Anyone who remembers Cleveland Williams likely does so because of Neil Leifer, SI shutterbug extraordinaire, whose overhead shot of Muhammad Ali strutting triumphantly away from a splayed and seemingly slayed Williams, laid out on a splotchy canvas in the Houston Astrodome like some victim of a drive-by shooting, is considered one of the greatest photographs in sports history. Not only was his loss to Ali (TKO by 3) forever fixed in the collective pop culture psyche of the United States, but Williams unwittingly became a benchmark for an Ali at his absolute peak.
And the Astrodome itself, nicknamed the “Eighth Wonder of the World” for its cutting-edge hemispherical roof and climate-controlled environment, seemed like a symbolic correlative for the encroaching Ali era—the ex-Cassius Clay, now Space Age heavyweight, with never before seen warp speed and gravity-defying agility—way out in some wild future yonder. But on November 14, 1966, the Astrodome was nothing more than an oversized sporting mausoleum for Cleveland Williams. At the time Williams challenged Ali, the “Big Cat” was as threatening as a malnutritioned kitten. He was thirty-three years old, in his fifteenth year as a pro, and a physical wreck after having been shot at point-blank range in a scuffle with a police officer two years earlier.
https://hannibalboxing.com/brief-liv...land-williams/
And the Astrodome itself, nicknamed the “Eighth Wonder of the World” for its cutting-edge hemispherical roof and climate-controlled environment, seemed like a symbolic correlative for the encroaching Ali era—the ex-Cassius Clay, now Space Age heavyweight, with never before seen warp speed and gravity-defying agility—way out in some wild future yonder. But on November 14, 1966, the Astrodome was nothing more than an oversized sporting mausoleum for Cleveland Williams. At the time Williams challenged Ali, the “Big Cat” was as threatening as a malnutritioned kitten. He was thirty-three years old, in his fifteenth year as a pro, and a physical wreck after having been shot at point-blank range in a scuffle with a police officer two years earlier.
https://hannibalboxing.com/brief-liv...land-williams/
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