King Of The Hill Norman Mailer On The Fight Of The Century – Norman Mailer

‘ (Wide World) been able ever to stare him in the eyes these last four years. Now a boy was screaming at him, a boy reported to belong to Black Mus- lims, no, stronger than that, a boy favored by Maicolm X who was braver by reputation than the brave, for he could stop a bullet any day. Liston, afraid only, as he put it, of crazy men, was afraid of the Muslims for he could not contend with their allegiance to one another in prison, their puritanism, their discipline, their martial ranks.

The combination was too com- plex, too unfamiliar. Now, their boy, in a pain of terror or in a mania of courage, was scream- ing at him at the weigh-in. Liston sat down and shook his head, and looked at the Press, now become his friend, and wound his fingers in circles around his ear, as if saying, Whitey to Whitey, “That black boy is nuts.’’ So Clay made Liston Tom it, and when Liston missed the first jab he threw in the fight by a foot and a half, one knew the night would not be ordinary in the offing.

For their return bout in Boston, Liston trained as he had never before. Clay got a hernia. Liston trained again. Hard training as a fighter grows older seems to speak of the dull deaths of the brightest cells in all the favorite organs; old fighters react to training like beau- tiful women to washing floors.

But Liston did it twice, once for Clay’s hernia, and again for their actual fight in Maine, and the second time he trained, he aged as a fighter, for he had a sparring partner, Amos Lincoln, who was one of the better heavyweights in the country. They had wars with one another every afternoon in A great moment in prizefight history, the incomparable Sugar Ray Robinson knocking out champion Gene Fullmer in the 5th round of their title bout, May 1, 1957, returning the middleweight title to Robinson.

(Wide World) _ the gym. By the day before the fight, Liston _ was as relaxed and sleepy and dopey as a man _ in a steambath. He had fought his heart out in _ training, had done it under constant pressure from Clay who kept telling the world that Lis- _ ton was old and slow and could not possibly _ win.

And their fight created a scandal, for Lis- ton ran into a short punch in the first round and was counted out, unable to hear the count. The referee and timekeeper missed signals with one another while Clay stood over fallen Liston screaming, “Get up and fight!” It was no night for the fight game, and a tragedy for Clay since he had trained for a long and arduous fight.

li liked to fight in flurries, and then move out, move away, assess, take his time, fight again. Frazier would not let him, Frazier moved in with the snarl of a wolf, his teeth seemed to show through his mouthpiece, he made Ali work. . . . At the beginning of the fifth round, Ali got up slowly.

from his stool, very slowly. Frazier was beginning to feel that the fight was his. He moved in on Ali jeering, his hands at his sides in a mimicry of Ali, a street fighter mocking his opponent, and Ali tapped him with long light jabs to which Frazier stuck out his mouthpiece, a jeer of derision as if to suggest that the mouthpiece was all Ali would reach that night ..

.” Other Norman Mailer Titles in SIGNET Editions (1 THE NAKED AND THE DEAD. The world famous novel about a handful of American soldiers on an ee mission in the South Pacific. (#Y4087—$1,25) O THE ARMIES OF THE NIGHT—History as a Novel, the Novel as History. The Pulitzer Prize-winning chronicle of the three days of anti-Vietnam demonstrations in Washington during October 1967.

“Brilliant writing, brilliant reportage.”—Chicago Sun-Times. (#Y3712—$1.25) C] MIAMI AND THE SIEGE OF CHICAGO: An Informal His- tory of the Republican and Democratic Conventions of 1968. From the pen of “the best writer in America” (Book Week), comes a unique and deeply moving report of the shame of Miami and the shambles of Chicago during the 1968 presidential conventions. (#.Q3785—95¢) C] BARBARY SHORE. A powerful drama of the entangled fates of men and women in a shabby Brooklyn rooming- house.

(#13314—75¢) THE NEW AMERICAN LIBRARY, INC., P.O. Box 999, Bergenfield, New Jersey 07621 Please send me the SIGNET BOOKS | have checked above. | am enclosing $___________ (check or money order —- no: Currency or C.O.D.’s). Please include the list price plus 15¢ a copy to cover mailing costs. Name.

This is a short excerpt from the opening of “” by Unknown, quoted for review and introduction purposes. All rights belong to the copyright holders.

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• Title: –
• Author: Unknown
• Pages: 101
• Language: English (en)

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