When Muhammad Ali Met Henry’s Hammer

Cautionary Tales with Tim Harford

The episode explores the transformative 1963 boxing match between Cassius Clay and Henry Cooper at Wembley Stadium. It details how Clay's ag

Key takeaways

• Cassius Clay used extreme verbal taunts and rhyming couplets to drive ticket sales in London.
• Henry Cooper prepared specifically for Clay's style by training with an American heavyweight to master his left hook.

Main topics

• Cassius Clay vs Henry Cooper
• Muhammad Ali's transformation

Notable quotes

I am the greatest.

Conclusion

A profound defeat can serve as a catalyst for character development an

Transcript preview

Speaker 2 (0:00) This is an iHeart Podcast. Guaranteed human. Speaker 1 (0:04) Malcolm Gladwell here. My new book, The American Way of Killing, investigates America's gun violence crisis. Why is the richest country in the world plagued by such lethal violence? Through a series of stories, interviews, and archival tape, I confront one of today's most urgent moral dilemmas and examine why the U.S. has never quite understood its own problem and why you can't fix what you refuse to see clearly. Pre-order The American Way of Killing at pushkin.fm slash audiobooks or wherever audiobooks are sold. Pushkin. Speaker 2 (0:51) Henry Cooper's nothing but a tramp. A bum. A cripple not worth training for. 21-year-old boxer Cassius Marcellus Clay Jr. was newly arrived in London and didn't think much of the British heavyweight champ he'd come to fight. To Clay, this London bout was a formality, an inconvenience even. The boxer had his eyes set on the world title. Unfortunately, the champion he'd have to unseat, Sonny Liston, was already committed to fighting other challengers. Until a title shot freed up, Clay needed another, lesser fixture to swell his bank balance and keep his muscles toned. Britain's Henry Cooper was no slouch. He was ranked fifth in the whole world. But that meant little to Clay. Clay was already coining a catchphrase, telling anyone who'd listen, Speaker 3 (1:55) I am the greatest. Speaker 2 (2:01) Britons didn't quite know what to make of the young African-American who had landed on their shores. Heavyweights normally lumbered, hunched and defensive around the ring. But Clay danced and pranced across the canvas, sometimes with his gloves down by his sides so everyone could see his pretty face. So, as a boxer, Clay could be considered a clown then. Speaker 2 (2:30) And yet, he was undefeated and had won the Olympic gold. He'd fought some of the hardest men in the sport and they'd barely laid a glove on him. 199 fights, Clay boasted, and still as pretty as a girl. Speaker 2 (2:53) And it was exactly this sort of remark that further puzzled Clay's British hosts. Clay talked and talked and talked. He described Buckingham Palace as a swell pad and mused that since Britain had a queen but no king, maybe he should be crowned in the role. Speaker 2 (3:19) One British reporter dubbed Clay the Pugilist Parrot. But there was a lively mind behind that restless tongue. Clay loved nothing more than replying to interviewers in rhyming couplets. When they queried me about the coop about, I answered with Shakespearean thrift. When they asked which round I'd knock Henry out, I answered, Henry the Fifth. Speaker 2 (3:49) Predicting how many rounds he'd take to demolish an opponent was a clay trademark. He vowed to finish world champion Sonny Liston in eight, but Henry Cooper, the tramp, the bum, the cripple, would survive only five. Speaker 2 (4:11) Despite his incessant goading and insults, the young American warned Henry Cooper not to retaliate in kind. Speaker 4 (4:20) He's a bum. I'm the world's greatest. He must fall in five rounds, but if you talk about me, I'll Speaker 2 (4:24) cut it through. Fight night was set for June the 18th, 1963. And at Wembley Stadium, the hallowed home of English soccer, an open-air ring was being prepared. It would be a fight that would change both men forever. I'm Tim Harford, and you're listening to another Cautionary Tale. His training base, Cassius Clay, set up in an army drill hall opposite a tube station in an unfashionable part of West London. The drab location deterred neither the press nor the paying public from coming to see the sensation from Louisville, Kentucky. But seeing clay was only part of the attraction. Londoners really coughed up half a crown, roughly ten bucks today, to hear the man. Whether sparring, shadowboxing or checking his own handsome reflection in the mirror, Clay kept up his ceaseless verbal assault on the British champ Henry Cooper. For this guy, it embarrasses me to train that hard. I've been training with three sparring partners who could all lick Cooper. The assembled reporters lapped up such quotes and prodded Clay into ever more extreme insults. Man, Cooper is in trouble, Clay went on. I'm in a mean mood and that means somebody is going to get hurt. Speaker 2 (6:29) Such pre-fight theatrics are commonplace today. But in 1963, fighters had never talked like this before. Certainly not this incessantly. Clay talked in the ring, in the gym, in his dressing room. He even opened the doors of his posh hotel suite to regale reporters with his wit and wisdom. They crowned him the Louisville Loudmouth, the Kentucky Klaxon, and finally, Gaseous Clay. These journalists simply loved Clay's constant stream of quotable guff, but the stories they wrote weren't exactly flattering. Speaker 2 (7:14) In Britain, it's easiest to win hearts with modesty, self-deprecation and a generous charm. But Clay was proving himself a big head, a braggart and above all, a bully. Belittling the quiet local hero Cooper and calling him rude names. Clay's swagger was starting to annoy British fight fans. But others, too, found it regrettable. Civil rights activists back home in America figured a bright, erudite, successful sportsman would be an asset in the fight against segregation. But disappointingly, Clay used his platform to insult his fellow African-American boxers, often using terms that echoed the racist tropes of ugly, animalistic black men. Speaker 2 (8:15) When asked about their loquacious prize fighter, the men behind Clay just chuckled. Expecting him to keep quiet, one said, was like inviting Brigitte Bardot over and asking her not to wear a tight-fitting sweater. Speaker 2 (8:36) Clay was an employee of the Louisville Sponsoring Group, a syndicate of Kentucky's business elite. These rich white men had each contributed a few thousand dollars, tax-deductible, to bankroll Clay's training and pay him a salary. And in return, they'd take 50 % of everything he earned inside and outside the ring. That investment was now looking quite shrewd. The more Clay talked, the more riled up British fans became, and the faster seats at Wembley Stadium sold. But though they were benefiting from his showmanship, these white millionaires wished to allay fears that Clay was one of these assertive or uppity black men. Cassius is a fine boy, said one sponsor as he boarded a luxury liner for England. All these wild statements are just for the box office. We've known him a long time. His mother used to cook for us. Speaker 2 (9:51) That was way beyond patronising. Yet Clay also used a similar line to explain himself. This is why I talk, man, he'd say, holding up a thick wad of British banknotes and counting them off. This, and this, and this. But in a more unguarded moment, he confided to a reporter that the talk was no gimmick. I really like it. I like telling people what I'm going to do and then doing it. It's part of me. The Louisville loudmouth was perhaps then only just finding his voice. And 1963 would be a turning point. He'd soon be using his rhetorical flourishes to address issues other than boxing. And there was nothing anyone, least of all the Louisville sponsoring group, could do to silence him. Speaker 2 (10:57) For his gym, Henry Cooper hired a pub in his native South London. The Fellowship Inn had spacious function rooms, so one was fitted out with weights and punch bags. And here the local lad trained, as birthday parties and wedding receptions went on around him. Wandering the streets of his neighbourhood, the 29-year-old British champion was stopped by old ladies