And Cassius fully understood the power of his prophecy. It was magic, imbued with supernatural power, and as such magnetically charged. Why did people come to watch him fight? “They want to see that round. People are superstitious. It’s the round that gets them. They don’t come to see me win. They come to see that round.” It was, he believed, an example of man’s mystical hunger. “People run to priests. They pray and shout in church. People is spooky-minded. They look at the moon. They wonder about numbers. Preachers say Jesus called them but they got no proof. I got proof. The round I call is the round they must fall.”25
The fight certified Clay’s sagacity. It was no contest. By the sixth round Besmanoff was bloody and disoriented, looking “like a man caught in the middle of a busy street,” wrote one reporter. Cassius could have finished the German off in the fifth or sixth round, but he carried him to the seventh. Then, in the predicted round, he knocked Besmanoff out cold.26
The fight was over, and so was Clay’s time in boxing’s minor leagues. In the year since he traveled to Miami to train with Dundee, he had put on muscle and weight, honing his technique and learning his craft. He had fought in preliminary matches and main event bouts before small to medium-sized crowds and on television. His record was a perfect 10–0, with seven ending in knockouts or technical knockouts. He had fought half of his matches in his hometown, but now it was time to move on.
In a feature article, The Ring called him the “Bonus Boy of Boxing,” claiming he looked like the “Rookie of the Year.” “Right now he has shown that he has the ability to handle the top grade men, but how he would do against the ranking fighters, is something which has to be answered.” To be sure, some critics assailed his boxing style and promotional antics, but perhaps no pugilist had risen as quickly and as spectacularly. He had appeared on the pages of Sports Illustrated and Life, been the subject of hundreds of newspaper stories, and appeared in a feature film. He was ready, Dundee now felt, for “THE BIG TIME.”27
BY JANUARY 1962 Cassius had become impatient, veering in a more independent direction. Increasingly his rhetoric mixed humor with mean-spirited jabs at other heavyweights. He complained to reporters that he was frustrated by the slowness of his advancement up the heavyweight division. He grumbled, “I’m tired of being fed on set-ups. I can’t get a title shot by knocking out a bunch of has-beens and novices, mostly fighters who are over the hill.”28
Although Dundee was in no hurry, for the right opportunity, he was willing to take a modest risk. In February he accepted a fight against a tall southpaw from Detroit named Lucien “Sonny” Banks. Normally, Angelo would have avoided a boxer like Banks. Too inexperienced to be predictable, awkward, left-handed, and hard-hitting, he was the sort of boxer who made anyone he fought look bad. In his stumbling, free-swinging style, he recalled legendary trainer Whitey Bimstein’s description of another untutored fighter: “Nobody never learned him nothing.” And because of his elbows and head advances, he often cut opponents.29
Angelo accepted the fight because it would give Clay national television exposure and would be staged at Madison Square Garden. The Garden was the summit for a boxer, as holy to the sport as Jerusalem and Mecca are to the faithful. Its landmark marquee jutted out between 49th and 50th Streets on Eighth Avenue like a square chin waiting to be punched. In its prime in the 1930s, the Garden was just a few blocks away from Stillman’s Gym and the Neutral Corner saloon, as well as a seedy collection of drugstores selling bandages and wrapping gauze, hock shops trafficking in fake diamonds and watches, and a few fleabag hotels that rented rooms by the half hour. Even more rundown by 1962, these blocks on Eighth Avenue still reigned as the undisputed center of the world of pugilism, although the sport was falling out of favor with younger sports fans.
Undaunted by the shabbiness of Eighth Avenue and the state of boxing, Cassius was determined to restore the Garden and the sport to its glory days. A publicist’s dream, he was like a windup toy: just give the key a turn and point it in the right direction. A few days before the fight he addressed a crowded luncheon of the Boxing Writers Association, boasting that he would save the sport as Joe Louis once did. As for his upcoming fight, he promised, “If I don’t beat Banks I’ll take the first plane out of the country.” There had never been a heavyweight who looked so young, talked so fast, and smiled so brightly. To writers new to Cassius’s shtick, it had the feel of a perfect New York spring day, fresh and scrubbed with a hint of naughty fun.30