As a lifelong sports fan, I have seen plenty of legendary athletes pass away in my lifetime. In the past calendar year alone, we have lost Yogi Berra, Moses Malone, Ernie Banks, Frank Gifford and Ken Stabler among others. All of those deaths were hard to deal with, but early Saturday morning, we lost the greatest.
''It's hard to be humble when you're as great as I am.''
I'm not going to waste time explaining the basics of who Muhammad Ali was because everybody who is reading this blog knows that. I would, however, like to try and explain his greatness in a way that would reaffirm it to the masses.
There have been plenty of great athletes over the course of history, but it takes a special breed to be the best in the world in their field. It takes an even more special breed to be able to transcend the sport which they take part in, and it takes an almost godly type of breed to be able to become a cultural and political icon. Over his 74 years on this earth, Ali was able to accomplish all of these things. It's incredible to consider that a poor kid from Louisville, who's father abused him, who fainted the first time a girl kissed him, who learned how to fight simply because a bully stole his bicycle, could become the most iconic figure, not only in sports history but also anywhere else.
''If you even dream of beating me, you better wake up and apologize.''
Even Ali's most ardent admirers misunderstood who the man was. For the past 50+ years, Clay/Ali had always been looked at as an arrogant athlete who backed it up. While America has good reason to believe this, as Ali didn't give the most humble interviews in the world, this man performed one of the most selfless acts imaginable.
For those who don't know your history, the 60s were a turbulent time, to say the least. There were murders, riots, sex, drugs, and the need for peace. Many of our boys were getting drafted into the most controversial conflict in American history; the Vietnam War, on March 22nd, 1967, when Ali defeated Zora Folley to retain his heavyweight title for the 9th time via 7th round knockout. It was just a routine day at the office for the ''Lousiville Lip'', until it wasn't.
Why should they ask me to put on a uniform and go 10,000 miles from home and drop bombs and bullets on Brown people in Vietnam while so-called Negro people in Louisville are treated like dogs and denied simple human rights? No I’m not going 10,000 miles from home to help murder and burn another poor nation simply to continue the domination of white slave masters of the darker people the world over. This is the day when such evils must come to an end. I have been warned that to take such a stand would cost me millions of dollars. But I have said it once and I will say it again. The real enemy of my people is here. I will not disgrace my religion, my people or myself by becoming a tool to enslave those who are fighting for their own justice, freedom and equality. If I thought the war was going to bring freedom and equality to 22 million of my people they wouldn’t have to draft me, I’d join tomorrow. I have nothing to lose by standing up for my beliefs. So I’ll go to jail, so what? We’ve been in jail for 400 years.”
About that Vietnam conflict, Ali wasn't a big fan of it. So against it was he that when Uncle Sam called in March of 1966, Ali wouldn't answer. It's hard to type this without sounding cliche, but the man risked everything. He lost his title, which back then was the most prestigious in all of sports. He lost his reputation; who could ever root for a ''draft dodger''? The thing that amazes me about all of this is that for a man as brash, cocky, and arrogant as Ali supposedly was, how could he do something so selfless? Muhammad was no dumb cookie. Sure, he placed 376th out of 391 students in his high school graduation class, but he was as streetwise as they come. So he had to have an idea of what he was giving up.
But he also knew what he believed. Like many Americans, he did not believe in fighting the war, and unlike many draft dodgers, Ali did not hide. He did not flee to Canada. Ali did not take a medical issue. He never burned a flag. Although he did not fight, he did not cower either. He knew he was a champ, and he was determined to be a champ again once his sentence without bars was over.
''I am the greatest. I said that even before I knew I was.''
We could talk about the war all day, but Ali, of course, was a boxer. So let's talk about boxing. Boy, what a fighter he was. Heavyweight fighters tend to be brutal. The are big, scary, and overall, love to hit and hit hard. In all the years of heavyweight boxing, I can only think of two fighters who, if I were to watch their fights with the genius of Mozart playing in the background, would be able to blend the two beautifully together. The first is Joe Louis, who will always be the most perfect puncher of all time. The other is Muhammed Ali.
By the time young Cassius Clay rolled around in the early 60s, America had grown used to seeing the prototypical heavyweight. From Jack Johnson and Jack Dempsy in the early part of the century, down to Rocky Marciano in the 50s, heavyweights were thought of to be tough, tenacious maulers. But Clay wasn't like any of the greats that preceded him in the division. He was more like the middleweight icon, Sugar Ray Robinson. Clay described himself as a young man who was young, fast, handsome, and who couldn't possibly be beaten, and he was all of those things.
Clay hit hard enough. The fact that 37 of his 56 career victories were via some form of knockout would attest to that. But watching him fight was different from other guys. It was not barbaric. It was as smooth as the Jazz stylings of Duke Ellington and Louis Armstrong. He moved around, almost to the point where he was ballroom dancing. His punches were also smooth, and he brought beauty to boxing the way no MMA fighter could to their sport.
Another thing that fascinates me about this man is the fact that the Muhammad Ali that we remember most vividly was not at his greatest when it came to boxing. The truth of the matter is that Ali's prime was before he converted to Islam, before he dodged the draft, and before he fought Joe Frazier for the first time on March 8th, 1971 at Madison Square Garden. Saying this is in no way meant as a slight. The Ali that beat Frazier twice out of three, that mentally clowned George Forman in Zaire, and who defeated Leon Spinks to win his 3rd heavyweight title in what should have been his last fight, was legendary beyond comprehension. But from a boxing sense, all you need to know about what young Cassius Clay could do is captured in his first fight with Sonny Liston.
To put it into perspective, the odds of young Cassius defeating Liston on the faithful night of February 25th, 1964 were about as good as the chances of Cleveland knocking off Golden State in this year's NBA Finals. Liston was everything that Clay was not both in the ring and out. He was a mauler whose object was to destroy anybody who dared step inside the ring with him. Outside of boxing, he was as serious as a heart attack with no sense of humor. Liston was bigger, stronger, and expected to dispose of Cassius within the first three rounds. In spite of the prognosis of doom, Clay remained confident, talking down the champion and talking up himself.
What was supposed to be a smooth sailing victory for the champ turned in to one of the most important nights in sports history. After six rounds of frustrating the hell out of Liston, the champ finally had enough. Liston's story was that his shoulder was bothering him, but as the controversial but intelligent boxing analyst Larry Merchant pointed out several decades later; "You don't give up the biggest prize in the world because your shoulder hurts. (Liston) quit,'' and that's the story that I find most believable. Clay was the champ, and the world would change because of it. My very favorite Clay/Ali moment happened in the post fight interview.
From March of 1967 through October of 1970, the champ was powerless. He had no boxing license, no title, and an awful lot of haters. But Muhammad persisted, and on October 26th, 1970, he was back in the squared circle, quickly taking out Jerry Quarry in the 3rd round via TKO. On December 7th, Oscar Bonavena came and went. Joe Frazier was next.
''Joe Frazier is an Uncle Tom. He works for the enemy.''
In the eyes of most people, the most controversial aspect of Ali's life was his decision to dodge the draft. But in my eyes, the most controversial aspect was how he treated Joe Frazier. The relationship between the two men inside of the ring is easy to explain. They were perfect compliments to each other, with Frazier as more of a street fighter and Ali more of a boxer. Together, they made magic, as two of their three fights were some of the greatest combinations of athleticism, endurance and theater in the history of sports (the middle bout was a snoozer.) Since boxing is an individual sport, Ali-Frazier were the fight games version of Bonnie and Clyde, Gilbert and Sullivan, Simon and Garfunkel, etc. Outside of the ring, the story is more complicated and more disheartening.
To sum up how things were between the two, when Ali lit the torch in Atlanta to open the 1996 Summer Olympics, it moved 99.9% of the world to tears. The other .1% was Joe Frazier, who is said to have stated that if he had been close to Ali, he would have ''pushed him into the flames''. So horribly affected was Joe Frazier by the names Ali called him (''Gorilla, Uncle Tom''), that even the horrible reality of Parkinson's disease could not soften the blows for the longest time. However, judging by this video, Frazier might have warmed up to Ali in his later years, so there is no telling what '"Smokin Joe'' would have to say about the man if he was alive at the time of Ali's death (Frazier passed away in 2011).
I done something new for this fight. I wrestled with an alligator. I tussled with a whale. I handcuffed lightning, I thrown thunder in jail.
Only last week I murdered a rock, injured a stone, hospitalized a brick. I'm so mean I make medicine sick."
He did this by connecting with them, talking with them, caring about them, and teaching them the now iconic war cry ''Ali Bomaye'', which means ''Ali kill him'' in the Lingala language. The crowd was all for Ali, but he still had to conquer the beast. And how did he plan on overcoming him? Have Foreman beat the living hell out of him, naturally. Ali figured that if he let Foreman pound him early by putting himself against the ropes, George would eventually tire out and allow Ali to go in for the kill. The ''rope-a-dope'' worked to perfection, and Ali finally capitalised by knocking Foreman out in the 8th round with, in the words of Foreman himself, ''the hardest shot I have ever been hit with''. ''The Rumble in the Jungle'' was great, but Ali's finest hour was yet to come.
''It will be a thriller, and a killer, and a chiller, when I get the gorilla, in Manila.''
Less than one year later, Ali and Frazier met again. Would it once again be at Madison Square Garden, as the first two were? Far from it. The rubber match of rubber matches took place in the Phillipino land of Manilla. The temperature in the ring is said to have been 120 degrees, but the two men duked it out for 14 rounds. I don't care what anybody says; this is the greatest fight of all time and will never be eclipsed. After round number 14, Frazier desperately wanted to come out for the final round, but his trainer, the honorable Eddie Futch, would not allow him to risk his health any further, taking off the gloves and telling Frazier that nobody would ever forget what he had done in that ring. The part that gravitates this fight to mythic proportions is that, as legend has it, Ali was ready to cut the gloves off himself before Futch called it for Frazier. It was a great triumph, but it took a lot out of both men, and should have been Ali's last fight. Sadly, it was not.
The man did have one last triumph left in him, as after losing his title to Leon Spinks, he defeated him in the rematch to win the heavyweight championship for the 3rd time. It looked like this would be Ali's last ride, but it wasn't to be. Two years later, Larry Holmes was next.
Please, for the love of god, do not watch the Ali-Holmes fight. Don't you dare do it. It will ruin your whole night. Holmes maimed Ali in what was one of the saddest events in the history of sports. After a fight with Trevor Burbick that nobody remembers, Ali's career was over. His next battle was with Parkinson's. Now, it is commonly speculated that Ali's disease was a result of taking so many blows, and while this is certainly plausible, it has not been proven 100%. Regardless of what caused Ali's condition, there's nothing I can say about it that hasn't been said already. It was tragic beyond words, and it is a shame that Ali could not be Ali for the last 30 years of his life.
On Sunday, I read an article that was critical of Ali's refusal to go to Vietnam. Wetheror not Ali did the right thing is up for debate, but now is not the time to be critical of ''The Champ''. He believed what he believed, and like many Americans, he did not want to fight. But unlike many Americans, he did not run away from it. He did not protest violently. He did not burn any flags. He just said he wasn't gonna go, and he didn't go. He stuck to his beliefs, and was more of man than we could ever give him credit for.
I ask all of you readers that when you speak of Muhammad Ali, don't refer to him as ''champ''. Plenty of people have been champs in the great history of boxing. But there is only one man who can be called ''The Greatest'', and his likes are not to be seen ever again. No athlete will ever be so smooth in the ring. No athlete will ever be so poetic out of the ring. No athlete will ever do as much outside of the sport. God bless your soul. For the first time in 30 years, you can talk with the best of them. You can float like a butterfly and sting like a bee just like the Ali of old. You are the Louisville Lip, the hero, the GOAT. You are in a better place. Rest easy.
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