Angelo Dundee allowed his man
some recovery time after the long fight with Alonzo Johnson.
When clay returned to his hometown ring for his seventh bout
of the year, it would once more be before the television cameras,
and this time against a noted puncher. Alex Miteff was Argentinian,
and no mug. He possessed a murderous right hand, as clay was
to discover.
Teddy Brenner, who had once more made the match, recalled
the unusual build – up for clays biographer, Thomas
Hauser: “we realised that no one had brought boxing
gloves. The stores were closed, it was too late to bring gloves
in from someplace else. Finally, we found two pairs that were
half horsehair and half foam rubber. Most gloves were all
horsehair, but these were half-and-half. They’d been
lying around in some gym and they were as hard as rock…”
Brenner felt the gloves would favour Miteff, the big puncher,
despite clays pre-fight prediction of a sixth – round
stoppage.
Brenner was on the point of being proved right when, in the
second round, Miteff landed a peach of a right hand on clay’s
jaw. Clay took the punch and recovered quickly. It was one
of the first signs that he possessed a cast-iron chin, along
with all of his gifts. It was an ability that would have great
implications later in clays career – and in his life.
Miteff was known as a slow starter, whose powerful body punches
brought him more into the fight as the bout progressed. By
the start of the sixth round, the fight was even, but clay
quickly turned the night on its head. He caught Miteff with
a single right hand and the Argentinian was still trying to
figure out what had happened to him when he was back in the
dressing room. “Did Cassius Clay knock me out?”
he asked his trainer. The ebullient Cassius was the darling
of his hometown crowd once again.
