A great boxer and an even greater humanitarian
Perceptions by Gerry Warner
It took me a long time to warm up to Muhammad Ali and
that’s strange because I’ve been an aficionado of the “sweet science” as far
back as the glory days of Rocky Marciano and Sugar Ray Robinson, two of the
sport’s greatest.
I knew the Champ was close to the end of his
tumultuous life, because I’d been following his post-boxing career for a long
time and his brave battle with Parkinson’s, one of the few defeats he had in
his storied career.
Still, when I heard the sad news on the radio as I was
getting ready for my morning run I was stunned as if I had been hit by an Ali
blow myself. Honest to God, Ali was such a hero to me, it was like when
President Kennedy was assassinated, the Twin Towers fell and Michael Jackson
would moon dance no more.
Say what you want about the Excited States of America.
They sure know how to produce legends bigger than life down there. Tall
buildings too.
But as I said at the beginning, I initially didn’t
like Ali at all. He was far too brash and arrogant for me. Just a big bag of hot
air and braggadocio to me. He talked a good line alright, but as someone who’d
seen boxer braggarts before, I thought it wouldn’t be long before someone
knocked the wind out of this sails and he’d hit the canvas like a sack of
spuds.
That was my thinking when the yappy 21-year-old
challenged Charles “Sonny” Liston, a burly, ex-con with attitude, fists like
pistons and the most menacing stare in boxing. Ha, ha, I thought. The
“Louisville Lip” will join Sputnik in outer space when Liston gets through with
him. But Liston was no match for the speed and agility of Ali, or “Cassius Clay,”
as he was then known, and quit on his stool after six memorable rounds. In the
rematch, Ali knocked Liston out in the first round, standing over him yelling
at him to “get up” in one of Life Magazine’s most iconic sports pictures.
There must be something to this guy after all, I
thought and I didn’t call him by his slave name Cassius Clay anymore. Nor did
almost anyone else. But this was only Act 1, of the most remarkable career in
boxing history and Ali soon transcended the sport itself becoming a Black
Muslim to oppose racism and sentenced to jail for refusing to be drafted at the
peak of the Vietnam War. “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 . . .”
His eloquence enraged the boxing
establishment and he was stripped of his title and didn’t fight for almost four
years. But his courage and principled stand inspired millions and struck a devastating blow against a war that ignited
student activists and anti-war protestors around the world and drove one of the
best US presidents – Lyndon Johnson – out of office and played a major role in
ending an unpopular war that almost tore the US apart and was one of the key events
of the transformative 1960’s.
Not bad for a poetry spouting, US black man, who won
almost every battle he fought in the ring and inspired millions of every race to
oppose war and racism wherever they found it. No wonder he called himself “the
greatest.” After he returned to the ring he fought titanic battles against Joe
Frazier, “The Thrilla in Manila” and George Foreman “The Rumble in the Jungle,”
who he was not expected to beat, but did with a spectacular knockout in the
eighth round. But Ali
couldn’t beat Parkinson’s and who can forget his shaky hands as he lit the
Olympic flame in Atlanta and raised millions to fight the dread disease.
And now he’s gone and the world is the poorer for
losing one of its greatest athletes and personalities – but most of all –
humanitarians.
Gerry Warner is a retired journalist and a long time boxing fan and fan
of humanitarians.
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