Muhammad Ali 21 during an elimination bout following Rocky Marciano's retirement. Mike Tyson broke both records in 1986 when he defeated Trevor Berbick to win the heavyweight title at age 20. Soon after the Liston fight, Clay changed his name to Cassius X, and then later to Muhammad Ali upon converting to Islam and affiliating with the Nation of Islam. Ali then faced a rematch with Liston scheduled for May 1965 in Lewiston, Maine. It had been scheduled for Boston the previous November, but was postponed for six months due to Ali's emergency surgery for a hernia three days before. The fight
What It Was, Was Football from the "Totally MAD" CD-ROM collection of the magazine's run. In 1987, Andy Griffith made an appearance on "The Tonight Show" promoting his series, "Matlock," in which he acted out the attorney Benjamin Layton Matlock, one of whose heroes was, presumably, Erle Stanley Gardner's Perry Mason. During the interview, guest host Bill Cosby told Griffith that he had purchased Griffith's recording of "What It Was, Was Football." Cosby then told Griffith that he had performed it at school and received an A for his grade, much to Griffith's surprise and delight. In 1997, the monologue was made into a short