He was the poetic embodiment of fluidity. Imagine the human form as a steady but fast fall breeze across an open long grass field?
?But with unhurrying chase, and unperturbed pace, deliberate speed, majestic instancy???Francis Thompson
In a few weeks, February 25th, it shall be, fast forward of speed, the 50th anniversary of Cassius Clay winning the Heavyweight Championship of the World from Sonny Liston.
Is there anything more exhilarating in sport than watching the genetically gifted athlete, harnessing speed, intrinsically, to split second finite thought of mind, in the sudden burst of controlled optimal performance?
Images of Speed / Memories Ingrained in Mind
From the ?Golden Jet? of the Chicago Blackkawks? Bobby Hull, turning on a powerful proverbial dime, up ice, slightly over the blue line, and raising stick pointed to the hockey heavens while blasting the hardest shot in hockey? To the Bruins? Bobby Orr, winding up behind his own net, and skating past an entire opposing team to score at the other end of the hockey rink.
To Bullet Bob Hayes of the Cowboys simply outrunning the defense for a wide receiver touchdown or to Devon Hester returning a punt kick off or perhaps to Tony Dorsett, finding a small seam, and like a nitrous fueled street racer, blazing ninety nine yards from scrimmage for the longest touchdown in history?
To basketball?s Allan Iverson and Nate ?Tiny? Archibald or to the quick hand magic of Pistol Pete Maravich?
And then, to the exhilaration of punch acceleration and in celebration of the Sweetest of Sciences?
In celebration of Clay/Ali, and of speed, the following is my list of the ten fastest fighters of all time.
Ten to Two and Then Came Clay
10. Meldrick Taylor He was an Olympian at the age of seventeen and as a pro, for eleven rounds, he made the legendary Chavez look as if he was a rubber booted man plotting though thick mud. Spring loaded bouncy, up and down, before the first ring of the bell he had speed in either hand and his early outings with McGirt and the ever-dangerous John Meekins showed what a special talent he was. Unlike many men of speed his Philadelphia blessing was also his sin. He was a fighter who loved to engage, with hand speed, man-to-man, war-to-war.
9. Howard Davis This 1976 Olympic Gold Medallst and Olympic Val Barker Trophy winner, that in a year with the likes of the Spinks brothers and the legendary Sugar Ray Leonard, was cat like quick and often quick enough to shoeshine without getting into trouble. His speed on speed fight with Meldrick Taylor is a perfect example of two objects of lightening on one piece of canvas.
8. Pernell Whitaker One of the greatest defensive specialists, in speed, to ever grace the ring and a 1989 Ring Magazine Fighter of the Year. As slippery as a silicon lubricant and the recipient of one of the worst decisions ever in boxing, as cover paged by Sports Illustrated, ?Robbed? in his fight with Chavez.
7. Hector Camacho In retrospect it seems he was as quickly gone as he quickly came. He retired with a Hall of Fame career mark of 79 wins and 6 losses. His early Felt Forum days up to his fight with Rosario were astounding displays. He was a showman to the end. On a cold November day, down Spanish Harlem Way, a glass carriage with Camacho?s body being pulled by two white stallions lined with the championships belts moved down 106th Street hauling a coffin draped with a Puerto Rican flag. What time is it? Macho time! The fifty-year-old Camacho, shot while the passenger in a Mustang outside a bar in Bayamon, Puerto Rico, was dead on the scene as the bullets sliced his artery, destroyed two vertebrae in his neck and launched into his shoulder. Like or dislike he was a very special talent. He wasn?t quite the same fighter after his fight with ?Chapo? but then again ?Chapo? had a way of doing that to many fighters didn?t he?
6. Sugar Ray Robinson Simply Google YouTube ?Reznick Productions Sugar Ray Robinson Knockout Highlights?; from that blazing right hand, mouthpiece flying in the air, knockout of Rocky Graziano to an unlikely European opponent receipted of a double left hook to the body, left hook to the head. Whether skipping rope, hitting the speed bag, shadow boxing, or drilling Randy Turpin with a furious five-punch finishing combination in front of 61,370 fans on a fall night in the Polo Grounds, he was simply human pugilistic poetry.
5. Willie Pep Two hundred and twenty-nine wins and as my good friend Darcy would comment, having had more than his share of whiskey one fine night, ?think of a jitterbug dipped into a light vat of nitrox and adrenaline and that would be the jitterbug of Pep style. Watch his fight for instance with Fabela Chavez as Pep lands triple jabs, quadruple plus left hooks to the body, and head to the body, body, head, head, body. ?Will o? the Wisp!?
4. Floyd Patterson I don?t know who?s in charge or who does the videos for Resnick Productions but I once again defer, for simplicity of image to a Google/YouTube, Resnick Productions and the best of Floyd Patterson. Stepping, slashing, Patterson?s left hook to the body, right hand to head, and multiple combinations as a Middleweight up to the big man division show blazing hand speed that may be the best of any.
3. Sugar Ray Leonard His knockout of Dave ?Boy? Green says it all. Not only did Leonard exhibit astonishing speed but he coupled and refined it with astonishing power. Green?s head could have been a pi?ata on a slim string, blowing in a strong wind and Leonard would still have found the mark, without a miss, in an array of sudden violent multiple combination.
2. Roy Jones Jr. ?Ya?ll must have forgot,? ?Can?t Be Touched, Beyond the Glory.? Go take a look for yourselves YouTubers. He may have been the most gifted speed athlete to ever grace boxing. I suspect that if he had retired after his Heavyweight Championship victory over John Ruiz we would most certainly be talking of Roy Jones Jr. as possibly one of the top three or four pound-for-pound fighters of all time. Maybe, he is anyways!
?I?m God?s game Rooster. God sends me out to fight.??Roy Jones Jr.
Fifty Years Forward?Greatest of all Time
One Day Came Clay?Something Wicked This Way Came, February 25, 1964
He was the poetic embodiment of fluidity. Imagine the human form as a steady but fast fall breeze across an open long grass field. Imagine, in that field, a drop of synthetic oil upon that swaying long grass, sliding ever so smoothly. Mold that image all in one as a cornucopia of seamless rhythm? ?I am the greatest!? It was if Clay was of that steady wind, that silk smooth oil, embodied in human form, ebony smooth, and alabaster hard.
February, fifty years ago, Clay/Ali had arrived! Like the wind, one could reach out and touch nothing, but what feelings, what emotions, stung back the other way.
In the early 1970s he was polled as the fifth most recognizable person on the planet. He was the Heavyweights G.O.A.T. (Greatest Of All Time). He was of boxing and ended up more and less of it!
Next Week Part II of III? New Wind Blows in?Clay Arrives!
Number One
Side Note:
Lead in for you Google YouTubers, go to ?Muhammad Ali ? Amazing Speed? by Gorilla Production and Reznick Production. And if anybody out there has a contact for Mr. Gorilla and Mr. Reznick please provide to me. I would love to talk to these guys!
