Great stuff!
I love Boxing. I was 4 years old when Cassius Clay won the championship by beating Sonny Liston. At that age, I barely had an awareness of the sport, but was very entertained by this very animated figure that was Clay. That name stuck. Cassius Clay. I thought it was a very powerful name. I lost track of the figure that was Clay until 1971. 7 years had passed and I was intrigued by the "Fight of the Century" between Ali and Frazier. I had read up on the sport by then, through the Encyclopedia Brittanica, mesmerized by pictures of Ezzard Charles, Ray Robinson, Joe Louis. I memorized every heavyweight champion beginning with John L. Sullivan. I had a natural attraction for sport, since where I grew up outside of Chicago, fist fights seemed like a weekly occurence. It wasn't until the eve of the Ali-Frazier fight that my mother told me that Cassius Clay was now Muhammad Ali. I was hooked on the sport.
Hand-to-hand combat. An incredible sport. Glad there's a separate forum for the Sweet Science. It's a sport that deserves its place alone at the top.