When Tunney Hunsaker, a much loved 30-year-old police office from Fayetteville, West Virginia with hands so large his Mother would compare them to an elephant's feet, stepped in to the ring on the 29th October 1960 it is hard to imagine any of the 6,180 people in attendance could have predicted that his opponent, Cassius Clay, would go on to become the most transcendent sports figure of all time.

And as a result his name, inspired by the 'Fighting Marine', Gene Tunney, who was nominally still the linear heavyweight champion when Tunney Hunsaker was born in February 1930, would be bound eternally with his precocious opponent.

In the aftermath of their shared six rounds, Clay splattered and smeared with the blood of his game opponent following a wide points decision, Hunsaker remarked that, "Clay is incredibly good for an 18-year-old and I'll be amazed if he doesn't go all the way." On the night, Hunsaker weighed just 182 pounds and was unable deter the newly minted Olympic Gold medalist. Clay had turned professional just 55 days earlier in the aftermath of gis triumph in the Rome games and was backed by a syndicate of wealthy men. His story is familiar to all.

As the spectators and the newspapermen slipped away from the Freedom Hall, Louisville and the gaze of the national spotlight departed with them 65 years ago, Hunsaker returned to his life as a dedicated public servant and seemed to retire as a prizefighter too.

Two years later he accepted a fight with Joe Seldon from Cleveland. It proved to be a punishing contest fought just three days after Benny Paret had passed away due to injuries he sustained in his fight with Emile Griffith on live U.S. television and with the added scrutiny the death of a fighter always bring. Hunsaker collapsed as he walked back to his corner at the end of a round and would fall into a coma for 9 days.

Thankfully, unlike Paret, Hunsaker would recover, after two brain operations, and would again be walking the beat of his home town following rehabilitation. Later in life, he would reconnect with his famous foe from 1960, now known to the world as Muhammad Ali, and they met several times in the decades that followed, including the launch of a Golden Gloves amateur programme in the neighbouring town of Charleston, WV in 1987.

Hunsaker died aged 75 in 2005.  But, he's forever the answer to the trivia- who fought "The Greatest" in his professional debut?