Venue: Madison Square Garden, New York, 22nd March, 1967.
The Terrell fight turned the
media back against Ali after their grudging approval of his
win over Cleveland Williams. As Thomas Hauser pointed out,
such cruelty looked bad while Ali was claiming in court that
he was a conscientious objector to war in Vietnam. Shortly
before his fight with Zora Folley, Ali lost his appeal against
an a-1 classification for the draft and was ordered to appear
in Louisville on 11 April for induction into the US army.
It was remarkable that Ali was able to prepare properly to
fight in such circumstances, but he did. The garden was to
stage its first heavyweight title bout for a decade and a
half, and Folley was old enough to have fought in that one,
too. He was almost 35 and had been a pro since 1953, surviving
by virtue of his technique. Folley was a student of the sweet
science and he studied Ali meticulously, watching film of
all of his fights.
Watch the video of Muhammad Ali vs Zora Folley:
In response, Ali began with a style Folley had never encountered.
He dropped his hands and beckoned Folley in before blitzing
him with fast punches from strange angles. In the fourth round,
he dropped Folley who did well to beat the count. Ali knocked
Folley out in the seventh with a right hand of similar speed
to the one that had finished Sonny Liston.
