The professional trajectory of Muhammad Ali (“Loved by God” is the meaning of his Muslim name), was filled with anecdotic facts, impossible to compile completely in these lines, a good portion of them of joking tones, that had to do with his well-established habit of forecasting in which round he would finish his opponent and endorsing them with mocking monikers and black humor quips that his fans repeated endlessly while laughing their heads off.
Thus, he called Sonny Liston for example “Ugly Bear”, and it is an absolute fact that before confronting him for the first time, he laid a trap in his garden to catch a plantigrade.
Joe Frazier, surely his toughest rival, was called by Ali “Ugly”, “Lame” and “Stupid”, among other names.
Of Floyd Paterson he used to refer to as “Uncle Tom” because the former world champion, who at 21 and some months became the youngest champion (Later displaced by Mike Tyson at 20 years and 5 months old) criticized his religious stance and his insults against the American establishment.
In his collection of anecdotes the most creative and equally the most orally cruel, was the most divulged, his third defense of the WBA Crown against Ernie Terrell, recognized by the WBC on January 6, 1967 at the Houston Astrodome in Texas. The combat had a duration of 15 rounds and ended with an ample and resounding victory with a double 148-137 and a 148-133 for “Bigmouth”
Probably the fight would have had little or no importance at all in history if it weren’t for the fact that since the beginning of the action until the end, Ali mortified and teased Terrel. With each blow he connected he asked incessantly “What is my name?”, a repeated stinging during the 3 minutes of each round, during the 45 minutes of action. All the satire was because Terrel refused to stop calling him Cassius Clay, his birth name, during the days preceding the encounter, the name which Ali (raised as a Baptist) had renounced when he adopted his new religion. The hurting and mocking attitude from Ali towards his contender earned Ali a storm of booing from the public and tough criticism from the press and the media.
