Get in the Ring

If I may gloat just a little bit, although I was off by a season, I was correct way back in January of last year when I predicted that the first significant mention of sport on Mad Men was going to be one of the Clay/Ali vs. Liston fights. It wasn't the centerpiece of last night's episode, and it wasn't really used to broach the subject of race as I predicted it might be, but it was definitely a big part of the episode. I'm so used to big fights and sporting events taking place on a weekend that I was confused when everyone came back into the office the day after the fight. I wouldn't expect Mad Men to screw up such a easily verifiable piece of period detail, and they were correct of course. The fight in question took place on May 25th, 1965, which was a Tuesday, in Lewiston, Maine. If boxing continues its seemingly inexorable decline in popularity, perhaps there will someday be another heavyweight title fight on a weeknight in central Maine.