Ghosts of Manila - Mark Kram [56]
When he engaged Cleveland Williams on November 14, 1966, Ali was a celebrity and a polemicist more than a fighter. Called “The Big Cat,” Williams had once had a punch equal to Liston until he was shot by a state trooper and lost a kidney. If ever the Muslims had an example of what happened to passive blacks, it was Williams. You could smell the desolation and sweat of his life, feel the hot sun and the deadened clank of hope in him. Hugh Benbow, his manager, abused him verbally in his auctioneer’s voice; he, as well as his name, was right out of William Faulkner. He said of Clay: “They oughta shoot him at dawn. Title don’t belong to no coward. Cleve, you take this gater-mouth nigger out, and I’m gonna own all of Texas.” Cleve turned, and Benbow said: “You, too, Cleve.” Ali seemed bemused by Benbow.
Broken in spirit and body, Williams was an open firing zone. Ali was technically of a piece. Cleve stood there like a man wishing for a bus to hit him, and it did again and again. Down three times in the second, he struggled to his feet for a final time in the third, with Ali standing over him and letting you choose whether he was transmitting compassion or his own final perfectibility. The press gave him high marks for his work and silence, and wrote about the Ali Shuffle, a scissoring leg dance that he had unveiled for the first time. Legend has it that this was his greatest fight, a look at the real Ali and what he was robbed of when he was exiled. Little was mentioned of Cleve being barely ambulatory, or how he lived in squalid quarters. A masterpiece? If you enjoy watching a game of solitaire.
Signing to fight Ernie Terrell in Houston early in 1967, he quickly reverted to Clay the impaler. Terrell was a laid-back, six-six guitar player, a friend and former sparring mate in the early days. Ernie innocently called him Clay at the signing; that’s what he had always called him. “My name’s Muhammad Ali!” Ali shot back. From then on, he lost touch with normalcy. Ernie was lower than swine, a racial insult. Never letting up, he poured out the very soul of the Muslim program; an unambiguous renunciation of integration. It was overkill against a man who couldn’t care if Ali had antennae for ears. “I’m going to give him the Patterson treatment,” Ali said. “Only it’s gonna be worse. I’m gonna make him suffer, make him call me by my name.”
Ordinarily quite passive, Ernie finally summed him up: “He starts a fight early. Tries to get under your skin. Maybe that’s his best talent. I got nothing against him, or his religion. But he’s an extremist, and they all twist things. He’s always been a liar. He’s just a punk, can’t think for himself, and he’ll always be a punk. He’s not a complete fighter, never was when I worked with him. He doesn’t want a glove near his face. He lives in fear of that face. We’ll see.”
Terrell was defensively sharp, expertly fielding Ali’s punches early with his gloves. Ali smartly chose a new line, punching openings through Terrell’s gloves with left and right uppercuts, the textbook choice of parry against a tall man. Ernie tried to keep him on the ropes; and something key happened in one exchange there. By the fifth, Ali dropped his speed gear and planted for punching. He opened a gash over Ernie’s right eye. It was