Cassius Clay Defeats Sonny Liston for Heavyweight Championship
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The fight began with Clay showing a lot of movement, making it difficult for Liston to score with many punches, although he did manage to land some blows. Clay showed a good fast jab and several quick combinations. This pattern continued in the second round. In the third round, however, Clay opened up his attack and hit Liston with several combinations which caused a bruise to form underneath Liston's right eye and a cut to open up under his left eye. During the fourth round Clay coasted, but when he went back to his corner after the round he started complaining to Angelo Dundee that there was something burning in his eyes and that he couldn't see. It has been theorized that it may have been a substance that was used to stop Liston's cuts from bleeding (possibly Monsel's Solution), but this has never been confirmed. At the beginning of the fifth round, Dundee pushed Clay off his stool and told him to stay away from Liston. Clay managed to survive the fifth round and by the sixth round Clay had resumed control of the fight. During the sixth, Clay landed several combinations, seemingly at will. Between the sixth and the seventh rounds Liston told his cornermen that he couldn't continue. He complained of a shoulder injury. As the bell rang for the seventh round Liston remained on his stool, resigned to defeat. Sensing that he had made history, Clay sprang to the center of the ring, did a victory jig and then quickly ran to the ropes, over to the area where many of the sportswriters were. Many of them had doubted that he had any chance to beat the once feared Sonny Liston. Clay yelled at them, "I'm the greatest" and "I shook up the world!"
