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Nobody gave Cassius Clay a hope in hell, but Malcolm X had faith. Why wouldn t he? Not only had the young upstart been training harder than his rival, World Heavyweight Champion Sonny Liston, but he also had Allah in his corner. “This fight is the truth,” Malcolm told his protégé in the days before the 1964 title bout. “It’s the Cross and the Crescent fighting in the prize ring for the first time. It’s a modern Crusades – a Christian and a Muslim facing each other with television to beam it off Telstar for the whole world to see what happens!”