The reaction was immediate. Overnight Muhammad became a national subject, newspaper headlines blaring out "A Tool of Hanoi" and every politician worthy of his soapbox denouncing him. Congressman L. Mendel Rivers of South Carolina even threatened to conduct an investigation of the entire Selective Service System, Louisville's in particular.
But Ali's troubles had only just begun.
Ali's next fight was tentatively scheduled to be for the unification of the world heavyweight championship. See, the World Boxing Association (WBA), citing something about a return bout being against their rules—although it seemed to me to be a case of selective application since they had sanctioned an earlier return bout between Liston and Patterson—had stripped Muhammad of his crown for fighting a return bout against Liston. They then staged a "championship" bout between Eddie Machen and Ernie Terrell for their title early in 1965, with Terrell winning a fifteen-round decision.
However, there was a suspicion that the WBA had taken Muhammad's title away because of his conversion to Islam. Especially since almost immediately after Muhammad's announcement of his conversion, WBA president Ed Lassman had said, "Clay is a detriment to the boxing world. Clay's general conduct is provoking worldwide criticism and is setting a very poor example for the youth of the world. The conduct of the champion before and after winning the title has caused my office to be deluged with letters of torrid criticism from all over the world."
Whatever the reason, whether because of the WBA rules or merely because of boxing politics at work, there were now two heavyweight champions and a desire to once again unify the crown.
And so the Ali-Terrell fight for the reunification of the title was made, to be held in New York. However, the New York State Athletic Commission found that Terrell had been seen in what they called "undesirable company" (read: the mob) and for "reasons detrimental to boxing" banned the fight from being held in New York. With that the fight was quickly moved to Chicago. But Muhammad's "Viet Cong" remarks were the stuff of which political capital is made, and now it was the turn of sanctimonious politicians to make such capital. First it was Illinois Governor Otto Kerner who, feigning moral outrage, labeled his comments "disgusting." Then Richard J. Daley, mayor of Chicago, got into the act saying, "I hope it won't be held in Chicago, and I am confident the commission will take the proper action." With that the Illinois Commission banned the fight on the grounds of "moral turpitude or action detrimental to boxing on the part of fighters," pending a hearing.
But even before a hearing, Ali fanned the flames, saying, "If they'd just let me fight, I would pay for two modern fighter planes in two fights or I could pay the salaries of 100,000 men."
The hearing was called merely to hear Ali "apologize" for his "unpatriotic" statements. Not surprisingly, Ali refused, saying, "I'm not apologizing for nothing like that because I don't have to." Then, claiming the commissioners were taunting him by calling him "Mr. Clay," he walked out of the meeting. And out of Chicago as well.
The fight was now shopped around with Louisville, Pittsburgh, Bangor, and even Huron, South Dakota, all taking a pass, refusing to host it. Finally, the promoters took it north of the border, first to Montreal, then to Edmonton, and finally to Toronto, where it came to rest.
However, a funny thing happened to the fight on its way to Toronto: Ernie Terrell pulled out, claiming a "contract dispute." With a site and a date, March 29, 1966, Muhammad needed an opponent, and who better than the Canadian heavyweight champion and Toronto native George Chuvalo?
Chuvalo was one tough customer. Called "The Washerwoman" by Ali—I guess because in his fight with Mike DeJohn he had KO'd him with a series of punches that looked as if he were scrubbing clothes. Sportscaster Larry Merchant said his best punch was "a left jaw to the right glove," and it may have been, along with a right to the left jaw. But whatever it was that Muhammad hit him with that night he kept coming back and back and back. Ali never came close to flooring the granite-chinned contender who had never been knocked down in his previous forty-eight fights and was, in Muhammad's words, "one of the toughest men I ever faced." Still, Muhammad won at least thirteen of the fifteen rounds on all three scorecards. And the fight as well.
With a political draft call-up hanging over his head and his Viet Cong remarks having made him a political lightning rod in the United States, Muhammad's promoters decided to take him abroad and mapped out a grand European tour for him. First stop: Great Britain and a return bout with Henry Cooper.
The Cooper rematch, to be held in London's Arsenal Soccer Stadium, was Britain's first heavyweight championship fight since 1907 when Tommy Burns knocked out another British battler, Gunner Moir, who had assumed the legendary position realized by so many English heavyweights throughout history—horizontal. After fifty-nine years, a heavyweight championship bout was being fought again in the cradle of boxing, England, and was being called "The Fight of the Century" by promoter Jack Solomons.
Solomons looked to Ali to provide the wattage for the fight and Muhammad didn't disappoint. Unlike the first time he had come over to England to fight Cooper when he had received an underwhelming reception, this time he was treated like a "bloomin'" rock star, adoring fans besieging him everywhere he went. I remember being at the Towers on Brewer Street where the fans punctured the tires of his limo just to make sure they would be able to see him. We had to run back into the hotel rather than face the hordes of British fans turned stargazers in the streets outside the hotel.
Television, too, got into the act with ABC filming Muhammad strolling down London boulevards sporting a formal cutaway, bowler hat, and cane, doing his best impersonation of Fred Astaire. All this was scored to Roger Miller's then-popular number, "England Swings Like a Pendulum Do," and scheduled to run thirty minutes leading up to the fight itself.
However, another one of my fighters, Jimmy Ellis, obviously had not been in the ABC production meeting and in the semifinal had taken out a boxer from Fiji named Lewine Waga in one round. With the sudden ending of the final prelim, officials of the British Boxing Board of Control made their way to our dressing room to notify us that, according to the rules of the commission, we were to go on in two minutes.
It was at this moment that the man Ali called "HOW-WARD COSELL"—ABC's Howard Cosell—sprang into action. Making his way to Ali's dressing room, he implored Ali to save the beginning thirty minutes of the ABC show, pleading, "Muhammad, remember that great footage we had of you walking around London? Well, they're not going to be able to see it in the United States if you go out there now." That was all Ali had to hear. He stood in the dressing room for eighteen minutes while the crowd, which had been there since a little after six in the evening, now fidgeted in their seats after four hours of preliminaries. Ali never missed a chance like this. Cooper and the crowd could wait while fame called.
The Brits have always had this thing with heroic failures, and Cooper's "almost" win in the first fight was one of those, along with the Charge of the Light Brigade and Dunkirk. This time they turned out in droves, hoping against hope that their 'Enry could land his 'ammer and erase that "almost." But it was not to be as, just as in their first fight, Cooper's brittle eye split open in the sixth round and the fight was stopped.
The scene after the fight was not a pretty one. There were what Muhammad described as "a few little title fights outside the ring," but they were worse than that, spilling over into the ring. Immediately after the fight was halted by referee George Smith, several groups of Teddy Boys jumped over benches and stormed the ring, screaming racial slurs. Ali just looked at the rowdy mob, one of whom cuffed him, saying later, "I thought it was just someone offering me congratulations."
Two-and-a-half months later Muhammad fought in England again, this time against the hapless British heavyweight Brian London.
This time ABC put together a pre-package to the tune of "A Foggy Day in London Town," which included insert shots of Muhammad doing road-work with Jimmy Ellis to the line, "I met the morning with such alar
m," and a musing shot of Ali to "How long I wondered could this thing last...."
But the supposed piéce de rèsistance was to be a shot of Brian London over the line "for suddenly I saw you there." For that Howard Cosell flew up to London's training camp in Blackpool. Sitting London down on a bench next to Cosell, the interview began with Cosell saying, "Brian, they say you're a patsy, a dirty fighter, that you have no class, that you're just in there for the ride and a fast payday. And that you have no chance against Ali. What do you say to that?" London, who knew neither Cosell nor his technique of always attempting to provoke his subject, screamed, "Go fuck yourself!" "No, no, no," shouted the producer of the segment. "Those really weren't Howard's descriptions of you, they were the opinions of others." "Oh, I see," said the more-than-slightly-confused London, who really didn't. So when the same question-statement was repeated, he flared back, "Whoever said that can go fuck themselves." Scrub that portion of the prefight program.
As for the fight itself, the man whom Ingemar Johansson claimed "couldn't beat my sister" and whose manager boasted "He might be a bum, but he's a good bum," went down under Ali's barrage of punches in the third round. TV producer Chet Forte, who had planned an entire "Wide World of Sports" show around the fight, hollered over the production line from New York to ringside, "Does he look like he's going to get up?" Joe Asceti, the production assistant, took one look at the inert form lying just above him and hollered back, "Well, his tongue's hanging out of his mouth, and he's drooling, and his eyes are white ... but other than that, he's all right."
There was one more fight left on Muhammad's European itinerary, this one in Frankfurt, Germany, against the European heavyweight champion Karl Mildenberger, pronounced "Milton-berger" by Ali. However, it was not only Mildenberger's name Ali had trouble with; he also had trouble with his style. For Mildenberger was a southpaw, the first Ali had ever faced, and the first left-hander ever to fight for the heavyweight title. From the moment Ali walked to the center of the ring and was met by a right jab he had difficulty coping with Mildenberger. It wasn't until the middle rounds that Ali finally solved Mildenberger's style, going to his left instead of his right to evade his opponent's right-hand jabs. Pressing his attack rather than moving, Ali finally overcame Mildenberger and his style, knocking him out in the twelfth.
With no more worlds to conquer in Europe, having single-handedly decimated the ranks of European heavyweights, Ali headed home to face Cleveland "Big Cat" Williams. A big, powerful fighter, Williams possessed an impressive record, having won sixty-five of his seventy-one fights, fiftyone of those by knockout. And his punching power was reputed to be the equal of any heavyweight, past or present.
Besides his record and reputation, Williams also carried something else: a.357 magnum slug lodged in his body, compliments of a Texas State trooper who had taken exception to something Williams had said. That trooper was now one of the 35,460 at the Houston Astrodome, a new indoor record for a fight, cheering their local hero on.
However, it wasn't Williams's punching power that was on display, instead it was Ali's. After moving away from the pursuing Williams in the first minute of the fight, Ali threw a flurry of punches, shooting a left to the body, followed with three lefts to the head. As Williams, both hypnotized by the speed of the punches and paralyzed by their accuracy, stood there resembling Lot's wife, Ali rattled off eight bull's-eyes to Williams's head, bringing a trickle of blood. Ali proceeded to smear the flow of blood across the whole of Williams's face with a straight right, a hook, and another right, all thrown asfastasyoucanreadthis at the bell.
The second round began as the first had ended, with Ali connecting with a left and then a right reminiscent of the one he had caught Liston with at Lewiston, all accompanied by a five-step in-place tango maneuver he later called "The Ali Shuffle." Williams momentarily hung in midair and then fell to the canvas. Up at eight, Williams was met with a dizzying barrage of lefts and rights that sent him spiraling to the canvas. This time he was up at the count of five. Coming forward, the only gear he had, Williams was met with a left and right and fell in as broad a fall as any Hollywood stuntman had ever managed. As referee Harry Kessler counted over the spread-eagled form on the canvas, the bell rang to end the round—and save the Big Cat. At least, momentarily.
In the third Ali kept up his attack, nailing Williams with another left-right combination and sending the challenger to the canvas yet again. And again, incredibly, he arose. But as Williams stood exactly where he had arisen, making no attempt to defend himself, referee Kessler did the only thing he could, he stopped the fight. It was over at 1:08 of the third round. It hadn't been a great fight, but it had been one of Muhammad Ali's greatest performances.
There was one piece of unfinished business to attend to: Ernie Terrell, the "other" heavyweight champion. Terrell's advisors, who had abruptly pulled him out of their scheduled match earlier, now decided that if Mildenberger's unorthodox style had given Ali difficulty, then Terrell's equally unorthodox style would also give Ali some trouble. That and the fact that they believed Terrell possessed an equal or better jab than Ali led them to now make the match for the unified title.
However, we looked at Terrell a little differently, feeling that Terrell's style could be summed up in just two words: left jab. Ali even took it one step further, calling Terrell "The Octopus" for his jab-and-clutch methods.
But what Ali focused on most was that Terrell continued to call him "Cassius Clay." And that made me more than a little apprehensive about the fight. I had no fear of Muhammad losing under normal conditions. But personal feelings can get the best of a fighter and affect his judgment, and I always say you can never tell what will happen in a boxing match. However, I shouldn't have been so anxious about Ali. From the very start of the match, when Terrell came out and threw his first jab and missed, Ali was laughing at and taunting Terrell, almost in a cruel repeat of his performance against Patterson, only worse. By the fifth round it was clear that Terrell, who kept missing with his jab and throwing a sloppy right behind it, was in over his head. For the next ten rounds Ali, who had promised to "torture him ... a clean knockout is too good for him" contented himself with throwing lightning-quick punches and "What's my name?" poison darts, more interested in protecting his name than his title. It was a painful fight to watch, made all the more painful by Ali, in a postfight interview, wringing maximum humiliation out of the situation by gratuitously calling Terrell "a dog." Hardly a Hallmark sentiment. Still, it was a win, even if a painful one.
With a date set for Ali to report for induction in April, a hurry-up fight, just one month after his systematic destruction of Terrell, was made for Ali to defend against the WBA's number one contender, Zora Folley, in March 1967 in Madison Square Garden—the Garden's first heavyweight title bout since Ezzard Charles KO'd Lee Oma back in 1951.
Folley had been around forever, or so it seemed, so long in fact that nearly a decade before he had accused then heavyweight champion Floyd Patterson of ducking him. Now, with a record of seventy-one victories against only seven losses and the number two ranking, he would get his shot.
The buildup to the fight was strangely subdued, the best Ali could come up with was "Folley's such a nice man with eight children, I'm glad he's getting a payday."
Ali also looked somewhat subdued in the fight as well, doing little in the first round but moving away from the advancing Folley on legs that seemed to have wings on them. By the second he was jabbing and in the fourth he dropped Folley with an overhand right. By the sixth, Folley looked as if he were searching for a place to fall as Ali stepped up his attack. Then, in the seventh, as the outclassed Folley tried mightily to hit Ali with a left, Ali planted a right to Folley's jaw and Folley went down in a heap. And out.
When he knocked out Folley, Muhammad looked like a million dollars because he was maturing. In other words, he was special in there. He had negated him, and Zora Folley was one heckuva fighter. He was a great counterpuncher, but he couldn't counter
my kid.
Muhammad had had nine successful title defenses, more than Liston, Patterson, and Johansson put together, and a number of defenses surpassed only by Joe Louis and Tommy Burns. He was twenty-five years old and just reaching his prime. But because he had refused to play his hero's role the way the public demanded, the boxing establishment, unable to see him beaten in the ring, decided to beat him out of the ring by taking his title away from him. We never saw the best days of Muhammad Ali.
Ali arrived at the U.S. Armed Forces Examining and Entrance Station on Friday morning, April 28, 1967, along with twenty-five other young men, all summoned to face induction. After filling out the necessary paperwork and undergoing physicals, these men formed a line in front of a young lieutenant for one last ritual, the calling of their names and their stepping forward as a sign they had accepted induction. The officer called each potential recruit's name and told him to take the symbolic step forward. Finally came the call "Cassius Clay! Army!" No movement. Again came the call, this time, "Ali." Again, no movement. At this point another induction officer came into the room and led Ali to a private room on the third floor where he advised him of the penalty for refusing to volunteer for the draft: five years' imprisonment and a fine. Asked if he understood, Ali said he did. To give him another chance to respond to his name and step forward, Ali was escorted back into the first room where the other twenty-five men still stood. Again, in answer to his name, he stood stock-still.
One of the officers now told Ali to write out his reasons for refusing. Ali wrote: "I refuse to be inducted into the Armed Forces of the United States because I claim to be exempt as a minister of the religion of Islam."
You would have thought Muhammad Ali was a descendant of Jack the Ripper the way boxing commissions fell all over themselves in a rush to strip him of his title even before news of his refusal to step forward had been set in type for morning delivery. It was almost a patriotic chest-thumping contest to see who could strip him of his title the fastest. So much for that old phrase "innocent until proven guilty."
My View from the Corner Page 16
