Or this before he upset Foreman in the Rumble in the Jungle in Zaire. ''The crowd did not dream when they lay down their money that they would see a total eclipse of the Sonny,'' Ali said. I mean, who else could possibly come up with this line before meeting Liston for the heavyweight title in 1964 in the biggest fight of his young life? It wasn't just the things he said about his opponents that were so memorable, though they were. Even more impossible was that the voice that roared so loud and so often would be nearly mute for the last few decades of his life. It hardly seemed possible then that this exquisitely sculptured man would spend his later years stooped over and trembling, unable to do the basic human tasks like tie his shoes or brush his teeth. Still, his willingness to take punches in the ring - he estimated at one point he had taken 29,000 blows to the head - would soon doom him to a life of living with the debilitating effects of Parkinson's.
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There weren't many bad nights like that for Ali in a pro career that spanned the better part of two decades. ''Then why did you whip my ass like that?'' Ali replied. In a darkened room, he leaned over and, kissed Ali on the cheek and told him he loved him. Later that night Holmes paid a visit to Ali's hotel suite. The fight was finally stopped after 10 rounds, with Ali sitting on a stool, offering no resistance. He barely laid a glove on Holmes, taking such a beating that Holmes begged the referee several time to stop the fight so he wouldn't permanently damage his idol. This, after all, was a man who whipped the scowling Sonny Liston, stopped the fearsome George Foreman in Africa and won a battle nearly to the death with Joe Frazier in the Philippines.īut the one opponent Ali couldn't beat was Father Time. Surely he could beat Holmes, his former sparring partner.
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We couldn't bear not to listen, even when his greatness had obviously faded and the words that electrified a generation didn't flow quite as easily as they once did. He had convinced me, just as he convinced others, that there was one more fight left in him, one more heavyweight belt to wrap around his waist. It was my first Ali fight and, like most of the 25,000 in the crowd outdoors at Caesars Palace that night, I hoped against hope I would see the Ali of old in the ring. ''I'm Dark Gable,'' Ali said, much to the delight of the writers who could barely conceal their glee in having Ali in front of them once again. At the age of 38 he had also grown a mustache to show off during the prefight press tour. He had lost nearly 40 pounds to get his body to a reasonable replication of its magnificent prime. It was 1980 and Muhammad Ali had no business being in the ring against a younger and stronger Larry Holmes, no matter how much his entourage kept telling him how good he looked in training.Īnd he did look good.