Boxing Coverage on Sherdog.comMuhammad Ali: A Sherdog Retrospective
With the passing of boxing legend and humanitarian Muhammad Ali on
June 3, it seems that no stone has been left unturned when
reflecting upon the legacy he left behind, not only in the ring but
in life.
A gold medalist at the 1960 Olympics, Ali did it all in the ring and for years dominated the heavyweights. No one could keep up with his blinding speed as a young Cassius Clay, and when he returned from his forced exile after changing his name, his cunning and fighting ability allowed him to carve out a career virtually nobody can rival. Born in Louisville, Kentucky, on Jan. 17, 1942, Ali took on the best of the best from his era and beat them all, from Joe Frazier, Ken Norton and George Foreman to Floyd Patterson, Sonny Liston and Jerry Quarry. He ruled the heavyweight division when it was at its peak, during a golden age of boxing that likely will never be matched. Ali retired following a unanimous decision loss to Trevor Berbick in 1981, finishing with a career record of 56-5. He remains the only man to capture the heavyweight championship on three occasions.
In wake of Ali’s death, Sherdog.com staff members and contributors
weighed in with their most vivid memories, reflections and
appraisals of his trials, triumphs and importance:
***
JOSEPH SANTOLIQUITO: I met him once, and I can say I was actually knocked down by the legend. I was winding my way at breakneck speed through the bowels of The Palace in Auburn Hills, Michigan, running through the backstage crowd after the Mike Tyson-Andrew Golota fiasco in the hopes of catching a moment. I did, all right. I landed on the seat of my pants after I ran into what I thought was a tree trunk planted in the middle of the tile-floored corridor. I immediately looked up and a quivering hand was heading my way to help to my feet.
The interlude was brief, though for a few fleeting seconds, you feel bonded with the man. At least that’s how I felt. I remember giving him a hug, and off I went, thinking there will be time to catch up to Ali someday again. That day arrived five years later. By then, Ali was a glazed shell of himself. It was difficult to be around him, knowing what he was and what was sitting in front of me. When I heard he died, I felt the emptiness of losing a relative. It was the biggest story in the world. I found when it comes to “The Greatest,” overstatement can be used. He provided so many indelible moments, not just in boxing history but in sports history and beyond.
Those born far after his reign know who the fabled figure is in that resonant poignant black-and-white portrait, with his right arm fixed and standing over Sonny Liston, who no one at the time thought could be knocked down. That’s what Ali did. He defied logic, he defied convention and he was one of the forefathers of generations of athletes. He was able to self-proclaim himself “The Greatest,” because he really truly was just that.
Nothing can be overstated when it comes to Ali. He was -- and is -- the world’s most recognized person. He was boxing’s shining light when the sport was still relevant and when the heavyweight division was at its best in history.
The greatest shame is that the world knew the man, yet never saw the man at his best. He was robbed of those years when he refused induction into the United States Army during the Vietnam War as a conscientious objector. The rest of America eventually caught on to his foresight a decade later when the United States pulled out of the useless conflict at a cost of over 50,000 lives.
In the ring, he was a rule breaker. He kept his hands down by his side, and they were the fastest of anyone in heavyweight history. He leaned back from punches, instead of slipping to a side from oncoming shots; and soon, the speed subsided for the sound. Ali was the first to predict the round in which he would defeat an opponent. He was the first to playfully nickname fierce, gritty men whose mere glare was enough to scare the skin off most normal human beings. Victories began mounting.
Everything changed the first time Ali defied the world order when he beat Liston on Feb. 25, 1964 in Miami Beach, Florida. “The Louisville Lip” proved to be more than just mouth that night. Everything changed for the 22-year-old kid who was known as Cassius Clay and became Muhammad Ali. He wasn’t just a fighter but a living, screaming lightning rod for the most polarizing issues of those times. He was the embodiment of controversy.
When Ali returned from his three-and-a-half-year exile from boxing, the heavyweight landscape was filled with brutal killers like Joe Frazier, George Foreman, Ken Norton, Earnie Shavers and Gerry Quarry. Without Frazier, there would be no Ali; and without Ali, there would have been no Frazier. Ten years after he beat Liston, he changed the world order again by upsetting Foreman.
Those wars silenced the loudest man in the war and eventually, at the relatively young age of 74, shaved years off his life, giving him Parkinson’s disease soon after his career was over. He was sentenced in a quivering body and a glazed stare. His ability, his audacity, his courage and his conviction were already established by then, as was his legend. He didn’t have to say anymore. His job was done. In one life, he lived a thousand times. In the end, he meant so much to so many. It’s why there’s no such thing as overstatement when it comes to Muhammad Ali. He outshined the hype.
Everyone that ever met Ali thought that they had a special connection to him, that he was theirs. Though he wasn’t, Ali made sure you at least felt that way. That was his gift, however brief it was when we met.
MIKE SLOAN: I never had the pleasure of watching Ali while he was still fighting. I was born in 1978 and didn’t fall head over heels in love with the Sweet Science until the prime trio of Mike Tyson, Sugar Ray Leonard and Marvelous Marvin Hagler electrified my youth with their vastly different skill sets.
However, I knew all about Ali because my father always talked about him in both positive and negative lights -- my father was drafted into the Vietnam War and always harbored animosity toward Ali, but he never budged on his stance about how great a fighter he was. I would read about Ali, and whenever I found someone much older than me who knew boxing, I always wanted to know about the greats from way before I was born. The man most spoke of was Ali.
Many years later, ESPN Classic came along and I was finally able to watch most of Ali’s fights that weren’t the “Thrilla in Manilla” or the “Rumble in the Jungle.” I was able to see him beat up Floyd Patterson, exact revenge on Joe Frazier, lose to and then conquer Leon Spinks, embarrass Sonny Liston and witness all three of his magical wars with Ken Norton. Yes, his other nondescript fights with the lesser-known heavyweights of that golden era were studied, as well, and by watching Ali in all his glory, I realized that this was no joke: Ali really was the greatest heavyweight of all-time.
I moved from Chicago to Las Vegas in 1998, and I couldn’t wait to finally start attending actual boxing events. As a fan, I would hang out before and after the events with my girlfriend -- she is now my wife -- and gather as many autographs and photos from as many boxing luminaries as possible. This stopped once I became a legitimate member of the boxing media, but during those few years, we met everybody: Frazier, Norton, Leonard, Thomas Hearns, Roy Jones Jr ... the list goes on and on; and when I became a writer, the number of boxers from all eras that I met multiplied tenfold. The three that always escaped me were Ali, Hagler and Arturo Gatti.
Unfortunately, I’ll never meet Gatti. Hopefully, a meeting with Hagler will come eventually. I did meet Ali once -- sort of. I’ve been in the same room and arena as “The Greatest” a few times, but I never actually had the chance to meet him, say hello or shake his hand. The closest I ever came to officially meeting Ali was at a K-1 event, no less, at the Mirage many years ago.
On the way into the venue after I picked up my media credential, I met Tyson for the first time. He was friendly and seemed eager to see what was at the time the world’s premier kickboxing promotion return to Vegas. It was announced during the event that Ali was sitting ringside, and I was hoping to be able to at least meet the guy that night. I got my chance after the fights while I was walking toward the press room. It was funny because Tyson was surrounded by only a few fight fans and I couldn’t understand why such a small crowd was encircling “Iron Mike.” Then I quickly realized why.
Ali was coming up from behind him and he was being swarmed by hundreds of fans acting like pre-teen girls at a New Kids on the Block concert. It was sheer madness, and Ali’s handlers were just trying to get him out of there. Tyson, too, began instructing the star-struck fans to leave, though he kept his composure. I stood three feet from Ali and got a good look at his face, and even though he was a withered shell of his former self, there was no denying who it was. He was larger than life, an icon’s icon. I wanted more than anything than to meet him and shake his hand but opted against even trying because, well, the guy just wanted to be left alone amid all the pandemonium flanking him from every side. I backed off and I wish everybody else would have, too, but you know how vulture-like people can be.
I never had the pleasure of being that close to Ali again, and though it stings a little that I never had the opportunity to officially meet him, at least I can say that I stood close enough to him to get hit by one of his jabs. He’ll be missed forever, and it’s safe to assume there will never be another fighter who will have the sort of impact Muhammad Ali had on boxing and the world.
***
BERNARD FERNANDEZ: Everyone has his or her own recollections of Muhammad Ali, the boxer. Many will remember “The Greatest” as much or more for his political and societal activism or for his humanitarian work. However, their memories are mostly culled from what they saw or heard on television or read in magazines and newspapers. Millions upon millions of people, supporters and detractors alike, came to feel as if they knew Ali personally, which is indicative of his charismatic personality and global sphere of influence. Yet only a select few were afforded the opportunity to ever spend quality time with him, one-on-one.
There are Ali associates of my acquaintance who have hundreds of stories to tell about the man they knew so well. They have passed them along to me as they might bequeath cherished family heirlooms. There was Angelo Dundee, of course, and Gene Kilroy, longtime members of Ali’s inner circle. My friend, legendary Newark Star-Ledger columnist emeritus Jerry Izenberg, who will be inducted into the International Boxing Hall of Fame on June 12, was close to Ali for 50-plus years and might have had more such private moments with him than any other media person.
I had only one such opportunity, and I didn’t really expect to be granted an exclusive audience with the most famous athlete ever to walk the face of the earth. It was a stifling hot summer day in 1983, and Ali was rumored to be coming to Jackson, Mississippi, not that far removed from its Jim Crow era, for the Medgar Evers Homecoming to honor the memory of the slain Civil Rights leader who was shot to death in his own driveway on June 12, 1963 by a rifle-wielding coward cloaked by the dark of night.
Ali’s participation in the event had not yet been confirmed, nor had the time of his arrival or the hotel at which he would be staying been announced, but I made a couple of educated guesses and was staking out the lobby when, suddenly, the three-time heavyweight champion of the world and a few members of his small entourage appeared. I stepped forward to introduce myself, fully expecting that my request for an interview -- surprisingly and thankfully, no other media members were around -- would be rebuffed; and it would have been, had the guys in the entourage had their way. Ali, however, told them, “It’s OK.” He then asked me, “You want to come up to my room for a little while?” Uh, yeah.
I had been around Ali, in a manner of speaking, in the past and would be again in the future, but those occasions were for heavily attended media functions in which he trotted out the “I am The Greatest!” shtick that had become such a large portion of his public persona. I wondered if our brief time together -- which turned out to be a half-hour or so -- would be more of the same.
Behind that closed door, however, Ali spent the first 15 minutes regaling me with magic tricks, squealing with the delight of a child as he demonstrated his sleight-of-hand dexterity with a deck of cards. It wasn’t exactly on a par with such Vegas headliners as David Copperfield, Harry Blackstone and Siegfried and Roy, but it was genuine fun, and I knew enough to keep my tape recorder turned off until he was ready to get down to the business of answering serious questions.
For an individual famous for what he did both in and out of the ring and who so courted the spotlight, it was a revelation to learn that Muhammad Ali sometimes considered himself a prisoner locked behind the towering walls of his own celebrity. After he responded to some stock inquiries about his bouts with Joe Frazier, Sonny Liston and George Foreman and his refusal to be inducted into the Army as a conscientious objector, I asked him what it was like for him to never be able to walk a city street, any city street, without being besieged. It was a question that led to a most thoughtful and pensive reply.
“My dream,” he said after taking a few seconds to choose his words, “is to go somewhere and not be recognized, to go to the beach, to the amusement park with the kids and not have to stop and sign autographs all the time. But being famous is not so bad. Everybody enjoys being recognized and admired. Anyway, you get used to it.”
A minute or two later, Ali said he was tired and wanted to rest. We shook hands and made our goodbyes. The following night, he was introduced to thunderous applause at the Medgar Evers Homecoming. Outside, there were several demonstrators protesting the appearance of someone whom they considered to be a draft-dodging rabble-rouser.
More Ali Coverage »
• Hale: How Muhammad Ali Changed My Life
• Video: Former UFC Champion Jon Jones Pays Tribute to Muhammad Ali
• Video: HBO’s ‘Muhammad Ali: In Memoriam
• Boxing’s Greats of the States | Kentucky: Muhammad Ali
• Boxing: Larry Holmes Remembers Muhammad Ali
A gold medalist at the 1960 Olympics, Ali did it all in the ring and for years dominated the heavyweights. No one could keep up with his blinding speed as a young Cassius Clay, and when he returned from his forced exile after changing his name, his cunning and fighting ability allowed him to carve out a career virtually nobody can rival. Born in Louisville, Kentucky, on Jan. 17, 1942, Ali took on the best of the best from his era and beat them all, from Joe Frazier, Ken Norton and George Foreman to Floyd Patterson, Sonny Liston and Jerry Quarry. He ruled the heavyweight division when it was at its peak, during a golden age of boxing that likely will never be matched. Ali retired following a unanimous decision loss to Trevor Berbick in 1981, finishing with a career record of 56-5. He remains the only man to capture the heavyweight championship on three occasions.
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JOSEPH SANTOLIQUITO: I met him once, and I can say I was actually knocked down by the legend. I was winding my way at breakneck speed through the bowels of The Palace in Auburn Hills, Michigan, running through the backstage crowd after the Mike Tyson-Andrew Golota fiasco in the hopes of catching a moment. I did, all right. I landed on the seat of my pants after I ran into what I thought was a tree trunk planted in the middle of the tile-floored corridor. I immediately looked up and a quivering hand was heading my way to help to my feet.
The hand came with a whisper: “Hey little brother, watch where
you’re going.” The hand wasn’t just anyone’s, nor was the whisper.
They belonged to Ali.
The interlude was brief, though for a few fleeting seconds, you feel bonded with the man. At least that’s how I felt. I remember giving him a hug, and off I went, thinking there will be time to catch up to Ali someday again. That day arrived five years later. By then, Ali was a glazed shell of himself. It was difficult to be around him, knowing what he was and what was sitting in front of me. When I heard he died, I felt the emptiness of losing a relative. It was the biggest story in the world. I found when it comes to “The Greatest,” overstatement can be used. He provided so many indelible moments, not just in boxing history but in sports history and beyond.
Those born far after his reign know who the fabled figure is in that resonant poignant black-and-white portrait, with his right arm fixed and standing over Sonny Liston, who no one at the time thought could be knocked down. That’s what Ali did. He defied logic, he defied convention and he was one of the forefathers of generations of athletes. He was able to self-proclaim himself “The Greatest,” because he really truly was just that.
Nothing can be overstated when it comes to Ali. He was -- and is -- the world’s most recognized person. He was boxing’s shining light when the sport was still relevant and when the heavyweight division was at its best in history.
The greatest shame is that the world knew the man, yet never saw the man at his best. He was robbed of those years when he refused induction into the United States Army during the Vietnam War as a conscientious objector. The rest of America eventually caught on to his foresight a decade later when the United States pulled out of the useless conflict at a cost of over 50,000 lives.
In the ring, he was a rule breaker. He kept his hands down by his side, and they were the fastest of anyone in heavyweight history. He leaned back from punches, instead of slipping to a side from oncoming shots; and soon, the speed subsided for the sound. Ali was the first to predict the round in which he would defeat an opponent. He was the first to playfully nickname fierce, gritty men whose mere glare was enough to scare the skin off most normal human beings. Victories began mounting.
Everything changed the first time Ali defied the world order when he beat Liston on Feb. 25, 1964 in Miami Beach, Florida. “The Louisville Lip” proved to be more than just mouth that night. Everything changed for the 22-year-old kid who was known as Cassius Clay and became Muhammad Ali. He wasn’t just a fighter but a living, screaming lightning rod for the most polarizing issues of those times. He was the embodiment of controversy.
When Ali returned from his three-and-a-half-year exile from boxing, the heavyweight landscape was filled with brutal killers like Joe Frazier, George Foreman, Ken Norton, Earnie Shavers and Gerry Quarry. Without Frazier, there would be no Ali; and without Ali, there would have been no Frazier. Ten years after he beat Liston, he changed the world order again by upsetting Foreman.
Those wars silenced the loudest man in the war and eventually, at the relatively young age of 74, shaved years off his life, giving him Parkinson’s disease soon after his career was over. He was sentenced in a quivering body and a glazed stare. His ability, his audacity, his courage and his conviction were already established by then, as was his legend. He didn’t have to say anymore. His job was done. In one life, he lived a thousand times. In the end, he meant so much to so many. It’s why there’s no such thing as overstatement when it comes to Muhammad Ali. He outshined the hype.
Everyone that ever met Ali thought that they had a special connection to him, that he was theirs. Though he wasn’t, Ali made sure you at least felt that way. That was his gift, however brief it was when we met.
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MIKE SLOAN: I never had the pleasure of watching Ali while he was still fighting. I was born in 1978 and didn’t fall head over heels in love with the Sweet Science until the prime trio of Mike Tyson, Sugar Ray Leonard and Marvelous Marvin Hagler electrified my youth with their vastly different skill sets.
However, I knew all about Ali because my father always talked about him in both positive and negative lights -- my father was drafted into the Vietnam War and always harbored animosity toward Ali, but he never budged on his stance about how great a fighter he was. I would read about Ali, and whenever I found someone much older than me who knew boxing, I always wanted to know about the greats from way before I was born. The man most spoke of was Ali.
Many years later, ESPN Classic came along and I was finally able to watch most of Ali’s fights that weren’t the “Thrilla in Manilla” or the “Rumble in the Jungle.” I was able to see him beat up Floyd Patterson, exact revenge on Joe Frazier, lose to and then conquer Leon Spinks, embarrass Sonny Liston and witness all three of his magical wars with Ken Norton. Yes, his other nondescript fights with the lesser-known heavyweights of that golden era were studied, as well, and by watching Ali in all his glory, I realized that this was no joke: Ali really was the greatest heavyweight of all-time.
I moved from Chicago to Las Vegas in 1998, and I couldn’t wait to finally start attending actual boxing events. As a fan, I would hang out before and after the events with my girlfriend -- she is now my wife -- and gather as many autographs and photos from as many boxing luminaries as possible. This stopped once I became a legitimate member of the boxing media, but during those few years, we met everybody: Frazier, Norton, Leonard, Thomas Hearns, Roy Jones Jr ... the list goes on and on; and when I became a writer, the number of boxers from all eras that I met multiplied tenfold. The three that always escaped me were Ali, Hagler and Arturo Gatti.
Unfortunately, I’ll never meet Gatti. Hopefully, a meeting with Hagler will come eventually. I did meet Ali once -- sort of. I’ve been in the same room and arena as “The Greatest” a few times, but I never actually had the chance to meet him, say hello or shake his hand. The closest I ever came to officially meeting Ali was at a K-1 event, no less, at the Mirage many years ago.
On the way into the venue after I picked up my media credential, I met Tyson for the first time. He was friendly and seemed eager to see what was at the time the world’s premier kickboxing promotion return to Vegas. It was announced during the event that Ali was sitting ringside, and I was hoping to be able to at least meet the guy that night. I got my chance after the fights while I was walking toward the press room. It was funny because Tyson was surrounded by only a few fight fans and I couldn’t understand why such a small crowd was encircling “Iron Mike.” Then I quickly realized why.
Ali was coming up from behind him and he was being swarmed by hundreds of fans acting like pre-teen girls at a New Kids on the Block concert. It was sheer madness, and Ali’s handlers were just trying to get him out of there. Tyson, too, began instructing the star-struck fans to leave, though he kept his composure. I stood three feet from Ali and got a good look at his face, and even though he was a withered shell of his former self, there was no denying who it was. He was larger than life, an icon’s icon. I wanted more than anything than to meet him and shake his hand but opted against even trying because, well, the guy just wanted to be left alone amid all the pandemonium flanking him from every side. I backed off and I wish everybody else would have, too, but you know how vulture-like people can be.
I never had the pleasure of being that close to Ali again, and though it stings a little that I never had the opportunity to officially meet him, at least I can say that I stood close enough to him to get hit by one of his jabs. He’ll be missed forever, and it’s safe to assume there will never be another fighter who will have the sort of impact Muhammad Ali had on boxing and the world.
BERNARD FERNANDEZ: Everyone has his or her own recollections of Muhammad Ali, the boxer. Many will remember “The Greatest” as much or more for his political and societal activism or for his humanitarian work. However, their memories are mostly culled from what they saw or heard on television or read in magazines and newspapers. Millions upon millions of people, supporters and detractors alike, came to feel as if they knew Ali personally, which is indicative of his charismatic personality and global sphere of influence. Yet only a select few were afforded the opportunity to ever spend quality time with him, one-on-one.
There are Ali associates of my acquaintance who have hundreds of stories to tell about the man they knew so well. They have passed them along to me as they might bequeath cherished family heirlooms. There was Angelo Dundee, of course, and Gene Kilroy, longtime members of Ali’s inner circle. My friend, legendary Newark Star-Ledger columnist emeritus Jerry Izenberg, who will be inducted into the International Boxing Hall of Fame on June 12, was close to Ali for 50-plus years and might have had more such private moments with him than any other media person.
I had only one such opportunity, and I didn’t really expect to be granted an exclusive audience with the most famous athlete ever to walk the face of the earth. It was a stifling hot summer day in 1983, and Ali was rumored to be coming to Jackson, Mississippi, not that far removed from its Jim Crow era, for the Medgar Evers Homecoming to honor the memory of the slain Civil Rights leader who was shot to death in his own driveway on June 12, 1963 by a rifle-wielding coward cloaked by the dark of night.
Ali’s participation in the event had not yet been confirmed, nor had the time of his arrival or the hotel at which he would be staying been announced, but I made a couple of educated guesses and was staking out the lobby when, suddenly, the three-time heavyweight champion of the world and a few members of his small entourage appeared. I stepped forward to introduce myself, fully expecting that my request for an interview -- surprisingly and thankfully, no other media members were around -- would be rebuffed; and it would have been, had the guys in the entourage had their way. Ali, however, told them, “It’s OK.” He then asked me, “You want to come up to my room for a little while?” Uh, yeah.
I had been around Ali, in a manner of speaking, in the past and would be again in the future, but those occasions were for heavily attended media functions in which he trotted out the “I am The Greatest!” shtick that had become such a large portion of his public persona. I wondered if our brief time together -- which turned out to be a half-hour or so -- would be more of the same.
Behind that closed door, however, Ali spent the first 15 minutes regaling me with magic tricks, squealing with the delight of a child as he demonstrated his sleight-of-hand dexterity with a deck of cards. It wasn’t exactly on a par with such Vegas headliners as David Copperfield, Harry Blackstone and Siegfried and Roy, but it was genuine fun, and I knew enough to keep my tape recorder turned off until he was ready to get down to the business of answering serious questions.
For an individual famous for what he did both in and out of the ring and who so courted the spotlight, it was a revelation to learn that Muhammad Ali sometimes considered himself a prisoner locked behind the towering walls of his own celebrity. After he responded to some stock inquiries about his bouts with Joe Frazier, Sonny Liston and George Foreman and his refusal to be inducted into the Army as a conscientious objector, I asked him what it was like for him to never be able to walk a city street, any city street, without being besieged. It was a question that led to a most thoughtful and pensive reply.
“My dream,” he said after taking a few seconds to choose his words, “is to go somewhere and not be recognized, to go to the beach, to the amusement park with the kids and not have to stop and sign autographs all the time. But being famous is not so bad. Everybody enjoys being recognized and admired. Anyway, you get used to it.”
A minute or two later, Ali said he was tired and wanted to rest. We shook hands and made our goodbyes. The following night, he was introduced to thunderous applause at the Medgar Evers Homecoming. Outside, there were several demonstrators protesting the appearance of someone whom they considered to be a draft-dodging rabble-rouser.
More Ali Coverage »
• Hale: How Muhammad Ali Changed My Life
• Video: Former UFC Champion Jon Jones Pays Tribute to Muhammad Ali
• Video: HBO’s ‘Muhammad Ali: In Memoriam
• Boxing’s Greats of the States | Kentucky: Muhammad Ali
• Boxing: Larry Holmes Remembers Muhammad Ali
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