Muhammad Ali: A Tribute to the Greatest (23 page)

JOE FRAZIER:
I don’t want to knock him out. I want to hurt him. If I knock him down, I’ll stand back, give him a chance to breathe. It’s his heart I want.

MUHAMMAD ALI:
I got something new for Joe Frazier. I got a balloon punch and a needle punch. The balloon punch is a left jab, which swells him up, blows him up, puffs him up. And the needle’s gonna bust him. That’s the right hand. Whop!

JERRY IZENBERG:
Inside the ring, Muhammad Ali and Joe Frazier brought out the best in each other. Outside the ring, they brought out the worst.

DAVE WOLF:
It’s possible that, by the time Ali and Joe reached Manila, neither one of them was the best heavyweight in the world anymore. Joe was nowhere near the fighter he’d once been, and neither was Ali. But as occasionally happens in boxing, their declining curves crossed at exactly the same spot. They were so evenly matched and put so much of themselves into the fight that it was historic.

MUHAMMAD ALI
[in an Ali-Frazier III post-fight interview conducted while sitting on a stool in mid-ring]: I was surprised Joe had so much stamina. There was too much pressure. He’s the greatest fighter of all times next to me. This is too painful. It’s too much work. I might have a heart attack or something. I want to get out while I’m on top. And one more thing. I want everybody to know that I’m the greatest fighter of all times, and the greatest city of all times is Louisville, Kentucky.

BOBBY GOODMAN [A PUBLICIST FOR ALI-FRAZIER III]:
After the Thrilla in Manila ended, Ali went to his dressing room and collapsed on a couch. He was completely exhausted. I told him the media was waiting for the post-fight press conference. And he said, “Tell ’em I’m too tired. I can’t move.” I’d never seen him like that before, where he couldn’t do anything but lie there. But I had to do my thing as a publicist and get someone to the press conference, so I ran across to Joe Frazier’s dressing room. Joe and Eddie Futch were there, very down, very depressed. I said, “Joe, I know it’s tough, but we need you for a post-fight interview. Muhammad is finding it hard to get there. Can you help me out?” They said they’d do it. That gave me the opportunity to run back to Muhammad’s dressing room and say, “Champ; Joe Frazier’s down at the press conference.” Ali found that hard to believe. But finally, he said, “All right; get me my robe. If Joe Frazier’s there, I’m gonna be there too.”

JOE FRAZIER:
Ali was the one who spoke about being nearly dead in Manila; not me.

MUHAMMAD ALI:
I got tired of seeing Joe Frazier in the ring. And I guess he got tired of seeing me too, because I whupped him two out of three times that we fought.

LARRY MERCHANT:
Ali was a warrior. He was in a hurting business, a hard business, the toughest game there is. And no matter what his style was, underneath it all he was one tough son-of-a-bitch. Most people never thought of him that way. If you looked at how people saw Muhammad Ali, that wouldn’t be high on the list. But I’m telling you, in the ring he was as tough a son-of-a-bitch as anyone who ever lived.

DICK GREGORY:
We live in a society where we claim we don’t want our children to drink. Even drinkers say they don’t want their children to drink. But when the World Series, the basketball championships, any great athletic competition is over, there’s always champagne. Little kids see their heroes pumping champagne, guzzling champagne, pouring champagne on each other’s heads. And until Ali, you never heard praise to God. He was the first great athlete to show the world the importance of prayer. After his fights, right in the ring, the whole world got to see the spiritual Ali. When they put that television microphone in front of him, the first thing Ali always did was give thanks to God, and then the interview could begin.

LEROY NEIMAN:
I did a life-size painting of Ali once. It was eight feet tall. John Condon presented it to Ali at some big Madison Square Garden boxing dinner. When the dinner was over, Ali’s not going to walk out with an eight-foot painting. So Don King said to him, “Don’t worry, Ali. I’ll take care of it for you and see that you get it.” And of course, the next thing you know, the painting is in King’s office at Rockefeller Center behind King’s desk. Ali asked him about it at one point, but all he got was a lot of double-talk. And Ali acted like he didn’t care, because that’s the way he is. Then, about a year later, I went to Don’s office and the painting wasn’t there. I asked what happened to it and he told me Herbert had it. Herbert had taken a shine to the painting and put the screws to Don to get it. And a little while after that, I got a phone call from Ali. Ali actually called me up and said, “Veronica [his wife at the time] really wants that painting.” I told him Herbert had it, and he said, “Well, if Herbert has it, I can’t get it from him. But if you call Herbert and tell him it’s my painting, maybe you can get it.” He gave me Herbert’s home telephone number. So I called Herbert and said, “Ali really wants that painting. He must want it pretty bad, because he asked me to call you. And it’s Ali’s painting.” Herbert didn’t want to give it up. He said, “How do you know it’s Ali’s painting? I got it from Don King.” I told him, “Herbert; I know it’s Ali’s painting because I gave it to him. I didn’t give it to Don King. I gave it to Ali.” Herbert said, “Well, Ali doesn’t really want it. It’s Veronica who wants it.” And I told him, “Herbert, it doesn’t matter. I gave that painting to Ali.” Finally, after much pushing and prodding, Herbert sent the painting to Ali. Then, after the divorce, Veronica sold it to Joe Weider.

HAROLD CONRAD:
Ali’s old man was completely nuts. He always fancied himself a singer; always wanted to sing
The Star Spangled Banner
before Ali’s fights. We never let him, but I got him a gig once. We were in Puerto Rico for the Coopman fight. They had a half-assed lounge in the hotel, and I asked the manager, “Do you want to have Muhammad Ali’s father singing here?” The manager said all right. So we put him in the lounge and he sang “My Way” every night.

JERRY IZENBERG:
Jean Pierre Coopman, who was known as “The Lion of Flanders,” was probably the worst fighter that Ali ever fought. Someone involved in the promotion said to me, “Listen, don’t be deceived. This kid can fight. He could hurt you.” And I pointed out, “Coopman ain’t fighting me. He’s fighting Muhammad Ali.”

MICHAEL KATZ:
Ali looked awful against Jimmy Young, but I go crazy every time somebody tells me they think Young won that fight. You can’t win a round by sticking your head out of the ring, which is what Young did all night. Each time a fighter sticks his head out of the ring, that should be a two-point round. It’s like seeking shelter during the middle of a fight. You’re not allowed to do that in boxing.

RANDY NEUMANN:
I was a fringe contender in the mid-1970s. The name of the game was, play your cards right and maybe you could make a couple of hundred thousand dollars by signing to fight Ali. Probably he would have beaten me, because basically I was a jabber and he had the best jab in the business. But if I’d gotten outpointed, so what. That happened in the gym all the time. And Ali wasn’t an intimidating fighter like Foreman or Frazier who’d beat the crap out of you. In fact, at the end of his career, he was going fifteen rounds with guys like Alfredo Evangelista and Jimmy Young, and I was better than they were. In fact, I beat Jimmy Young, and Young almost beat Ali. So Ali was the brass ring that kept me and a lot of guys like me going. I’m sorry I didn’t have the chance to fight him. I’d have made a fortune and had a ball.

IRVING RUDD:
Madison Square Garden wanted to match Ali with Duane Bobick in 1977. They even had a verbal commitment from Herbert to do the fight for $2,500,000. But then Bundini got to Ali and said, “The Garden is trying to get you knocked off by a white guy. They want a white guy to win the title.” So Ali told Teddy Brenner that he wanted Earnie Shavers instead. Teddy told him, “Shavers is a much tougher fight.” But Ali was insistent, so they made Ali-Shavers. And while we were waiting for that fight to happen, Ken Norton destroyed Bobick in 52 seconds. I watched Norton-Bobick with Ali and some of the other entourage members. As soon as it ended, Ali got up, walked over to Bundini, and said, “You dumb nigger; you told me that white boy could fight.” Slap. Slap. “You dumb nigger; what’s wrong with you? I could have fought that white boy for $2,500,000.”

EARNIE SHAVERS:
The Acorn. Yeah, I remember. You see, Ali nicknamed a lot of the fighters he fought, and he called me The Acorn because of my shaved head. Well, Ali found out that night that The Acorn is a hard nut to crack.

WILT CHAMBERLAIN:
I always felt that the worst chink in Muhammad’s armor was that he had no close friends who he trusted, who cared enough about him to give him good advice and help him in the right direction. If he’d had friends like that, they’d have told him, “The time has come for you to do something besides boxing. Use everything you’ve got going for you outside the ring, because right now whenever you fight you’re getting your head beaten in.” I know for myself, I’ve been fortunate to have friends with the balls to tell me when it’s time to give something up or not do something else, and I’ve listened to what they had to say. Ali had nobody like that advising him in the right direction. He fought long after he should have retired. And from what I’ve heard, he was used and continues to be used in ways that aren’t very nice.

AL BERNSTEIN:
Boxing is like everything else. Nobody quits when they’re on top. Frank Sinatra is still singing long past the time when he could sing. There are dozens of aging sportscasters running around, doing mediocre play-by-play. The only reason Steve Carlton and Tommy John aren’t playing baseball anymore is that no team would let them. Unlike other sports, boxing has no cuts to make and it doesn’t have to put its best players on the field. Promoters are happy to put anyone in the ring if they can make money off them, and most boxing commissions let them. So it’s sad, really. Ali should have been one of the guys who got out okay, but he didn’t. In the end, even though it was his own fault, there’s plenty of blame to go around.

SYLVESTER STALLONE:
The people around him were bad people. They used him as a payday and badgered him to go on and on long after he should have quit. They all saw him coming apart. It didn’t happen in one night.

BILL RUSSELL:
I never saw him fight. I would never go to a fight. I just wouldn’t. I went to one a long time ago and I told myself I’d never go back. They’re much cleaner on television.

JOHN SCHULIAN:
Laughter was constant when you were in Ali’s presence. Yet as I think of the pieces I wrote during the last five years of his career, I cannot ignore the capacity he also had for turning a smile upside down.

HUGH MCILVANNEY:
No one has been able to explain to Ali that fooling around with dreams of immortality can shorten your life.

JERRY IZENBERG:
Ali has a huge head. That made for wonderful photographs. But once his legs began to fail him, it also made a pretty good target.

GIL ROGIN [FORMER EDITORIAL DIRECTOR FOR TIME, INC.]:
I was lucky. I never had a bad moment with Ali. I wasn’t there at the end.

REX LARDNER:
It is one of the illusions of Muhammad Ali that, no matter how bloody the carnage in an endless series of battles fought, he will be the last to leave the field.

HUGH MCILVANNEY:
The ring activities of Muhammad Ali now have all the grace and sporting appeal of Russian roulette played with a pump-action shotgun. The unquestionable lesson is that it is no longer his time. Muhammad Ali can still preach and philosophize, boast and charm. What he can’t do is fight. The genie is gone from the bottle forever.

JERRY IZENBERG:
As far as Ali-Holmes is concerned, Ali had come to the right town. If you want to be deluded, go to Las Vegas. That’s the place where, whatever you want, they’ll pander to it. Whatever dream you have, they’ll let you pursue it; but with the clear understanding that, when it’s all over, the house wins. So if you wanted to dream that Ali could be heavyweight champion of the world again; that’s okay, suckers. Pick a year and we’ll freeze the calendar for you—until the bell rings.

JOHN SCHULIAN:
What awaits us [in Ali-Holmes] may be a mismatch on the order of cockroach versus heel.

ALEX WALLAU:
I’ll never forget walking with Howard Cosell two or three days before the Holmes fight. There was an atmosphere in Las Vegas that gave Ali a chance. His physical skills had diminished; his reflexes were shot; his motor skills weren’t the same. But there were intelligent ringwise boxing people who thought he might win. I can take you to the exact spot in the parking lot at Caesar’s Palace where Cosell said to me, “You know, Holmes is vulnerable to the right hand, and Ali has always been able to land the straight right. I think the old master is going to do it one more time.” And I told him, “Howard, not only is Ali not going to win the fight; not only is he not going to win a round; he’s not going to win ten seconds of any round.”

MICHAEL KATZ:
When Ali fought Larry Holmes, he wasn’t in condition to shadow box for fifteen rounds.

DR. DONALD ROMEO [WHO EXAMINED ALI FOR THE NEVADA STATE ATHLETIC COMMISSION BEFORE ALI-HOLMES AND OKAYED THE FIGHT]:
So he takes some blows to the region of the kidneys and there’s blood in his urine. Big deal. It clears up in a day or two; end of story. They talk of brain damage. That’s a bunch of bunk.

BOB ARUM:
Greed is the essence of boxing. And it wasn’t only the promoter’s greed; it was the regulators’ greed. The State of Nevada allowed that fight to happen.

LLOYD PRICE:
I was in Vegas for Ali-Holmes and it sickened me. I couldn’t handle it. And what I thought about all through that fight was a day I’d spent in New York with Ali and Joe Louis maybe ten years earlier. Joe had been with me because there was a little bird singing in my band who he liked a lot, and Ali and I had been friends for years. Somehow or other, we got together and they were talking, mostly about boxing. I was listening. They got along well that day; no tension of any kind between them. Ali asked, “Joe, tell me something. What happens in the ring when you get old?” He was asking about Joe’s fight against Rocky Marciano, when Joe was 37 years old with that bald spot in the middle of his head; when he got knocked through the ropes and was counted out. Joe said, “Ali, let me tell you something. When I was young and wanted to throw a punch, I could throw it as fast as I wanted. But when I got old, my brain would tell me to do something and my arms just wouldn’t do it.” Ali was listening, but I don’t think he understood what Joe was saying; not until he fought Larry Holmes.