Confronted with Clay’s ego, Dundee discarded his own, becoming the ideal second banana. If Cassius said, “I’m going to run five miles,” Angelo responded, “That’s good for your legs.” If Clay changed his mind and said, “No, I’m gonna rest,” Dundee instantly added, “Good, you need your rest.” This way the fighter was in charge even when he was not really in charge.13
On the one critical aspect of the pace of Clay’s career, Dundee had the final word. Clay repeatedly told reporters that he wanted to break Floyd Patterson’s record as the youngest heavyweight champion of all time (twenty-one years and ten months), which meant that he had to capture the title by December 12, 1963. But that was Cassius’s obsession, not Angelo’s, who was more concerned with advancing his fighter cautiously. He had seen too many fighters pressured into a mismatch. For the first few years at least, Dundee would only take sure-bet contests for Clay, matches that he could win on his worst day. In the language of the fight game, Angelo arranged for Cassius to box “opponents,” men who had virtually no hope of reaching contender status, or one-time contenders on a steep slide down the rankings.
Beginning in the last week of 1960, Cassius began to fight a string of set-ups. The fights were not fixed, but it would have taken a virtual act of God for him to lose. Herb Siler was a drunk who had no boxing talent; Clay took him out in the fourth. Anthony “Big Tony” Esperti had just gotten out of the can on an unlawful entry conviction and was in no condition to fight; Cassius ended the match in the third. “Sweet Jimmy” Robinson had a razor cut on his cheek and no business in a prize ring; the referee stopped the fight halfway through the first. In just over a month in Miami, Cassius had improved his record to 4–0.14
Still, matches against set-ups were little help when it came to persuading boxing fans to accept Clay’s claim that he was a great fighter. For now, what happened in a sparring match was more important. In February 1961, a handsome Swedish heavyweight and former world champion, Ingemar Johansson, came to Miami to train for his upcoming title fight with Floyd Patterson. Needing sparring partners, the Johansson camp told promotional coordinator Harold Conrad to hire a few. Conrad went to the 5th Street Gym and asked Dundee for recommendations. Calling Clay over, Dundee said, “Hey, Cash. You wanna work with Johansson?”15
The question was a switch, lighting up Clay. “I’ll go dancin’ with Johansson,” he said, repeating, “I’ll go dancin’ with Johansson.” Conrad just looked at Angelo. “You ain’t seen nothing yet with this crazy bastard,” Conrad recalled Dundee saying.
And he hadn’t. “Johansson had a great right hand but two left feet,” Conrad said. Once the former champion and the preliminary fighter were in the ring together in front of sportswriters and two thousand spectators, Cassius literally danced circles around Ingemar, hitting him with light jabs as if he were fighting a rematch with Big Tony. “Cassius Clay, 19, advanced on Ingemar Johansson,” wrote the Miami Herald’s John Underwood. “Whap! His jab bounced off the Swede’s headpiece. Whap-Whap! Two more jabs. Clay danced lightly, shifted feet, led with the right. Zing! Ffrap! Whap! The combination explored the celebrated Johansson profile, above and around the dimpled chin.” And so it continued, Johansson, a miffed lumbering bear, chasing “the bee who had stung him.”
Talking while he moved, Clay exhorted, “I’m the one who should be fighting Patterson, not you. Come on, here I am; come and get me, sucker. Come on, what’s the matter, can’t hit me?” It was like Jack Johnson fighting Tommy Burns, like Clay was the champion and Johansson the trail horse.
“Johansson was furious,” Conrad recalled. “I mean, he was pissed.” He chased Clay around the ring, throwing amateurish punches, missing by feet, and looking, at last, “ridiculous.” After two rounds he was exhausted, and the session was stopped.
“He made a monkey out of Johansson,” remembered Sports Illustrated writer Gil Rogin. When he returned to New York he told the editors at the magazine, “This guy is going to be heavyweight champion someday. You have to write about him.” For Rogin, Underwood, and other sportswriters, this was Clay’s true Olympian moment; they recognized the emergence of a star.