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Visiting Muhammad Ali

Having grown up 50 miles north of Chicago I spent much time there. I occasionally trained at the old CYO gym just west of downtown. Larry Freeman and I drove from Wisconsin to watch the incomparable Muhammad Ali train at the old Mayor Daley’s Navy Pier gym one beautiful spring day in 1971. The gym was located at the end of the pier, which is approximately 280-foot wide and extends more than one-half mile into Lake Michigan

The self-proclaimed “Greatest of all time” was forced out of boxing by the federal government for refusing to be inducted into the United States Army during the Vietnam War. As he put it, “I ain’t got no quarrel with them Vietcong.”

Because of legal troubles, the undefeated champion was stripped of his heavyweight championship and wasn’t allowed to fight from March 22, 1967, until October 26, 1970.

After his return to boxing, he fought perennial contender Jerry Quarry. In any other era other than the 1970s that included Ali, George Foreman and Joe Frazier, Irish Jerry Quarry, probably would have become a world champion. He was a small heavyweight at 6-foot-1, 195 pounds, but he was a very crafty boxer who could punch with either hand.

Early in the bout, the great Ali, who was too big, fast and skillful, hit Quarry above his left eye, causing a severe cut. In the third round, the referee stopped the bout and Ali was credited with a third-round technical knockout win. In Ali’s next bout, he had a rough time with Oscar Bonavena, the durable contender from Argentina, until catching him clean and knocking him out in the 15^th round on December 7, 1970. Then, in the “battle of the century,” Ali suffered the first loss of his career via a 15-round unanimous decision against the undefeated Smokin’ Joe Frazier. Ali was attempting to win back the heavyweight championship that had been taken from him when he refused induction into the United States Army. That fight on March 8, 1971, was voted the Ring Magazine Fight of the Year and went down in history as one of the greatest boxing matches ever as both warriors beat each other so fiercely that both of them went to the hospital after the bout. Frazier legitimately whipped Ali and solidified his victory with a sensational knockdown of Ali in the 15^th and final round of their first bout. However, Ali also earned a measure of respect for rising from the canvas after tasting the devastating power of Frazier’s brutal left hook.

Ali later would redeem himself against Frazier by beating him in 1974 and again in ’75 in the classic “Thrilla in Manila.” Ali was quoted as saying the fights against Frazier were like a near-death experience. All three fights were voted Fight of the Year by Ring Magazine.

After the first Frazier fight in 1971, Ali returned to the gym in the spring to prepare for a summer match against Jimmy Ellis, his boyhood friend, former champion and former sparring partner. Ellis actually had beaten him as an amateur when they were teenagers, but hardly anybody believed he could beat Ali then. He was training in Chicago for his bout at Mayor Richard Daley’s foundation gym at Navy Pier on the shore of Lake Michigan.

 

He was born Cassius Clay and had captured an Olympic Gold medal as a light heavyweight in 1960 in Rome under that name. After winning his first championship by defeating the formidable Sonny Liston in 1964, Clay joined the Nation of Islam and changed his name to Muhammad Ali. He was handsome, flashy, cocky and an incredibly gifted athlete. I wasn’t really a fan then; I thought he was a racist because of the way he acted and talked. I believed that he hated white people and that he was no different than a Klansman. I believed then and still do now that Islam is an ungodly religion. But I was fascinated by Ali’s skill and boxing ability. In those early days, his speed and mobility were untouchable. He was so fast he could dismantle huge, powerful, skillful heavyweights literally in the blink of an eye. “Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee,” – a phrase coined by Drew “Bundini” Brown, one of Ali’s handlers – described Ali’s unbelievable ability.

Before Ali’s arrival on the fistic scene, fighters were quiet, very polite and civil to each other. Then, Cassius Clay roared onto the fight scene like a hurricane and into the news by predicting not only victory, but boldly declaring the very round he would knock out his opponent. His statements were unbelievably brash and bold.

He said things like: “I am the greatest of all times;” “If you even dream of beating me, you’d better wake up and apologize;” “Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee. Your hands can’t hit what your eyes can’t see;” “I’m so fast that last night I turned off the light switch in my hotel room and was in bed before the room was dark;” “I ‘m so pretty. I’m pretty as a girl. I don’t have a mark on my face; I’m a bad man! You must listen to me! I can’t be beat! … I’m the prettiest thing that ever lived!”

His statements were so outlandish he was called the “Louisville Lip.” These were things you would never expect a man to say. But he was man enough to back up every word he spoke. His nemesis, Ken Norton, said, “Ali was a showman. He brought the eyes of the world toward boxing. But he could back up what he said.”

Returning triumphantly from Rome to Louisville, Ali was bitterly disappointed at not being welcomed as an American hero in his segregated hometown. According to one story, after being refused service at a Louisville diner while wearing the Olympic medal around his neck, Ali threw it into the Ohio River.”

He could be so charming, but in an instant he could turn cold and cruel. In a championship fight against Ernie Terrell in 1967 he kept yelling, “What’s my name, fool? What’s my name?” when Terrell insisted on calling him Cassius Clay.

He had the nerve to call the fearsome and ferocious Sonny Liston a “big ugly bear” and then had the courage to step into the boxing ring with the champion, who was considered unbeatable He outboxed, outmoved, outsmarted and outclassed the bigger, stronger, more powerful Liston, stopping him in the seventh round to win the heavyweight championship of the world at age 21. Nearly all of the writers and pundits had dismissed him as a loudmouth and a fake, and had picked Liston to win the fight.

Arthur Daley of the New York Post wrote before the fight, “The loudmouth from Louisville is likely to have a lot of vainglorious boasts jammed down his throat by a ham-like fist belonging to Liston, the malefic destroyer who is champion of the world.”

After Clay’s victory he shouted to reporters, “Eat your words! Eat your words! I am the greatest.”

He belittled Joe Frazier and called him an “Uncle Tom.” He also called him ugly. “Joe Frazier is so ugly he should donate his face to the U.S. Bureau of Wildlife.”

This created a bitter rivalry with Frazier that he only was able to let go in recent years. “I don’t think two big men ever fought fights like me and Joe Frazier,” Ali said years later. “One fight maybe. But three times; we were the only ones. Of all the men I fought in boxing, Sonny Liston was the scariest; George Foreman was the most powerful; Floyd Patterson was the most skilled as a boxer, but the roughest and toughest was Joe Frazier. He brought out the best in me, and the best fight we fought was in Manila. So I’m sorry Joe Frazier is mad at me. I’m sorry I hurt him. Joe Frazier is a good man. I couldn’t have done what I did without him, and he couldn’t have done what he did without me.”

Of George Foreman he said, “You think the world was shocked when Nixon resigned? Wait till I whup (sic) George Foreman’s behind.”

He angered and scared those whom he fought. He also angered and scared the establishment. “I am America. I am the part you won’t recognize, but get used to me. Black, confident, cocky – my name, not yours. My religion, not yours. My goal, my own. Get used to me,” Ali declared.

This was a time of social change in America. Rev. Martin Luther King led marches throughout the country fighting for equality. Naturally, black Americans wanted to stop discrimination and to be allowed the same opportunities as white Americans. There were race riots in most major cities and black power advocates who called for revolution.

“Slavery was over, but the black man felt suppressed. He felt that the whites wanted to keep him beneath him,” said my good friend Warren Williams, a former professional heavyweight boxer from our gym that I managed as a professional.

“The black man has been emasculated,” black activist Eldridge Cleaver said.

While Dr. Martin Luther King advocated non-violent protest, Malcolm X promoted active self -defense. “There can be no revolution without bloodshed,” he said.

This was the culture that Muhammad Ali grew up in. He courageously stood up and shouted, “I’m black and I’m proud. I’m black and I’m pretty. Black is beautiful.”

In the midst of this climate of racial tension came this incredible athlete, a big-mouthed, boxer who said whatever he felt no matter what. There were no euphemisms with Ali. He said what was on his mind and didn’t care what anyone else thought. He was bold, blatant, conspicuous and loud. He courageously stood up against Sonny Liston, Joe Frazier, George Foreman, the establishment and the United States government, and won fights against every one of them.

“We idolized him because he said things that would have gotten us arrested if we had said them. He said things that black folks felt but didn’t say publicly,” said Williams.

“I loved Ali; I still do. As a young black, at times I was ashamed of my color; I was ashamed of my hair. And Ali made me proud. I’m just as happy being black now as you are being white, and Ali was a part of that growing process,” said Baseball Hall of Fame member Reggie Jackson.

When we arrived at Navy Pier gym in Chicago that beautiful spring day to watch him train, there were about 100 other fans there to watch, too. After he trained and took a shower, he came out of the dressing room and walked onto the basketball floor of the gymnasium. He took a basketball and started shooting hook shots from half court, and was actually making some of the shots. As he did this the self-proclaimed greatest said, “I bet you Wilt Chamberlain can’t do that.”

Madison Square Garden boxing czar Harry Markson told of a similar experience: “I guess what I remember most about it wasn’t the fight, but what happened after the weigh-in. Ali was walking across the floor of the arena. There was a basketball team practicing, and one of the players threw the ball to him. He was standing at mid-court, but he took a shot anyway, just flung the ball toward the basket. And I’ll be if it didn’t go in; swish. Everyone just stared in awe, but that was the kind of luck I figured followed Ali.”

After he finished shooting baskets at Navy Pier that day, he entertained and mingled with the crowd. He signed autographs, kissed babies and hugged the young ladies. The adoring fans idolized the great boxing champion. The larger-than-life Ali had a soft side. He genuinely cared about people and loved to entertain.

Several months later during the week of Thanksgiving, I was in Cherry Hill, New Jersey with my wife Diane, her aunt Wanda and two cousins. Ali happened to live there. We went searching for his house. When we finally found it, there was Ali on the roof, gathering his own leaves. I hollered at him from the road above the house and he invited us into his driveway. I got out of the car and started talking with him. When he started down from the roof, I walked toward a ladder leaning on the house. My wife’s cousins, Tracy and Todd Strachan, were about 11 and 12 years old. They began to challenge Ali to jump from the roof to which he replied an emphatic “No, no.” Their challenges grew bolder and bolder as they continued to goad the champ by saying things like, “My grandmother’s pump house is higher than that and I jump off of it all the time.” No matter how much they teased him, Ali wouldn’t jump, but opted to climb safely down the ladder.

When he came down from the roof, he started toward the front door of the house and said “Y’all come on in.”

My wife and her aunt got out of the car and we all followed Ali into his beautiful house. He gave us a tour of the gorgeous home. I remember that it had a lovely courtyard in the center of the house and that he had an office in the basement where he autographed photos for each of us.

“This mean, cold-hearted boxing champion was really a teddy bear outside of the ring.

Ali went on to reclaim his title by beating the young champion, George Foreman, in Zaire in the “Rumble in the Jungle.” Just like they did years before when he fought Liston, everyone including some of those who trained him thought that Foreman would kill him. But Ali man-handled the great undefeated young champion with his unique “rope-a-dope” style. He lay on the ropes and allowed Foreman to tire himself out. He became the most recognizable face in the world, adored everywhere and welcomed into the homes of movie stars and kings alike. Even Elvis Presley gave him a boxing robe reported to cost $5,000. He became so famous that when he spoke, E.F. Hutton listened. I was in the New Orleans Superdome on September 15, 1978, when Ali regained his title for the third time from Leon Spinks, the young man who had won the 1976 Olympic gold medal in Montreal in the light-heavyweight division. Spinks had out-hustled the aging Ali to win his championship several months before. The Superdome was filled with 63,350 people to see Ali win his title back. Ali had the ability to draw crowds normally reserved for the Super Bowl. While there that night, I could tell Ali’s skills had greatly diminished and even though he won I knew the end of his career was near.

He fought two more times and lost both bouts. He fought champion Larry Holmes on October 2, 1980, and was stopped in the 10^th round. Then on December 12, 1981, he faced future world champion Trevor Berbick and lost a 10-round unanimous decision. Because of his diminished skills, he took a lot of punishment in both of those bouts which were very hard on his body.

Since retiring from the ring, Ali suffers from Parkinson’s disease, a neurological affliction that causes tremors, loss of balance, memory lapses and confusion. Doctors believe Ali’s disease was caused by repeated blows to the head that he suffered in the latter part of his career. Many believe his last two bouts were the worst on his body. The young Ali was almost untouchable, but late in his career he would lay on the boxing ropes in his “rope a dope” style. I believe it was the stigma of slavery, the continued oppression, prejudice, inequality and hatred toward blacks that created this anger in Ali and black America. Slavery was wrong and it was evil. Jesus, the God-man who gave us the greatest gift of all when he voluntarily laid down his life so that others might live said, “By this all will know that you are my disciples, if you have love one for another.” (John 13:35.)

Children in Sunday school sing a song called, “Jesus loves the little children, all the children of the world, red and yellow, black and white; they are all precious in his sight.”

Jesus gave us a commission and said, “Go into all the world and preach the gospel to ever creature.” (Mark 16:15.)

We have a responsibility to love all and to tell all about the love of Jesus. “Beloved let us love one another for love is of God; and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. He who does not love does not know God, for God is love.” (1 John 4:7.)

When I managed the career of junior welterweight Continental of Americas champion Darryl “Fast Fists” Fuller, we became so close that Fuller, who is African-American often would say to me, “Kerry, you know how them white people do you.” I’d laughingly reply, “Yeah, Darryl, I know how they do you.” But prejudice and hatred aren’t a white thing or a black thing; they are an individual thing. Each of us chooses in his heart to love or hate our fellow man. In reality, all of us are sinners regardless of our race or ethnicity. The Bible declares that God made all of us from one blood and we are equal in God’s eyes (Acts 17:26).

At a time when times were really tough for blacks in America, Ali stood up defiantly and spoke out about the things he thought were wrong. He gave pride to black America and he gave them a voice that could be heard. He was a heroic icon for black people and black pride. To the rest of us he was simply “The Greatest.”