Heavyweight Champ On November 15th, 1962 Cassius met his former trainer Archie Moore in the ring.
Moore claimed that he had developed a 'lip buttoner' punch to finally silence the Louisville Lip, as Cassius had come to be known. In response, Clay predicted a fourth round knockout.
And that is precisely how the fight went down. Cassius was now a sixteen win, zero loss pro. He felt he had earned a shot at the heavyweight world champ, Sonny Liston.
He engaged upon a campaign of taunting Liston into taking the challenge. He began referring to the champ as a big ugly bear, and even once traveled to his hometown of Springfield, Colorado
and banged on his door at three in the morning to call out the champ. Clay made sure that TV cameras were recording every second of the charade.
Finally, Liston had had enough and agreed to take on the upstart. The heavyweight champ made a prediction of his own – pain! It was no idle threat.
Liston was a mountain of a man who had a killer punch. He was considered by many boxing experts to be unbeatable. Cassius trained hard for this, the biggest fight of his life. But he didn't give it his absolute focus.
Both Cassius and his brother Rudy were becoming increasingly interested in the Nation of Islam. They started attending meetings and Cassius became enamored with leader Elijah Muhammad, along with the group's spokesman Malcolm X.
As the brothers spent more and more time at their local mosque in Miami, Malcom told Cassius to wear his Nation of Islam membership proudly.
When the title fight sponsors learned that the challenger was associating with the Nation of Islam, they threatened to cancel the event unless he disavowed the group.
