fought all wrong,’ acknowledges Jerry Izenberg. ‘Boxing people would say to me, “Any guy who can do this will beat him. Any guy who can do that will beat him.” And after a while, I started saying back to them, “So you’re telling me that any guy who can outjab the fastest jabber in the world can beat him. Any guy who can slip that jab, which is like lightning, not get hit with a hook off the jab, get inside, and pound on his ribs can beat him. Any guy. Well, you’re asking for the greatest fighter who ever lived, so this kid must be pretty good.”’
And on top of everything else, the world never saw Muhammad Ali at his peak as a fighter. When Ali was forced into exile in 1967, he was getting better with virtually every fight. The Ali who fought Cleveland Williams, Ernie Terrell and Zora Folley was bigger, stronger, more confident and more skilled than the 22-year-old who, three years earlier, had defeated Sonny Liston. But when Ali returned, his ring skills were diminished. He was markedly slower and his legs weren’t the same.
‘I was better when I was young,’ Ali acknowledged later. ‘I was more experienced when I was older; I was stronger; I had more belief in myself. Except for Sonny Liston, the men I fought when I was young weren’t near the fighters that Joe Frazier and George Foreman were. But I had my speed when I was young. I was faster on my legs and my hands were faster.’
Thus, the world never saw what might have been. What it did see, though, in the second half of Ali’s career, was an incredibly courageous fighter. Not only did Ali fight his heart out in the ring; he fought the most dangerous foes imaginable. Many champions avoid facing tough challengers. When Joe Louis was champion, he refused to fight certain black contenders. After Joe Frazier defeated Ali, his next defences were against Terry Daniels and Ron Stander. Once George Foreman won the title, his next bout was against José Roman. But Ali had a different creed. ‘I fought the best, because if you want to be a true champion, you got to show people that you can whup everybody,’ he proclaimed.
‘I don’t think there’s a fighter in his right mind that wouldn’t admire Ali,’ says Earnie Shavers. ‘We all dreamed about being just half the fighter that Ali was.’
And of course, each time Ali entered the ring, the pressure on him was palpable. ‘It’s not like making a movie where, if you mess up, you stop and reshoot,’ he said shortly before Ali–Frazier III. ‘When that bell rings and you’re out there, the whole world is watching and it’s real.’
But Ali was more than a great fighter. He was the standard-bearer for boxing’s modern era. The 1960s promised athletes who were bigger and faster than their predecessors. Ali was the prototype for that mould. Also, he was part and parcel of the changing economics of boxing. Ali arrived just in time for the advent of satellites and closed circuit television. He carried heavyweight championship boxing beyond the confines of the United States and popularised the sport around the globe.
Almost always, the public sees boxers as warriors without ever realising their soft, human side. But the whole world saw Ali’s humanity. ‘I was never a boxing fan until Ali came along,’ is a refrain one frequently hears. And while ‘the validity of boxing is always hanging by a thread,’ Hugh McIlvanney, who coined that phrase, acknowledges, ‘Ali was boxing’s salvation.’
An Ali fight was always an event. Ali put that in perspective when he said, ‘I truly believe I’m fighting for the betterment of people. I’m not fighting for diamonds or Rolls-Royces or mansions, but to help mankind. Before a fight, I get myself psyched up. It gives me more power, knowing there’s so much involved and so many people are gonna be helped by my victory.’ To which Gil Noble adds, ‘When Ali got in the ring, there was a lot more at stake than the title. When that man got in the ring, he took all of us with him.’
Also, for virtually his entire career, being around Ali was fun. Commenting on young Cassius Clay, Don Elbaum remembers, ‘I was the matchmaker for a show in Pittsburgh when he fought Charlie Powell. We were staying at a place called Carlton House. And two or three days before the fight, Cassius, which was his name then, decided to visit a black area of Pittsburgh. It was winter, real cold. But he went out, walking the streets, just talking to people. And I’ve never seen anything like it in my life. When he came back to the hotel around six o’clock, there were three hundred people following him. The Pied Piper couldn’t have done any better. And the night of the fight, the weather was awful. There was a blizzard; the schools were shut down. Snow kept falling; it was windy. Conditions were absolutely horrible. And the fight sold out.’
Some athletes are engaging when they’re young, but lose their charm as their celebrity status grows. But Michael Katz of the New York Daily News recalls the day when Ali, at the peak of his popularity, defended his title against Richard Dunn. ‘On the day of the fight,’ Katz remembers, ‘Ali got bored so he decided to hold a press conference. Word got around. Ali came downstairs, and we went to a conference room in the hotel but it wasn’t set up yet. So every member of the press followed him around. We were like mice, going from room to room, until finally the hotel management set us up someplace. And Ali proceeded to have us all in stitches. He imitated every opponent he’d ever fought, including Richard Dunn, who he hadn’t fought yet. And he was marvellous. You’d have paid more money to see Muhammad Ali on stage at that point than you’d pay today for Robin Williams.’
And Ali retained his charm when he got old.
‘The first Ali fight I ever covered,’ says Ron Borges, ‘was the one against Leon Spinks, where Ali said it made him look silly to talk up an opponent with only seven professional fights so he wasn’t talking. And I said to myself, “Great. Here I am, a young reporter about to cover the most verbally gifted athlete in history, and the man’s not talking.” Anyway, I was at one of Ali’s workouts. Ali finished sparring, picked up a microphone, and told us all what he’d said before: “I’m not talking.” And then he went on for about ninety minutes. Typical Ali, the funniest monologue I’ve ever heard. And when he was done, he put the microphone down, smiled that incredible smile, and told us all, “But I’m not talking.” I’ll always remember the joy of being around Ali,’ Borges says in closing. ‘It was fun. And covering the heavyweights isn’t much fun any more. Ali took that with him when he left, and things have been pretty ugly lately.’
Muhammad Ali did too much for boxing. And the sport isn’t the same without him.
MUHAMMAD ALI AND CONGRESS REMEMBERED
(2000)
At long last, Congress has enacted the Muhammad Ali Boxing Reform Act. As a cure for what ails boxing, the proposed legislation leaves a lot to be desired. Still, it’s a step in the right direction. Meanwhile, Senator Jim Bunning of Kentucky is sponsoring legislation that would authorise President Clinton to award Ali a Congressional Gold Medal (the highest civilian honour that Congress can bestow upon an individual). Thus, it’s worth remembering what an earlier generation of Congressmen had to say about Muhammad Ali at the height of the war in Vietnam.
On 17 February 1966, Ali was reclassified 1-A by his draft board and uttered the immortal words, ‘I ain’t got no quarrel with them Vietcong.’ One month later, Congressman Frank Clark of Pennsylvania rose in Congress and called upon the American public to boycott Ali’s upcoming bout against George Chuvalo:
The heavyweight champion of the world turns my stomach. I am not a superpatriot. But I feel that each man, if he really is a man, owes to his country a willingness to protect it and serve it in time of need. From this standpoint, the heavyweight champion has been a complete and total disgrace. I urge the citizens of the nation as a whole to boycott any of his performances. To leave these theatre seats empty would be the finest tribute possible to that boy whose hearse may pass by the open doors of the theatre on Main Street USA.
In 1967, Ali refused induction into the United States Army, at which point he was stripped of his title and denied a licence to box in all fifty states. That same year, he was indicted, tried, convicted and sentenced to five years in prison. Then, in October 1969, while the appeal of his conviction was pending, ABC announced plans to have Ali serve as a TV commentator for an upcoming amateur boxing