Cassius was every inch the grownup pro prizefighter, determined to prove that what happened last time was no mistake. A rock-hard 215 Ibs. (“I’ll be down to 208 by fight time”), he was running four miles a day (one of them backward), boxing as many as nine rounds in an afternoon, studying movies of Listen in action, hitting the hay precisely at 9 each night.

Only now and then were there flashes of the old fun and games. He was thinking, he said, about going into business-manufacturing “Sonny Listen Sit-Down Stools.” He hinted at a sinister plot to cheat him out of his title. “All I want is justice,” he said. “I’ll have 15 people flown in from the U.N. to observe the fight.” He promised to wear his championship belt into the ring, “and if I lose, I’ll give it to him right there.” He guaranteed a knockout, briefly reverted to verse to name the round: Nine will be fine If he makes me sore, I’ll cut it to four.

Hello Sonny. All of which helped hypo the gate and make Sonny Listen mad. One after another, would-be spar-mates showed up at the Listen camp, figuring to pick up an easy $250 a week waltzing with the challenger. One after another, Listen packed them off to the hospital-one with badly bruised ribs, another with a cut that took eight stitches to close. “No more of this ain’t gonna happen to me,” muttered Alonzo Johnson, the seventh to quit. The hero of the hour was a pug named “Big Train” Lincoln, who managed to absorb 35 rounds of punishment before he spat out a tooth and sighed: “This is a hell of a way to make a living.” Trimmed down to svelte 210 Ibs.

(8 Ibs. less than he weighed for the fight in Miami), Listen was in the best shape of his career-the toughest-looking 40-year-old (or so) around.

“A kid hangs up his stocking at Christmas,” said Liston, “and he has to wait until he wakes up in the morning to see what he got. Clay is like that kid. He’ll know what happened when he wakes up.” Bookmakers agreed: they installed Liston as a 1-2 favorite to become the second man in history (the other: Floyd Patterson) to regain the heavyweight championship.