The editors of Sports Illustrated, having concluded from studying film of the fight that “a stunning right-handed punch” stopped Liston fairly, criticized the press for raging against the bout’s perceived brutality and nonbrutality with indiscriminate zeal that “verged on the hysterical.” Times reporter Robert Lipsyte was embarrassed that his paper insistently referred to Ali as Cassius Clay, denying him an identity right routinely accorded the users of stage names from Lauren Bacall (Betty Perske) to the Pope.