Boxing: Ali -- 60 and counting back

By George Soules Sports Central Columnist

The birthday boy turns 60 today. That's when a lot of folks think about retiring from work, to travel, or spend time with the grandkids.

But, Muhammad Ali has been doing that sort of thing for more than twenty years now, ever since he lost ignominiously to Trevor Berbick, in the Bahamas of all places, and was forced to give up the notion of ever again ruling the heavyweight boxing world -- the stage that had made him the most recognized personality on earth, more so than a U.S. president, before Parkinson's left him to contemplate mortality and loss, or something less than being "The Greatest."

Since Ali finally cut off his gloves, his legend has been puzzled over and rehashed by a raft of boxing pundits, serious journalists, and self-appointed philosophers and, most recently, by Hollywood.

In the latest cinematic version, actor Will Smith is credible as Ali, say the critics. The tale ends abruptly, as it did in the Academy Award-winning documentary, "When We Were Kings," which reprised the events leading to Ali winning back the crown in 1974 by defeating George Foreman in their infamous "Rumble in the Jungle." That fight could be considered Ali's finest hour.

Paradoxically, the "Fight of the Century," three years earlier, was a surprising loss to blood-rival Joe Frazier.

I am looking at a coffee-table book version of the life of Ali, full of outsized pictures showing Ali and members of his immediate family, including their intriguing comments about Ali as a boy. Ali is no different from other famous figures -- Churchill, Kennedy, Gandhi, Presley, and Lennon -- when it comes to our abiding interest in the minutiae of their lives.

In light of his mesmerizing verbal abilities, evident early on, it came as somewhat of a surprise to me that Ali did poorly, or failed, the U.S. Army's intelligence exam. No matter. He was duly summoned to fight in Vietnam, and when he refused to cross the line to be pressed into compulsory service, the whole world took notice, no matter what the color of their skin.

I remember that this was around the time I also was inducted into the U.S. Army, and had no intention of serving. Ali had been my hero, my boxing hero, but now he became my personal hero. He was a man of conviction, it seemed, who wouldn't have had to make that costly decision (he was promised an easy tour of duty like Elvis Presley and Joe Louis), but figured this was the right time to stand up for himself and black America, that small segment of the population that was doing a large share of the dirty work in Southeast Asia.

"I have no quarrel with them Vietcong," he said. Soon, legions of whites and blacks across America took up the same argument, waging a protest against an "immoral and unwinnable" war that grew to such proportion as to force Lyndon B. Johnson to resign the U.S. Presidency and to cause his successor, Richard M. Nixon, no end of grief and angry retribution.

I recall sitting in an auditorium at Utah State University, waiting anxiously to see the "real" Ali, who was in the middle of a speaking tour of U.S. universities, as he rode out a three-year suspension from professional boxing. When he came out on the stage, he looked young and strong and fit, the same Ali, minus the coat and tie, that I had seen peppering veteran Zora Folley with left jabs, and not getting hit by anything of note, in his last fight, a K.O. for Ali, before the forced exile.

Ali's speech, "The Intoxication of Life," was patently stale, however. After about fifteen minutes of listening to a litany of reasons why we, as university students, should be making the most of a life rich in promise and possibility, I noticed that my roommate, a fellow member of the school's tennis team, had fallen asleep.

That didn't endure. Ali returned to the ring several months later, producing a wave of excitement that awakened the most cynical and somnolent of sports fans. Yet, it wasn't long before announcer Howard Cosell, the straight man for Ali in their often hilarious TV interviews, weighed in with the truth. Cosell had seen the former Cassius Clay bewitch Sonny Liston in 1963 (a fight Ali now calls the toughest of his career), and had witnessed Ali effortlessly pummel the likes of the Floyd Patterson and Cleveland Williams.

Now he noticed a different Ali, and he wasn't about to keep quiet. Ali was a more worldly person, perhaps, but a different fighter in the ring, a somewhat tarnished athlete that got hit more often and danced less while eking out late-round victories over "bum-of-the-month" pugilists such as Oscar Bonavena and Chuck Wepner.

Still, Ali's natural talent, despite the layoff, was enough to get him back on the championship trail, even after a devastating broken-jaw loss to Ken Norton, a relentless gladiator who was more of a thorn in the side of Ali than even Frazier.

Much has been said about the mean Ali who made Frazier suffer during their bouts from a psychological standpoint, constantly taunting "Smokin' Joe," calling him an "ugly gorilla," among other racially-charged epithets. Although I was never ringside at an Ali fight, my understanding is that he used this sort of ploy, the cruel ring banter, to unnerve all of his opponents.

Ali was sadistic, he wanted to humiliate his opponents, and if that wasn't immediately possible through the deliberation of his punches (and he was never the biggest hitter around), then the mental route was good for added measure.

People still flock to see Ali in person, entranced by the myth, despite its physical crumble. Marlon Brando and Elizabeth Taylor, both big movie stars way past their prime, continue to be the source of similar fascination.

Most everyone recalls when Ali lit the torch at the 1996 Olympic Games in Atlanta. Many were surprised and delighted to see him there. They looked on expectantly as "The Greatest," noticeably trembling, did his job.

It was theater, it was even moving, but it was not the Ali I choose to remember.

Article courtesy of Sports Central.