Читать книгу Ali vs. Inoki. The Forgotten Fight That Inspired Mixed Martial Arts and Launched Sports Entertainment онлайн

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ROUND FIVE

More than a few Cassius Clay watchers suggested that because he moved around the ring so much, the sleek twenty-year-old might not trust his chin.

Due mostly to his locomotion, it’s true, the attention-grabbing fighter hadn’t been hurt during his first sixteen months as pro. The man’s legs, so long as they were strong underneath him, were his first line of defense in that they got him to where he wanted to be faster than he could get touched. And yet this is where some critics conjured questions regarding Ali’s potential.

Ali breezed to a 10–0 record and received more than enough press to justify a debut at the old Madison Square Garden to begin his 1962 campaign—but that wasn’t successful or quick enough. A hold-the-reins development plan buffered against the Olympic champion’s heavy competitive drive. On the subject of his tenth opponent, Munich-born Willi Besmanoff, Ali declared shame at having fought an “unrated duck.” While Ali talked up champions Floyd Patterson and Sonny Liston he got in rounds with pugs like the squat Besmanoff, who finished his fifteen-year career with ninety-three bouts and a ledger of 51-34-8. The fight with Ali in Louisville was the German’s seventy-ninth, and it marked one of eleven times he was stopped.