NOR HAD THEY seen antics quite as flamboyant as his. Days before the weigh-in, he had already overstayed his welcome. “Cash has run out of gas,” headlined the Daily Mirror. Even the normally laconic Cooper, whose comments had the hard edge of oatmeal, observed, “Surely by now Clay knows that everyone in Britain, including me, hates his guts.” But just in case he had a circle of silent supporters, he alienated them too with his weigh-in performance at the London Palladium. Before two thousand curious spectators who had queued up for the event on a chilly, rainy day, he made a mock-royal entrance wearing an ankle-length red-and-white satin robe with “CASSIUS CLAY THE GREATEST” stitched on the back. Strutting about the stage, he opened his hand wide, displaying five fingers, the number of rounds he predicted the fight would last.11
Unquestionably, Clay had offended, angered, and outraged millions of Britons. “There won’t be more than a handful of people hoping to see him win,” judged Wilson. “Yet this astonishing young Negro has done more to restore world-wide interest in boxing than any individual . . . since the palmist days of Joe Louis.”12
Clay’s entrance for the match in Wembley Stadium was even more elaborate than the weigh-in. Preceded by a band of Coldstream Guardsmen and an assortment of British and American soldiers and wearing an ornate crown, he entered the ring to the sound of trumpets and boos. It was a circus act. A stunned BBC announcer chirped that it was “ridiculous”; the American had “cheapened the game.” But Clay only smiled at the waves of jeers and heckles. “The noise he heard was in direct proportion to the number of tickets he sold (35,000) and his take of the gate (about $60,000),” wrote Huston Horn of Sports Illustrated.13
The temperature was in the low sixties, and although the rain had stopped, a thick band of low clouds hung in the bruised sky above Wembley. There were no stars visible in the heavens, but there were dozens at ringside. The most famous was Elizabeth Taylor. At the height of her fame and beauty—Cleopatra had just premiered in New York—she attended the match with her lover and costar Richard Burton and received what appeared to be a personal bow from Cassius.14
Clay’s opponent, Henry Cooper, had spent his career fighting a perpetual battle against the inevitable. He was a fine boxer, with knockout power in his left hand, but the sharp features of his face—prominent cheekbones, deep-set eyes—and tissue-thin skin rendered him chronically susceptible to cuts. “That’s why the people who live off Clay selected Cooper,” wrote Jimmy Cannon. “The flesh on his face is lined with the scribbling of old scars. A hiccup reopens them.” Sooner or later in any competitive fight, Cooper’s face would resemble a scene out of a slasher movie. His goal was always the same: win before the referee stopped the contest.15
Knowing that Clay’s punches were of a peculiarly surgical nature and that he better score while his eyes were clear of his own blood, Cooper began the fight like he had an early curfew. He rushed Cassius, threw lunging punches, and held and hit in the clinches. Cooper’s fans reacted with delight. After one “unclean clinch” Clay emerged with a smear of blood on his nose, and the blood this time was not Cooper’s. Wembley exploded with cheers. Clay appealed to the referee “for justice,” but on this night, the 148th anniversary of the Battle of Waterloo, he found no sympathy.16
Between rounds Dundee scolded Clay, telling him to stay out of clinches and fight from the outside. In the second, Cassius did just that, moving and jabbing. By the middle of the round a dark smudge, like a small grape, appeared under Cooper’s left eye. After several more pinprick jabs, the grape split open and a trail of blood trickled down his face. A round later, another cutting punch above the left eye turned the trickle into a river. The BBC’s blow-by-blow man, Simon Smith, informed his listeners, “Cooper’s left eye is beginning to look a little bit bad now. This is the sort of thing, of course, that Cassius Clay does. He scientifically and systematically cuts up his opponent and that’s why he stops so many inside the distance.” But Cooper’s eye was more than a “little bit bad.” It was literally spurting blood, as if an artery had been sliced open, splattering onto reporters at ringside.
In full control of the contest, with still more than a round before the fifth, Cassius virtually stopped punching and began mugging and clowning, shouting boasts to the spectators close to the ring and sneaking glances at Liz Taylor. He extended his gloves to keep Cooper at arm’s length and popped his gloves in the English fighter’s face. He jutted out his chin and challenged Cooper to hit him. “Contemptible cheek,” one ringsider muttered. “A show of bad taste and worse sportsmanship,” Horn wrote. Sitting at ringside, Bill Faversham was furious. After the round ended, he stormed to Clay’s corner, telling Dundee, “Make him stop clowning.”17