Clay made the headline a mug

The death of boxing legend Muhammad Ali last week brings back memories of his first heavyweight fight title fight against Sonny Liston in 1964. The Ceylon Observer had just got its United Press International (UPI) ticker and the editorial staff had the rare opportunity of "watching" the fight -long before the advent of television in Sri Lanka -- with a blow-by-blow account coming out of the teletype machine relayed from Miami Beach, Florida.

Ali, then known as Cassius Clay, was by all accounts, expected to be knocked out by Liston, a much heavier opponent who had thrashed Floyd Patterson in two earlier bouts. Like all boxing fans the world over, the Observer’s then sports editor, M.M. Thawfeeq, who had a knack for eye-catching headlines, was ready with one, but rooting for Liston. The headline on the proof page of the Observer read: LISTON MAKES A MUG OUT OF CLAY.

But that sports page never hit the streets because Clay won on a technical knockout (TKO) when Liston failed to answer the bell in the seventh round of the fight. Clay not only beat the daylights out of Liston but also continued to taunt him in the ring calling him a "big, ugly bear."

Fast forward to 1967 when the then Muhammad Ali, after his conversion to Islam, refused to be drafted into the US army and was sentenced to five years in prison. A Muslim monthly Al Islam, edited by two Lake House journalists, carried a lead story about three Muslim students from Zahira College writing a letter to the US embassy in Colombo volunteering to take Ali's place in a US federal penitentiary and serving his prison term -- if their hero was freed. But that never happened either because the US Supreme Court eventually overturned Ali's conviction.