What would Budd Schulberg say of the soul sucking sport that fifty years later still has not addressed his emptiness?
February 25, 1964 / Liston vs. Clay, No. 1
?He?s all pretense and gas?In a way Clay is a freak?He is a Bantamweight who weighs more than two hundred pounds.??Jimmy Cannon (pre-fight)
?He used to fight like a lightweight in a big man?s body.??Angelo Dundee
?He was just so damned fast.??George Chuvalo
?Films indicate that his jabs are one-third faster than Sugar Ray Robinson, the great middleweight?s, were ? so he is not just fast for a big man, he is fast for a midget.??Wilfred Sheed
?The Lessons of Life amount not to wisdom, but to scar tissue and callus.??Wallace Stegner
It is a Las Vegas July, 1963. Hot, but not unbearably so, for a literary giant feasting of letters, while observing of pugilistic giants. The heat, on average this time of year is 40?C (104?F), perhaps that much inner self made more; a twenty-year marriage soon to disintegrate, an expos?, made into a legendary film, now some years back, of all that was boxing including its stark ugliness, exploitation, and of leeches and connivers. It was a screenplay not only showing the boxing world raw but as well the soul depleting love that was all of the authors to hold of the Sweet Science. I wonder if he felt alone. It no doubt left him ostracized in the boxing world, which in his own words, was a grand juxtaposition that involved purity, grace, and the artfully lonely.
Some six months later, removed from The Dunes, and the Thunderbird Hotel, and back at home in Mexico City, his Patterson vs. Liston II poster was already ?curling and fading with age? in the trunk of his station wagon. It was one month prior to Liston vs. Clay I and he was about to put pen to paper to lament ?The Death of Boxing??
The legendary Budd Schulberg?s main Protagonist to his lamentation was ?Gaseous,? and a ?Clown Prince,? while also being the ?perpetrator of both the big laugh and the big lie.? Here further was a young man yet to have ?mastered his trade.? The Protagonist, an ?inexperienced boy, speedy of hand and foot, blasted off to stardom in an era when propaganda takes precedence over performance.? The aforementioned comments were not Schulberg?s malice of thought but rather fear as to what was going to happen to the young Protagonist shortly. In a broader boxing sense the young Protagonist?s end result would be the next version of a broken down (or worse) character from one of Schulberg?s Hollywood movies.
The legendary Schulberg?s pre-fight reasoning was sound. ?Last spring in the Garden solid citizen Doug Jones exposed him as a rangy boy, fast with his hands, but totally ignorant of infighting and highly susceptible to a punch on the jaw. Even Patterson could beat him and to put him in with Liston too soon may stigmatize the promoters as accessory to legalized murder.? Pre-fight polling by UPI had forty-three out of forty-seven ?boxing experts? picking Liston by knockout (a percentage of the range to make my good friend Frank ?The Bear? cringe (see ?On Experts? August 30, 2013). Another survey of sixty-two writers polled had only three picking the young Protagonist winning.
There were those that had expertise born of untold hours in dressing rooms, quiet, dark and damp gyms and in corner observation born of blood and toil. Cus D?Amato felt that if the Protagonist moved he had a chance and Sugar Ray Robinson felt the Protagonist would win by knockout as his speed would be the decisive factor. Conversely the legendary Billy Conn felt the Protagonist was a ?freak, just an amateur.? Heavyweight Champion and Cinderella Man James J. Braddock felt the seven-to-one odds were ridiculous and that the Protagonist had a ?good chance.?
One month later, Schulberg?s Protagonist, put to paper as ?the Boy? was now The Man and what was the man, Liston, was left, quitter to a stool and of a lonely corner. Cassius Clay had walked into the ring that night, calmly listened to referee Barney Felix?s instructions, looked at Liston, and quietly whispered ?I got you sucker.? Less than thirty minutes later he finished his work, in shocking artistic fashion, and had made a sucker out of many ?experts.?
What Clay/Ali exhibited that night was an astounding and rarified exhibition of speed coupled with a chin and willpower graced of iron. He came out in the first minute of the round and gave Liston a taste of speed, and when he had his opponent?s legendary power whispering wind like close but miss to his ebony jaw, he pivoted shortly thereafter of that first minute and started to lightning bolt hurt Sonny with astonishing hard right hands.
In the second round Liston landed, and landed hard, with no outward effect. By the third round it was Sonny back on his heels with his legs not looking so secure. No Heavyweight would have beaten Clay/Ali that night!
Sports Illustrated named the first Clay-Liston fight as the fourth greatest sporting moment of the 20th century. As for Clay, then post-fight Ali, one is only left wondering how much greater the legacy in consideration of those missing three and a half years which commenced at the tender age, but age of prime, twenty-five years old, twenty-nine wins, no defeat. While the return of the King showed a personality who had no aversion to his then worldwide celebrity, certainly, in contrast, he appeared to fight, not of what he was, but as a clich? of his former self; not quite as fast but trying the same motions, not as often up on the toes and ?dancing,? and every so often not even remotely in the same physical condition.
A few years after retirement Ali, in a moment of non-jocular humility, was asked where he rated himself, all time, amongst the Heavyweights. He responded that realistically he would like to be remembered as the best of his era. That he was!
At his best he fought the best. When he may have been at his very best time past him. When no longer his best, he came back, and he still beat the best. Perhaps that is one of the greatest measurements of the self-proclaimed G.O.A.T. (Greatest Of All Time). The other is the enduring nature of his stardom. A 2012 Time magazine article had Ali as one of the twenty most influential Americans of all time in terms of, amongst other things, visionaries and cultural ambassadors. The list included George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln, Alexander Graham Bell and Henry Ford amongst others.
Fast Forward Fifty Years / Floyd & Manny
This February 24th Floyd Mayweather will be thirty-seven years of age. Manny Pacquiao will be thirty-six years of age this year. Enjoy them now! They are both great and special in their boxing time. As can be said of a legendary list of their predecessors, in their boxing uniqueness, there will only be one Manny Pacquiao and there will only be one Floyd Mayweather. Such is their greatness exhibited by length of career and consistent high level of skill set. However, they have not and will not be dragon slayers, one to the other, in their prime. They will not bear witness to the privilege of kindly spoken boxing history in not taking the measure of each other in their prime. How else can superiority, greatness as it were, be established in the era that has been theirs?
All for one, one for all, Muhammad Ali sought out and took with him the measure of his greatness forward, in beating the best of his era in the likes of Liston, Frazier and Foreman. To the Champion: fast forward of speed, fifty years past, February 25, 1964 and as the greatest of his era, to the era of self-inflicted loss, and the era of return greatness. His legend endures!
Side Note
Manufactured boxing landscapes! Boys and girls, ladies and gentlemen, for the bulk of you, march to the pre-patterned publicity drumbeat and fall in line. You will post your blogs, listen to your experts, follow the television and promotional releases and wonder who possibly would be a next good fight for Floyd Mayweather. Keith Thurman is an undefeated world champion knockout artist. I leave you to your own conclusion as to what would happen if Keith Thurman got in the ring with Amir Khan! Sergio Martinez is one of the Middleweight Champions of the world and a great one at that. Sergio Martinez advises that he will knock Miguel Cotto out in five rounds. Miguel Cotto is a legendary warrior who has never fought at Middleweight. I ask you to envision what would happen to Miguel Cotto if he was in the ring with Gennady Golovkin. I ask you to consider what would have happened if Lucian Bute had been in the ring with Kovalev this past weekend. Stevenson vs. Kovalev! Mayweather vs. Thurman! Golovkin vs. Martinez!
?Nobody asked me but?? what would Jimmy Cannon say of today?s boxing business model. What would Budd Schulberg say of the soul sucking sport that fifty years later still has not addressed his emptiness?
On Speed: Fifty Years Forward G.O.A.T.?Part One On Speed: Fifty Years Forward G.O.A.T.?Part Two
