(3 of 4)
"Get Mad!" Clear-eyed again, Clay sprang from his corner in the sixth round. Rat-a-tat-tat, a flurry of eight punches made Liston double up. "Get mad, baby," Clay's handlers chanted. "Go after him." Fighting flatfooted, Cassius ripped off a roundhouse right that just missed. Jab, jab, jab, jab, the cut under Liston's eye began to ooze blood again. Two left hooks snapped Sonny's head back. Cassius sank back onto his stool and leaned through the ropes. "I'm gonna upset the world," he told a TV announcer.
The warning buzzer for Round 7 rang, and Cassius mentally began ticking off the seconds to the bell. Across the ring, Liston spat out his mouthpiece. Clay blinked: Liston was not coming out. With a wild whoop, Cassius leaped to his feet, gloves high above his head. The fight was over—and Cassius Marcellus Clay Jr. was the new heavyweight champion of the world. Round the ring he danced, leering down at the sportswriters and bellowing gleefully: "Eat your words! Eat! Eat!"
Puzzled fans milled aimlessly about, begging for information. Heavyweight champions, like Spartan warriors, are supposed to leave the field of battle carrying their shields, or riding on them. But Sonny Liston—indestructible Sonny Liston—had quit without even standing up to say goodbye. Liston's corner had an explanation: Sonny had suffered a painful muscle tear in his left arm, swinging and missing in the first round —"an honest injury," it was called after a hospital examination. That was enough to satisfy the Miami Beach boxing commission, which released Liston's $250,000 purse—only to have it attached by federal tax men.
A scattering of sportswriters took defeat hard enough to hint "fix," but the rest took their medicine. And bitter it was. "Hypocrites!" yelled Cassius Clay at the press conference. "Whatcha gonna say now, huh? Huh? Who's the greatest?" "Cassius," came the faint reply—too faint to satisfy the new champ. "Let's really hear it!" he hollered. "Who's the greatest? I'll give you one more chance: Who's the greatest?" The chant was loud and clear. "You, Cassius, you. You're the greatest."
"Allah Said No." Next day Cassius turned up for another press conference to take care of one last item of business. Weeks before, he had promised reporters a "whole new personality" if he won the title. Now Clay rummaged around in his bag of tricks. And what did he come up with? A white rabbit? No—a Black Muslim. Cassius used to be a Protestant. No longer. He had joined the militantly antiwhite Negro sect. "My religion is Islam," he said, "and I am proud of it. Followers of Allah are the sweetest people in the world. They do not carry knives or weapons. Their women wear dresses that touch the ground. We pray five times a day. God is with us."