Remembering the fight that made Muhammad Ali, 50 years later

Fifty years ago, Muhammad Ali, then Cassius Clay, was young, beautiful and brashly magnetic. But some in the young boxer’s corner, like his doctor Ferdie Pacheco, were troubled by what his opponent, a brutal ex-convict named Sonny Liston, might do.

Were they worried Liston would hurt Clay? 

Nevertheless, Clay was unfazed, antagonizing Liston at every turn, and acting unhinged at the weigh-in.  

“I said what was that about? He said, ‘Oh I wanted him to think I'm crazy,’” recalled Pacheco. “‘He doesn't know what to expect of me. That's where I got him.’”

When the bell rang, it turned out Clay knew exactly what he was doing.

“By the third round, he began cutting Liston with that jab -- Pow! Bang! Bang! Bang!” said Pacheco. 

But the liquid Liston’s corner used to close the cuts Clay created, somehow got in Clay’s eyes, blinding him.

“Ali comes to the corner -- does this,” Pacheco said, putting his hands out. “Cut 'em off!”

“The only time I ever saw him ready to quit.”

Clay’s cornerman Angelo Dundee refused, pushing him back in the ring with one instruction: “Run.” Clay’s vision cleared.

Had Dundee not sent Clay back into the fight, said Pacheco, there may never have been a Muhammad Ali.

“He would have been disgraced… It would have been the end of Ali.” 

It was a historic night. And, as the archival footage shows, a gripping event.

“I believe that's the moment the 1960's began,” said Robert Lipsyte, who covered the fight for The New York Times. “Here was this confluence of what would be race, religion, politics, the Civil Rights struggle… and it all exploded from there.”

“It was a terrific birth of something great,” Lipsyte continued. “Ali was born… It was a memorable night. It’s now 50 years. Well, it’s still thrilling to me.”