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Men's Boxing The night Cassius Clay came to dance at Wembley

WATCHING old grainy black and white footage of a young Cassius Clay entering the ring at Wembley Stadium on 18 June 1963 to face Henry Cooper in front of a crowd of 55,000 is like watching footage of the first moon landing — it’s that special.

There was a joy and innocence about Clay back then. It was the year before he schooled the fearsome Sonny Liston over eight legendary rounds in Miami to claim the heavyweight title at just 22, before defiantly announcing his rebirth as Muhammad Ali, follower of Elijah Muhammad, leader of the Nation of Islam.

By the time he climbed through the ropes to face Cooper — sporting a red satin gown with the words “Cassius Clay the Greatest” emblazoned across the back, and with a crown perched on top of his head — Clay had been fighting as a professional for three years. 
In that time he’d already made waves with his uncommon bombast and a style of fighting that seemed to straddle the line between ballet and performance art. 

In a wild departure from your stereotypical heavyweight, he flitted across the ring like a stone skimming water, throwing punches from angles that defied the laws of physics, offending in the process purists of pugilism everywhere for whom a flat nose and cauliflower ears were the non-negotiable requirements of respect in the squared circle. 

In the case of Cassius Clay, boxing really was the sweet science, and being hit was tantamount to a federal crime. For him, a young man who’d just embarked on a mission to reinvent the character of heavyweight boxing, bamboozling rather than bludgeoning opponents was the primary objective, which he achieved with effortless grace in fight after fight.

This young fighter, destined for fame as Cassius Clay but greatness as Muhammad Ali, arrived in London for his first professional contest overseas to huge fanfare. He came armed with his by now trademark poem: “After five rounds Henry Cooper will think his name his Gordon Cooper; he’ll be in orbit. It ain’t no jive. Henry Cooper will go in five.”

Cooper, at 29, had held the British and Empire heavyweight title for five years. His last defence before facing Clay had seen him prevail less than impressively on points against local rival Brian London. This, combined with the fact that he’d been knocked out by Zora Folley in London in 1961, meant that Clay was justified in looking upon his foray across the pond as just another day at the office.

How wrong he was.

John Cottrell in his classic account of the fight “Clay v Cooper, The Louisville Lip Tastes Henry’s Hammer,” reveals that Clay was so confident about the outcome of the fight that he “broke off training in Miami a full month before.” 

“I’m tired of training to fight stiffs,” he grumbled, “all I want is a crack at Liston.”

Arriving in London two weeks prior to the bout, he was a ubiquitous presence in the capital. He posed for pictures outside Buckingham Palace, visited a top men’s outfitter and emerged with a bowler hat and cocktail jacket, went nightclubbing and even took time out to visit the dog races.

He was mobbed everywhere he went, with Londoners desperate to see The Louisville Lip up close and bag themselves an autograph.

In between his busy social calendar, Clay managed to fit in some training. He did his early morning roadwork in the company of his younger brother Rudy and sparring partner Jimmy Ellis; the three of them running down Regent Street, along the Mall and through Hyde Park. Meanwhile, a Territorial Army drill hall opposite White City underground station is where he set up his training base.

As for the fight itself, Cooper came out in the first round on a seek and destroy mission. Giving away an astonishing 22lbs in weight to his considerably younger and fresher opponent, who himself had weighed in at nimble 207lbs, you would not have known it the way the Englishman forced Clay back against the ropes, mugging him with shots to the body, arms, shoulders and any other part of Clay’s anatomy that was available to be hit. 

In the second, fresh from being on the receiving end of a bollocking from Angelo Dundee in his corner, Clay began to establish the jab and, with it, his dominance. 

Cooper was renowned for being prone to cut easily, and soon enough Clay opened him up above the left eye. 

Having predicted a fifth round stoppage, Clay proceeded to toy with Cooper in the third round, holding his hands low and showboating as the Englishman, vision blurred with blood from the cut above his eye, tried to get past his opponent’s fast and accurate jab to land something, anything, which might turn things round.

It was in the fourth that a golden moment of boxing history was made, when Cooper unleashed his trademark left hook, “Enry’s Hammer,” which connected flush to send Clay crashing down to the canvas towards the end of the round. 

Astoundingly, the 21-year old was back on his feet within seconds, a feat in itself given the thunderous impact of the left hook that put him down. Moments later the bell went, whereupon Dundee guided his charge back to his corner on unsteady legs.

Here one legendary moment was followed by another, when it was claimed, though as it turned out erroneously, that Dundee purposely made a small tear in one of Clay’s gloves worse in order to buy his fighter more time to recover while replacements were found and brought to the ring.

There was a slight tear in one of Clay’s gloves, but Dundee did not make it worse. The glove in question did not come off either. Instead, the tear was patched and Clay was able to fight on, with the time taken between rounds only six seconds over the regulation minute.

As Clay had predicted, the fifth round would be Cooper’s last. With blood now streaming down his face he could not conceivably continue, leaving the referee no choice other than to step in and end the fight.

It was now that Clay, who by the time he met Cooper in the ring once again three years later in 1966 did so as the most controversial figure in America, began to develop the affection for the English champion that would morph into a friendship that endured over decades. 

He also developed an affinity with Britain, where, like Paul Robeson before him, he never failed to find sanctuary from the hatred and animosity that stalked him at home.

Cooper fought on until 1971, retiring after losing on points to Joe Bugner in defence of his British and Empire heavyweight titles. When he died in 2011, Ali issued a statement in which he said: “I will miss my ole friend. He was a great fighter and a gentleman.”

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