Juice the Gloves
On February 25, 1964, a crowd of 8,300 spectators gathered at the Convention Hall arena in Miami Beach to see if Cassius Clay — nicknamed The Louisville Lip — could put his money where his mouth was. Clay’s opponent that night was heavyweight champion and boxing dementor Sonny Liston, with soulless eyes that drained hope from opponents’ before his fists stole their consciousness. In 36 fights Liston had lost just once — and even then, after having his jaw broken, he didn’t quit.
Cassius Clay wasn’t supposed to be for real. Not someone a deadly puncher like Sonny Liston need ever worry about. Just a loudmouth, a showboat, who did and said just about anything for attention.
By the end of the third round that night in Miami, however, anyone with eyes and any amount of brains knew what they were watching unfold. Not only was Clay too fast and elusive for Liston but, amazingly, his punches were hurting the supposedly invincible champion. In the fourth round, it was back to Liston chasing and chasing, but he kept missing and kept bleeding. As the reality of the situation and an outcome almost no one anticipated began to sink in, something very strange happened…
Unbeknownst to everyone else in the building, at the end of the third round, as Liston had trudged to his corner and collapsed hard onto his stool, he had looked at his cut man Joe Polino and mumbled three words:
“Juice the gloves.”
“Juice the gloves” was a signal to Liston’s corner to smear an illegal astringent on the gloves that burns anything it touches.
Polino did as he was ordered, and it worked. By the time Clay reached his corner at the end of the fourth round, his face was already contorted with pain.
Clay said afterwards that it felt like acid was in his eyes. Blinking wildly, he told his trainer Angelo Dundee that something was wrong. Removing his mouthpiece, he screamed at Dundee, “Cut off my gloves! Cut off my gloves!” As Clay’s corner frantically washed Clay’s eyes and face, Dundee calmly told Cassius “If you can’t see, keep away from him until your eyes clear. Nobody walks away from a heavyweight championship.”
When the bell rang for round five, Angelo pushed Clay forward shouting, “Run until your eyes clear!”
As Clay moved forward, half-blind and confused, Clay’s ringside hype-man Bundini Brown offered a piece of tactical advice: “Yardstick him, champ! Yardstick him!”
It was the perfect strategy.
The entire fifth round, much like a blind man with a walking stick, Clay used his left, held straight out from his shoulder, as a seeing-eye device. Keeping Liston an arm’s length away, Cassius weathered bull rushes, juiced gloves, and best punches.
In round six, now with cleared eyes, a second wind and growing confidence, Cassius Clay put on a boxing clinic. Every attack followed from his perfectly-timed jab, always aimed at the cuts below Sonny’s eyes. Clay alternately toyed with and punished the fading champion Liston.
Cassius Clay was standing ready for round seven, looking directly at Liston who was still sitting in his corner when the warning buzzer sounded — and witnessed Liston do the unthinkable….
Sonny Liston, the unbeatable heavyweight champion of the world, spit out his mouthpiece — and quit.
If we are all completely honest, we have spent the last several years dancing, keeping everyone and everything at arm’s length, yard-sticking, hoping that our eyes clear, praying for clarity.
Mike Tyson was right: Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the mouth. Life hits hard. Is there a better allegory for what we’ve all faced in recent days of disease, death, racial, political and religious unrest?
Someone, it seems, has “juiced the gloves.”
When you’re fighting to stay on your feet, refusing to go down in the deafening din of culture’s chaos, trying to see straight, it is easy to forget who’s in your corner, pushing you to not give in, to not quit.
So I simply wanted to take a moment to thank you for being in my corner.
I want to thank you from the bottom of my heart for allowing me the honor and privilege to be your teammate.
Thank you for believing in me.
Thank you for loving and praying me home in April and May 2020.
And thank you for holding Kellee, Grant, Chandler and Cameron up when they were understandably ready to just lay down and quit.
Oh. Almost forgot. One last thing.
The iconic picture in this edition of Onus is not from the first Cassius Clay vs Sonny Liston fight. It is from the May 25, 1965 rematch, a first-round knockout of Sonny Liston by Cassius Clay, just 1:44 into the fight. Only this time, Cassius Clay is no longer Cassius Clay. His name is Muhammad Ali.
Ask me sometime about his reasons for changing his name.
To this day some believe Liston threw both fights with Ali, though hard evidence to bolster that idea has never surfaced. This image forever stands as the most surreal, controversial picture in the long history of the prize ring.
But it means something different to me. I hope it will for you, too.
My prayer is that anytime you look at this picture, you’ll know how grateful I am for you. My hope is that you are inspired to keep moving until you can see clearly, that whatever you face will be intimidated by the daunting task of facing an opponent who does not flinch and will not quit, and that we can exemplify what Jesus said about being the greatest:
“Do you want to stand out? Then step down. Be a servant.”
Jesus wins.
Now the onus is on you.
