Muhammad Ali vs Willi Besmanoff

Venue: Freedom Hall, Louisville, Kentucky. 29th November, 1961.

Asked for a prediction as he approached the last bout of his first full year as a professional, Cassius clay told a television interviewer: “I’m embarrassed to get in the ring with this unrated duck. I’m ready for top contenders like Floyd Patterson and Sonny Liston. Besmanoff must fall in seven!”

Muhammad Ali AKA Cassius Clay

Willi Besmanoff didn’t take kindly to this insult. He was a stocky German with a decent enough record and he was a proud man too. Unfortunately for him, he had been inactive for some six months and he was about to face a fighter already filled with belief in his own indestructibility.

Besmanoff leaped at clay, determined to imposes himself on the fight, but he was soon snatching at shadows. The prodigiously gifted clay simply ghosted away from the stout swinger and hammered him at will. The fight could and would have been over after a couple of rounds, had clay not been determined to give ringside reporters a story by making his pre-fight prediction come good.

As the crowd began to get restless and with Angelo Dundee urging him loudly to “stop playing around,” clay carried Besmanoff into the seventh. Once there, he jumped from his stool and dropped poor Willi with a quicksilver right. The game German got up again, but was immediately put back down with two cruel lefts and another right. The referee stopped the fight and clay left the ring to address reporters. “ when I lay a man down,” he said, “he’s supposed to stay down. I should be champ before I’m 21…you write that down in your notebooks!”

Reporting back to Bill Faversham of the Louisville sponsoring group. Angelo Dundee said: “when he wasn’t playing around, he looked like a champion.” Teddy Brenner, decided to take Cassius clay to Madison Square Garden at the first opportunity.

[ Boxing Autographs | Equipment | Exclusives! | Photos | About Us ]

Making The Hobby a Safer Place by Setting The Standards

Add Boxing-Memorabilia.Com To Your Favorites