The photograph hangs in Larry Merchant?s home office, alongside a mock fight poster announcing a ?bout? between Auguste ?The Chisel? Rodin and Pablo ?The Palette? Picasso at London?s Royal Academy of Arts. By contrast, there?s nothing hypothetical about Neil Leifer?s shot of Muhammad Ali standing over a prone Sonny Liston.
It was taken in Lewiston, Maine, just as Ali won his first heavyweight title defense. Merchant, then a 33-year-old sports editor and columnist for the Philadelphia Daily News, can be seen clearly in the background, his mouth open in awe. The moment signified the birth of something, not just in sports, but in popular culture.
Even as he moved on ? first to the New York Post, then to television ? Merchant spent the ensuing decades as a member in good standing in what he calls ?the Ali Marching and Chowder Parade.?
?It?s an old expression,? he concedes. ?But I did a lot of Ali fights, for newspapers and later, on TV. And what could be better than that??
Men like Merchant marked their own times in relation to Ali?s. But even more lasting, perhaps, was the effect of Ali?s departure, as it left an un-fillable void. To this day, Merchant is asked the theoretical, if preposterous, question ? infinitely more silly than the imagined matchup of two real champs like Rodin and Picasso ? ?how would Mike Tyson have done against the Ali??
