Stitch used to spar with a Louisville amateur named Cassius Clay, later known as Muhammad Ali. Young Ali would occasionally train at Bud Bruner's Headline Boxing Gym and test himself against the more experienced Stitch. Rich Keeling, a former boxer and promoter, said, "Cassius would leave everyday, saying, 'I'll be back tomorrow, and I'm going to get you then.' A week or two later, here he'd come. He never did get to where he could handle Rudell." Three months after Stitch's death, Ali won a gold medal at the 1960 Olympics in Rome, Italy.