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Minor Disagreement. Could he fight? The syndicate hired veteran Trainer Angelo Dundee to turn the amateur into a pro. "I smoothed Cassius out and put some snap in his punches," says Dundee. "I got him down off his dancing toes so he could hit with power." Says Clay: "Dundee gave me the jab. But the rest is me. What changed the most was my own natural ability." Either way, what happened next was a surprise. "If anyone had told me a year ago that Cassius would develop into an international figure," says Tobaccoman Cutchins. "I would have said he was smoking marijuana."
Cassius won his first six fights, five by knockouts, and most of them before the fourth round. He was ragged enough to make his managers blush, but he was 6 ft. 3 in. tall, weighed 195 lbs., and he seemed to be growing as fast as he talked. He also had the niftiest pair of legs since Sugar Ray Robinson. One day in February 1961, he showed up in Miami, where Ingemar Johansson was training for his third fight with Floyd Patterson. Could he spar a little? Cassius asked innocently, and proceeded to dance rings around Johansson. The big Swede went into a slow boil. "What does this kid do?" growled Johansson. "Ride a bicycle ten miles a day?"
Here Comes the Band. A few more fights and, suddenly, people started to take Cassius seriously. Boxing had been a bore for years—ever since the retirement of Rocky Marciano, a real, hairy-chested puncher. The mobsters and their stable of dull pugs were driving the fans away. But here was Cassius, young, handsome, as brassy as a Dixieland band. He raced around like a candidate for mayor in every city he hit, appearing on radio, TV, grabbing headlines by the handful with his talk about how "great—real great" he was. "The only ones I send away," he grinned, "are those guys from the little radio stations—they put you on at 4:30 in the afternoon when no one's at home and no one's listening." Sportswriters started coining names for him—"The Louisville Lip," "Mighty Mouth," "Cassius the Brashest." People who hadn't been to a fight in ten years began turning out to see him box. Half of them adored him; half wanted to be on hand when the loudmouth got his comeuppance. Everyone wanted to know what happened next.
In Louisville, the gate was 3,500 and $12,000 when he kayoed Alex Mitoff. In Los Angeles, 12,000 fans watched him knock out Alejandro Lavorante in the fifth round. "I only wish." sighed a California matchmaker, "that Cassius Clay were quadruplets." Even Jack Dempsey was impressed: "I don't care if this kid can't fight a lick. I'm for him. Things are live again."
As the knockout record climbed to nine, ten. then eleven. Cassius started spouting poetry and naming the round in which he would "annihilate" his hapless opponent.
They all must fall
In the round I call.
That made it even better. He got a fight with bold old Archie Moore, who was working on his 45th knockout when Clay was born. Quoth Cassius:
Archie's been living off the fat of the land I'm here to give him his pension plan When you come to the fight, don't block the aisle and don't block the door You will all go home after Round Four.