Sports

for the title, in a fight similar in many ways to beating Big George. And he would begin to enter his prime two years later. Of course, the forced 3.5 year "lay off" took what would have been his physical prime.

In most ways, Liston was a smarter fighter than Big George in the first half of his career. But Foreman could do what Liston never learned: how to cut off the ring. However, George was not noted for speed of hand nor foot in the ring. Ali was a master of cutting angles while dancing, and could plant his feet to deliver extraordinarily rapid combinations.