Lunch for a Lion

It was a typical night in Las Vegas. Otherwise sane people gambled away hundreds of thousands of dollars at the craps and roulette tables. Several thousand spectators stood around for hours while a priest and police coaxed a shot gun away from a 29-year-old man who was threatening suicide in the back seat of a taxi. On stage at the Sahara, Comedian Buddy Hackett talked for 56 minutes straight -- partly about his boy hood bouts with pimples, caused by lack of sex. And at the Las Vegas Convention Center, Cassius Clay, alias Muhammad Ali, spat carefully on the floor while Eddie Fisher was singing The Star-Spangled Banner. Clay, 23, then proceeded to demolish Floyd Patterson, 30, in defense of the heavyweight championship of the world.

Challenger Patterson made it sound as if the national honor was at stake "I have nothing against Mr. Clay personally," said Floyd, "but I want to give the title back to America." That meant taking it away from the Black Muslims, and they did not want to let go of any thing. Clay's cold-eyed Muslim body guards even tried to rough up Nat Fleischer, the grand old editor of Ring magazine when he approached Clay outside the arena ("Take your hands off that man!" stammered Cassius. "He's my friend").

A Shoehorn for His Hat. Clay detailed his diet for newsmen ("Muslim bean soup, Eee-gyptian brown rice, Arabian string beans"), refused to pose for photographs standing alongside the shorter (by 2 1/2 in.) and lighter (by 14 Ibs.) Patterson. "If I did," he said, "nobody would come to see the fight."

Those who went saw a slaughter, the most lopsided contest since lions lunched at the Colosseum. "I am going to punish him," Clay had said contemptuously. "I am going to beat him so badly that he'll need a shoehorn to get his hat on again." Cassius obviously is a man of his word. In the first round he was so busy taunting his opponent ("White American!") that he neglected to throw a punch and Patterson won the round. It was the only round he won.

For the rest of the fight, Clay's left fist beat a bewildering tattoo on Patterson's forehead, and Cassius punctuated each punch with cries of "Boop! Boop! Boop!" Patterson later complained that he had aggravated an old back injury. Only losers need excuses, and Floyd needed more than most. From the second round on, it was evident that Cassius could have knocked Patterson out any time he chose--and he almost did, despite himself, in the sixth round. A ripping uppercut snapped Floyd's head back and turned his legs to rubber; a left hook drove him to his knees. Clay stood there watching, hands at his sides, as Floyd staggered to his feet at the count of nine. "I wanted to stop it earlier," said Referee Harry Krause, who called a halt in the twelfth round. "Patterson was hopelessly outclassed."

Bum of the Month? Still unbeaten after 22 pro fights, Champion Clay actually tried to be kind to his beaten challenger. "He is a man, a real man," Cassius told newsmen afterward. He was more candid when a female admirer innocently asked: "What have you been doing tonight?" Replied Cassius: "Oh, beating up little boys."

Clay, who seems to get bigger and stronger each fight, may have to resurrect Joe Louis' "Bum of the Month" club, just to find somebody to fight. Maybe he already has, seeing as the next man in line is Ernie Terrell, the World Boxing Association "champion" --who has been providing for his future by practicing as a rock-'n'-roll singer.

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