YouTube Gold: Ali-Liston 1

One of the seminal fights in boxing history

In 1964, Muhammad Ali was still known as Cassius Clay and was just 22 when he signed to fight Sonny Liston.

Liston is somewhat forgotten now, but in his day, he was the most feared fighter in the world. Still generally ranked as a Top Ten fighter of all time, Liston had immense power. However, in 1964, he may have been as old as 35 or 36 - no one really knew, including Liston (Arkansas didn’t mandate birth records until 1965).

Ali was young and had studied the flamboyant wrestler Gorgeous George, who told that if was loud and brash, he would make more money because some people would want to watch him win and some would want to watch him lose.

Before the first Liston fight, Ali behaved in a manner that many found bizarre: he taunted Liston, calling him a “big ugly bear” and saying that “I’m gonna give him to the local zoo after I whup him.”

At the weigh-in, Ali got so frantic that people thought he was losing it. His pulse rate, normally 54, was measured at 120.

This video of the fight is really interesting on many levels. First, it’s a time capsule and Ali is such a dynamic fighter. He’s dancing and weaving and Liston simply can’t catch him. Second, there are racial attitudes that were typical of the time. At at least one point, the announcer calls him boy or the boy. At another, he uses words like primitive and savage to describe the fight.

Third, there is the emergence of the prototypical Ali - the bragging, the rhyming, the takeover of the interview.

It more or less marked the beginning of the Age of Ali, a time when he was as big as the Beatles or any other cultural phenomenon.

Later, Ali’s skills diminished and he showed immense courage, but in this clip, he’s young, as he might have said, and pretty and doing things no one ever dreamed of in a boxing ring. Definitely worth your time.