On Feb. 22, 1964, the boxer was ready to quit in the middle of the heavyweight championship fight. His trainer wouldn't let him.
And so Cassius Clay, later to become Muhammad Ali, heeded Angelo Dundee's advice and knocked out Sonny Liston in an upset that was the start of the career of the man who would call himself "The Greatest" with few in disagreement.
The online edition of the Wall Street Journal retold the account of the historical fight, saying that Ali honed his antics after Gorgeous George, the wrestler. The antics were crucial in Clay's strategy to take away the championship belt from Liston.
According to the Wall Street Journal, Clay took a bus to Liston's home in Denver and harassed him with phone calls. He also taunted and threatened Liston at Liston's training camp in Miami Beach.
"Ali believed that the only thing that would shake up Sonny would be if he thought Ali was crazy," Ferdie Pacheco, the sole survivor of Clay's boxing team, told the Journal. "And that is exactly how Ali acted with him-crazy."
Liston, whom the Wall Street Journal compared to Mike Tyson's early career - Liston fought only six rounds from 1961-64 because nobody could withstand his power - was a 7-to-1 favorite.
But Clay, who was three inches taller, baffled Liston with his quickness. In the fourth round, however, Clay stopped dancing and went to the corner complaining he couldn't see. Accusations abounded that Liston's gloves had a foreign substance or the substance used on Liston's eye was to blame.
Pacheco, however, has a different theory.
"When they were in close, Ali put his head on Liston," he told the Journal. "Liston had a sore shoulder and his corner had put some strong liniment on it to increase the circulation. One drop of that stuff is enough to make you go momentarily blind."
The report went on to say that Clay screamed at Dundee to "Cut off the gloves, cut off the gloves!" according to Pacheco. Dundee, however, wouldn't allow Clay to quit.
Clay's eyes cleared, and he took over the fight. The Journal said that before the seventh round, a baffled Liston said his shoulder injury would not allow him to continue, and he quit.
"I am the greatest!" Clay said. "I shook up the world!"
The Journal concluded that Clay was worthy of his hyperbole.
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