TUTORIAL IT

How are you doing with all this?

Is it worth spending so much time on?

I hear people are all getting their real estate licenses these days. That

seems to be the thing.  Real estate. I hear theyre making money.

Why are you getting angry, I just asked a simple question.

Stop being an asshole

Im just asking if you have considered doing something else.

What do you mean, what am I getting at?

No I didnt say give up, Im just saying

if youre putting all this time and effort into it and arent seeing anything in return

maybe its time to consider doing something else.

Well, whats wrong with real estate?

Honestly.  Tell me one thing wrong with getting a real estate license,

just in case.

All I have left is the roadwork and speedbag

the jumprope and combinations on the heavybag

all I have left is the fight tapes and photographs

and experience. 

Hard won experience. 

Ive watched them come and go

and rise and fall

jump into riches, then fall, comet-like, into despair

but every day Im out there before dawn

training

for the fight

and I dont do it for money.

I do it for the grocery clerk and landscaper and bartender and adult student

and divorced mother and paroled father and janitors working two jobs

to pay medical bills.

I do it because somebody has to

or else

the people have no champion

and we all have to give up and go get real estate licenses

but not yet.

Not nearly yet.

Harold Conrad (fight promoter): "People talked about Tyson before he got beat, but Liston was more ferocious, more indestructible. When Sonny gave you the evil eye, I dont care who you were, you shrunk to two feet tall."

Cassius Clay (Challenger): "After the fight Im gonna build myself a pretty home and use him as a bearskin rug. Liston even smells like a bear. Im gonna give him to the local zoo after I whup him. If Sonny Liston whups me, Ill kiss his feet in the ring, crawl out of the ring on my knees, tell him hes the greatest, and catch the next jet out of the country."

Jim Murray (Los Angeles Times Reporter): "The only thing at which Clay can beat Liston is reading the dictionary."

Hal March (Actor): "I think the fight will end in the dressing room. I think Clay is going to faint before he comes out."

Cassius Clay: "I wont lie, I was scared . . . It frightened me, just knowing how hard he hit. But I didnt have no choice but to go out and fight."

Mort Sharnik (Sportswriter): "Cassius hit Liston with a one-two combination; a jab followed by a straight right. Cassius pulled the jab back and there was a mouse underneath Sonnys right eye. Then he pulled the right back and there was a gash underneath the other eye . . . . It was like the armor plate of a battleship being pierced. I said to myself, My God, Cassius Clay is winning this fight!"

Howard Cosell (Ringside Broadcaster): "Wait a minute!  Wait a minute!  Sonny Liston is not coming out!"

Cassius Clay (Heavyweight Champion of the World): "Im the greatest!  I shook up the world!  Im the greatest!  I shook up the world!"