sonny liston: you ain't no champ! you a chump! you want to lose your money, bet on sonny. he know i'm great. he will go in eight!
what you lookin' at, you ugly bear?!
c'mon, bum. i whup you right here!
you sure you got that right?
pounds of ugly! he so ugly, sweat run backwards off his forehead to get away from his face! c'mon, bear! i turn you into a rug!! rumble right now, man!
you whup me, i'll crawl out of the ring on my knees and catch the next jet plane out of the country.
you be the first eatin' his words!
i'm scared of no man. i give sonny liston talking lessons, boxing lessons and falling down lessons.
"black muslim"'s a press word.
howard cosell, you are an instigator! how you get that way? when i'm done with liston, i'm comin' for you!
who shorty?
i study every fight. 'til i got a plan. wear him down two through four. drop him in the fifth round. so the p'diction ain't a p'diction. it's a plan. and 'cause of all the poppin' off i do, i know i gotta win! that's the truth. and why i'm tellin' you?
yeah.
when you get back?
you could have stayed. nobody gotta hide when they with me.
throws his long left jab. it keeps liston at a set distance. he has liston's range, now, and he dances away from liston's charges. then, halfway through the round, cassius' eyes have hunted out an opportunity, and he throws his first combination with a few hard shots that, to liston's surprise, rock liston's head back. and, then, cassius easily evades.
keeps tagging liston with his long left. and, now, infuriates liston even more by merely walking away from liston's big misses, provoking even wilder and more inaccurate liston assaults. then cassius soaks up a couple of body shots, most flicks his jab, slides, dances, clinches, circles away. until.
he was supposed to kill me. well, i'm still alive.
he's nothin' to me.
and he knows it.
my eyes!
my eyes! i can't see. somethin' in my eyes!
cut 'em off! cut 'em! i'm blind.
i upset the world! i am the greatest! i am the greatest!
eat your words! eat your words!
i told you. didn't i tell you?
i had him in the first round. 'cause i'm the greatest! sam.  hey, sam! let him up.
i am the greatest! and he the greatest rock 'n' roll singer. sam cooke! i want everybody to bear witness. i shook up the world! don't have a mark on me! i was burning. i was blind. i'm the prettiest thing that ever lived. i shook up the world! i shook up the world!
the mummy! "i can't get away from the mummy!" yeah, but that mummy too slow to catch anybody.
no, he don't! now, don't believe that stuff on television.
yeah. i going to be a people's champ.  but not like joe louis, exactly.
and i'm not clay. clay's the name of the people who owned by ancestors. i don't want to be called after that slave name no more. so i'm "x." cassius x. and i'm a member of the nation of islam. the honorable elijah muhammad is my spiritual guide. malcolm x is my mentor.
"card-carrying"? don't need no "card." you got a christian card? 750 million people believe in islam. i'm one of them.
i'm going to be a people's champion. but i don't have to be the way you want me to be. i'm gonna be what i want. and i'm free to think any way i want.
watchin' a show on termites. they knockin' down this house, here.
six million in your house and you don't know it. where?
africa? no. only rome. yeah, man, let's go!
when we leaving?
what is it?
tore out a picture of emmett till when i was little. couldn't take my eyes to it. couldn't look at it. barb-wire around his neck to a 75- pound cotton-gin fan. took out his eye. the cruelty to it. i couldn't look at it. couldn't throw it away.
i thought, "what i do wrong to be so low that people could do that to people like me?" it made me feel ashamed. and that makes no sense. but that's what it was.
you can fix that.
muhammad ali. "worthy of praise" thank you!
yes, sir.
this is a great honor, messenger.