Feb. 4, 1963 - Proposals to ban professional boxing in New York State ran into solid opposition today at a joint legislative committee conducting a hearing into the sport. Boxers, baseball players, and television newsmen presented almost unanimous opposition to any move to ban boxing. The witnesses included the heavyweight boxing contender Cassius Clay (pictured at today’s hearing), who boasted he “will take Liston in eight to prove that I’m great.” Declaring that in another year “I’ll be champion,” Clay said, “Conditions today are not like what they were in the days of Joe Louis, Sugar Ray Robinson, Jack Dempsey, Gene Tunney, and others. Boxing is in the winter of its life now. In the winter, things are cold, things are dead. Spring will come again, and so will summer.”
