Soul Patch

[Benjamin Zimmer]

On Mon, 20 Jun 2005 13:54:26 -0400, George Thompson
<george.thompson at NYU.EDU> wrote:

>If I remember correctly, when Muhammad Ali/Cassius Clay fought Archie
>Moore, he annoyed Moore by insisting that Moore's under-lip beard was
>in violation of boxing rules and had to be shaved off for the fight.
>This would be mid-60s, post-Dizzy, of course.  I forget whether Ali's
>fight with Moore was before his conversion or after.

That was pre-conversion, in Nov. '62 (Clay became Ali after the Liston
fight in Feb. '64).

Moore's facial hair had been an issue since the mid-'50s.  Most press
accounts referred to Moore's "goatee", but a 1957 piece by Gay Talese in
the New York Times called it a "vestigial Vandyke beard".


--Ben Zimmer