Ringsiders had booed Cassius throughout the match, taking particular objection to his “hospital-white shoes,” which they thought no self-respecting fighter would wear. And the sportswriters were more impressed by Clay’s antics than his ability. “Cassius Marcellus Clay has the personality of a Roman candle and the potential to light up the drab skies of boxing,” wrote Milton Gross, “but the brilliance of the young heavyweight’s tongue still outstrips his talent.”36
THE BANKS VICTORY earned Clay his first top-ten ranking. The National Boxing Association and Boxing Illustrated ranked him tenth, and The Ring, ninth. He still had not fought an active contender, but he had climbed into the elite group. Some sportswriters insisted that he belonged near the top, while others thought that he was a loudmouth fraud. But they all wrote about him. The combined strategies of Dundee and Clay had succeeded almost effortlessly.37
By spring 1962, Cassius Clay had become one of the leading draws in boxing. He fought only has-beens and never-has-beens, none ranked among the contenders, without taking substantial risks, and his reputation soared. His appeal was so great that promoters vied to put him in yet another sure-bet match. In Los Angeles, matchmaker Joe Louis arranged for Clay to headline a card of contenders.38
Louis selected George Logan, a battered veteran fighter from Idaho, to fight Cassius. In contrast to Clay’s flawless face, which gave no hint of his profession, Logan’s displayed grim souvenirs of his ring wars. He was a fighter, columnist Jim Murray wrote, whose “face makes him look like he wasn’t born, he was knitted. . . . He has taken more punches than a time clock because he fights with the unorthodox style of a dart board.” Everyone involved in the fight understood that Logan was included because he moved ponderously, bled freely, and had no chance of harming Cassius’s record or face.39
Cassius was the show. “I’m fighting the main event on Louis’ first show,” he said. “And what’s the secret?” Stretching his mouth wide with his index fingers, he said, “Boca Grande.”40
Fight night was a booming success for the promoters, but the actual contest was less spectacular. Clay made a royal entrance, accompanied by the house organist’s rendition of “Pomp and Circumstance.” Preening and mugging for the cameras, he actually looked more like popular singers Chubby Checker and Sam Cooke than a professional prizefighter. Jim Murray wrote, “The love of Cassius for Clay is so rapturous no girl could come between them. Marriage would be almost bigamy.”41
Logan was less interested in aesthetics. He climbed into the ring with a large gob of Vaseline smeared over his eyebrows and had the look of a man being taken to the woodshed for a beating. Once the match began he gamely went to work, stolidly pursuing his elusive opponent. But he had no answer for Clay’s speed. He could not get close enough to hit him or stay far enough away to avoid getting socked. “He had less protection than a guy facing a Castro firing squad,” wrote Sid Ziff.42
By the end of the first round Logan’s face looked like “raw hamburger,” and by the end of the second spectators called for the referee to stop the slaughter. It was gruesome. Clay’s punches sliced into the soft scar tissue above Logan’s eyes like a hot knife into butter.
Blood ran down Logan’s chest, stained his trunks, and soaked the canvas. His cut man worked feverishly between rounds to stop the flow, putting an astringent into the wound then smearing it with Vaseline, but the fix only lasted until Clay went back to work. Finally, midway through the fourth round, Logan’s manager threw in the white towel of surrender. Logan protested the decision, not knowing how bad he looked. “It couldn’t have been much worse if Clay had used knives,” wrote a reporter. In his corner seconds later, Logan realized his condition and tried to hide his face while the ring doctor examined it.
“I’m trying to keep my pretty looks,” Clay told writers in his dressing room. Then his mind flew away from the mundane present and landed in the fabulous future.
HE CONTINUED TO talk long after the fight had ended and most of the reporters had left to file their stories. He chatted about himself—his plans and his future. More interesting was what he wasn’t talking about. Only days before a major racial conflict in Los Angeles, Clay had still said nothing about the civil rights movement or the plight of black Americans. Far from reflecting a lack of interest, he kept much of who he was hidden away from reporters, buried inside himself.