My View from the Corner

by Angelo Dundee

  Even though politicians had made him their "red meat," newspapers had tarred and feathered him, and boxing's powers-that-be had stripped him of his most prized possession, Ali remained true to his convictions, standing up, if not stepping forward, for what he believed.

  He responded to the storm swirling around his unbowed head in an interview in Playboy, saying, "Why should they ask me to put on a uniform, go ten thousand miles from home, and drop bombs and bullets on brown people in Vietnam while so-called Negro people in Louisville are treated like dogs? If I thought going to war would bring freedom and equality to twenty-two million of my people, they wouldn't have to draft me, I'd join tomorrow. But I either have to obey the laws of the land or the laws of Allah. I have nothing to lose by standing up and following my beliefs. We've been in jail for four hundred years."

  His resistance to authority, which had seemingly started out as racial, soon widened its scope as more and more antiwar youngsters took his side and supported his stance.

  When I was asked what I thought about Ali's refusal to step forward, I could only answer that, like millions of other Americans, I didn't understand the whole Vietnam situation. All I knew was that American boys were getting killed over there and we weren't even certain it was our fight. Now, don't get me wrong, I am as proud as anyone of being an American. And I would have accepted my own draft, as I had once before in World War II. But I can't honestly say how I would have felt if my own son, Jimmy, had been drafted. I thanked God he was too young and prayed he would never have to go to war.

  As for Muhammad Ali, I respected him and I respected his religious beliefs. I couldn't help but feel that if the media hadn't hyped up the Nation of Islam angle, the authorities might have treated the whole affair differently. Muslims were not too common in America at the time, and maybe it was a case of being scared of the unknown.

  I had heard of some well-known actors who, for one reason or another, had escaped the draft. And of others who had gotten deferments. And still others who went to Canada. So I'm still not sure what the obsession with Ali was all about. It seemed more than a little overblown to me, almost as if they were out to get him for more than just failing to step forward.

  I tried to isolate the problem in the back of my mind and carry on the best way I could with my life, which meant working with my other fighters. But that did not mean I could block it out entirely.

  I would miss Ali. For seven years we had a special something. Every day was an all-you-can-eat buffet, with him playing jokes on me. Like the time at a Los Angeles hotel where we both were staying in connecting rooms. He had this long cord, which went through our adjoining bathroom, and he would shake it to shake my blinds. All night long I heard this strange noise and was scared to death. What the hell was going on, I thought. We were on the twelfth floor and I'd look down, nothing there. All around, nothing. It was just Muhammad playing games on me. Another time he put a burning towel under my door. I called the hotel manager, telling him I smelled smoke and that he'd better get up here, pronto. He checked the whole floor and finally came back to me and said, "I'm sorry, Mr. Dundee, we can't find anything." Again, it was Muhammad playing his little games.

  There would be many a night when I'd come back from a press conference or just being out with the guys and the irrepressible Ali, full of playfulness, would jump out of a closet with a white sheet over his head and scare the bejesus out of me, his eerie moans quickly giving way to belly laughs. Always there would be Muhammad, laughing at his own jokes. And I would take part in some of his shenanigans, like the time he asked me to put tape on his mouth for a photo opportunity. Nobody could put his finger in a pot and stir it with as much mischievous charm and enthusiasm as Ali.

  I would also miss the way he stood up for me. Many times someone in Muhammad's ever-increasing circle of newfound friends would complain to him about having a "honky" like me so close to the champion. And he would defend me, saying it was all right. I even remember, once, when members of the Fruit of Islam, appointed to be his bodyguards, clustered too close around him at a press conference guarding him like the queen's jewels, and I suggested to him that it "didn't look right," that the reporters felt intimidated, and he agreed with me and asked them to leave. Muhammad always stood up for me, by me, and with me. I never heard a bad word from him.

  No matter how well I had done with my other fighters, I was known and perhaps would always be known as Muhammad's trainer. He was the spotlight that shone on whatever other talent I had. Sure, Willie Pastrano, Carmen Basilio, Luis Rodriguez, and Ultiminio Ramos were the stars, but Ali was the moon. Know what I mean?

  EIGHT

  Ali's Exile—and Things to Do in the Meantime, in Between Time

  Copyright © 2008 by Angelo Dundee and Bert Randolph Sugar Click here for terms of use.

  Although my life had been dominated by the charismatic Muhammad Ali, I still had other fighters who were important to me, every one an individual.

  There was Willie Pastrano. Or, more accurately, there once was Willie Pastrano. For Willie had retired back in 1965 after losing the light heavyweight championship to José Torres. Toward the end of his career, Willie had been messing around with some bad dudes. Willie attracted bad guys like honey attracts bees. I would see these weird guys hanging around the gym and I didn't like it. I barred them from going into his dressing room. They'd come crying to Willie, calling me a "square bear." Willie knew I was no "square," but I didn't go for those weirdos. I told him how I felt about his so-called friends, but he just laughed it off, saying the guys were okay and that they were just a little "way out." Later he would find they were no laughing matter.

  After his retirement I began to hear stories that he was taking drugs. I called him, and although he was always flip when we spoke, he knew that I was concerned and that I'd be there if he ever needed me. And he did, calling me at all hours of the night, sometimes when he was hallucinating. Once he called me in the wee hours of the morning because he said there were "things" in his garden. Other times, it was other "things." Willie had a choice: carry on and sink deeper into the ugly and destructive pit or give up booze and drugs and rehabilitate himself. Sometimes he did and other times he just couldn't. But whatever he did, until the very end, he remained a friend, and nothing will ever replace the affection I held for him.

  Another of my fighters was "Sugar" Ramos. Ramos had won the featherweight title back on that tragic night in Los Angeles in 1963 when he knocked out Davey Moore, and then he lost it to Vicente Saldivar the following year. But even then he was having trouble making the featherweight 126-pound limit, time putting pounds on his small, hard-muscled body. We decided that Ramos should campaign as a 135-pound lightweight where he met with immediate success, winning four straight fights and rising to the top of the division. Unfortunately, the champion atop the lightweight division was all-time great Carlos Ortiz, who beat Ramos twice—once in 1965 and again in July 1967, both times by KO. Ramos did a "Goodyear," boxingese for "retire," after the second Ortiz fight, but made a moderately successful comeback two years later before retiring again.

  I also trained the great Luis Rodriguez, who had fought Emile Griffith three times for the welterweight title, winning one—although I thought the score should have been two wins for Rodriguez to one for Griffith. Luis had fought once more for the welterweight title, losing to Curtis Cokes in 1966, before taking his slick moves and outstanding skills upstairs to the middleweight division where, in 1969, he challenged Nino Benevenuti for the title. For ten rounds Luis moved, jabbed, and boxed his way to a sizeable lead. Benevenuti was one tough cat and, although tired, had strength enough to throw one desperation Hail Mary shot to the jaw of an equally tired Rodriguez in the eleventh and that was it. Luis fought on for another three years. But he was never the same Luis Rodriguez and retired in 1972 with 107 wins in 121 bouts and only thirteen losses—one, against Griffith, still disputed in my mind.

  But if those fighters were so far beyond their primes they couldn't
find them in their rearview mirrors, I still had one whose career was in front of him: Jimmy Ellis.

  Jimmy, who had split two decisions with then–Cassius Clay in the amateurs, had served his apprenticeship as Muhammad's sparring partner. Now I abhor the words "sparring partner." I hate them because my kids work with each other, help each other. They are not sparring partners, per se, but really assistants.

  And Muhammad Ali was the worst gym fighter I ever handled. He never looked to win a decision in the gym. In fact, if truth be known, he was the one who looked like the "sparring partner," if I may use the phrase in its accepted meaning. But believe you me, Jimmy Ellis was no sparring partner in the traditional sense.

  From the beginning, when John L. Sullivan first introduced sparring partners into the world of boxing (with a fighter named Jack Ashton with whom he gave sparring exhibitions) most sparring partners' names were lost to the ages—or, when remembered at all, then only as having served as sparring partners for so-and-so.

  The primary responsibility of sparring partners is to prepare "their" fighter for his upcoming bout. For instance, Jack Dempsey always had George Godfrey as his chief sparmate; Joe Louis, George Nicholson; Rocky Marciano, Keene Simmons; Sonny Liston, Amos "Big Train" Lincoln; George Foreman, Eddie "Bossman" Jones; and so on and so on. And sometimes a fighter might have more than one, each with a specific function, just as Jack Dempsey had six-foot-six-inch Bill Tate for strength, Jamaica Kid for brawling, and Panama Joe Gans for speed. Sparring partners may come and go, depending on how much punishment they can take or how useful they are in preparing their fighter for his fights. Not only are they in there for their employer's benefit—plus the good pay and food, as well as sharing in the reflected glory of their fighter—but many are in there to learn, as well, and maybe make a name for themselves.

  Some sparring partners have used their experience as sparmates as a curtain raiser on their own careers. For instance, James J. Jeffries was Jim Corbett's chief sparmate. Ditto Jack Johnson, who served as a sparring partner for welterweight champ Joe Walcott. Likewise, Jersey Joe Walcott served as Joe Louis's. And, of course, Larry Holmes served as a sparring partner for Muhammad as well as for Joe Frazier, Jimmy Young, and Earnie Shavers.

  Throughout history several sparmates have gone further than the men they were hired to help train. The most famous case was James J. Braddock, aka "The Cinderella Man." According to the story, Joe Gould had a prospect named Harry Galfund and an attractive offer from another manager to buy Galfund's contract. So Gould took the prospective purchaser to a gymnasium to show off Galfund's wares. Not finding anyone to spar with Galfund, Gould picked an awkward unknown to spar with Galfund and the novice, who happened to be the young Braddock, displayed enough raw punching power to cost Gould the sale. Losing his chance to sell the contract of Galfund, Gould did the next best thing: he took over the managerial reins of the unknown novice and guided him to the heavyweight championship.

  Another who learned about his prospective opponent was James J. Corbett, who, after sparring with the then-champion, John L. Sullivan, said, "I can beat this man. He's a sucker for a feint."

  Perhaps the best example of a sparring partner learning at the knee of the man who had hired him was that of "Kid" McCoy, who was hired as a sparring partner by then–welterweight champion Tommy Ryan for his fight against Mysterious Billy Smith. Ryan not only taught McCoy some of the finer points of the game, he also taught him some of the more sadistic, trying out his kidney punch and other maneuvers on McCoy in preparation for his 1896 bout with Smith. Leaving Ryan's nest, McCoy was determined to get revenge on his tutor tormentor. He did, later that year, employing his newfound "corkscrew punch" to knock down Ryan no less than twelve times before KO'ing him in the fifteenth round.

  "I got so I knew Ryan's every move," the man known as "The Real McCoy" would say. "He had a sound style, was an excellent athlete and a strong man. But there was nothing tricky about his stuff. He was a sound fighting man and born for the game, but I found out what he had in the training camp and knew what to do about it when I got Tommy in the ring."

  Another who learned from his sparring sessions with Muhammad was Jimmy Ellis, who was to prove that old boxing adage: "Yesterday's sparring partner is tomorrow's potential champion."

  The first time I laid eyes on Jimmy there wasn't much to look at. A skinny kid who weighed close to 150 pounds, he was beset by medical problems, not the least of which were painful carbuncles and chronic tonsil infections. I had a job nursing him back to health before I could even train him. Doing everything I could, I finally got him into shape and got him on the undercards of several Cassius Clay–hyphen–Muhammad Ali fights, ten times in all—including his one-round knockout of Johnny Persol on the semi to the Ali-Folley fight—gradually bringing him along. I thought his victory over Persol, a ranking light-heavyweight who had beaten Harold Johnson and Bobo Olson, was an indication that he might make one helluva light-heavyweight. The best place, I thought, for him.

  But Jimmy had other ideas. Still growing, he was now a heavyweight, even if at 190, soaking wet—that's just "90" in boxing lingo—he was a small heavy amongst the division's tall timber. He wanted to fight at heavy for the same reason Willie Sutton robbed banks: " 'cause that's where the money was."

  Then the World Boxing Association (WBA), which had fallen all over itself to strip Ali of his crown, announced an eight-man heavyweight boxoff to determine the champion for their newly vacated title. Those selected to participate were: Floyd Patterson, Ernie Terrell, Oscar Bonavena, Jerry Quarry, Thad Spencer, Karl Mildenberger, Joe Frazier, and Jimmy. And when Frazier's manager, Yank Durham, decided to take a pass on the tourney, the WBA added Leotis Martin.

  In his first bout as a full-fledged heavyweight, Jimmy knocked out Leotis Martin and then followed that up four months later with a decision win over Oscar Bonavena. In the finals of the tournament, he defeated Jerry Quarry. Three fights as a heavyweight, three wins, and one "world" championship—at least that part of the world overseen by the WBA. Not bad for a heavyweight newcomer!

  After watching the WBA tourney, Teddy Brenner, the Garden matchmaker, came away saying, "The elimination tournament was a real success ... it eliminated everybody." Well, not quite everybody. There was still Jimmy Ellis. And Joe Frazier.

  Six weeks before Ellis had captured the WBA's version of their "vacant" heavyweight title, Joe Frazier had won the New York State version of the same—New York having stripped Ali quicker than the WBA, if that were possible. New York's clueless commissioner, Ed Dooley, in announcing the participants of its fight to fill the vacancy had gotten caught up in his mental underwear and identified them as Joe Frazier and "Buddy" Mathis. Be it "Buddy" or Buster (his real name), it made no difference to Frazier as he knocked out his Olympic rival in eleven rounds.

  Now, with two "world" champions and public opinion running in favor of one, Ellis and Frazier were signed to fight for the whole enchilada, the unified heavyweight championship of the world.

  The bout was scheduled for Madison Square Garden in February 1970. And two weeks before the bout was to take place, Muhammad Ali announced his retirement, and promised to give his Ring magazine championship belt to the winner.

  While most of those professional pundits and guess-your-weight peddlers who traffic in predictions made Frazier an overwhelming favorite, I thought that Jimmy's style was perfect for Frazier. Joe was made for Jimmy. But, then again, I remember once thinking that the Titanic was faster than the iceberg. For two rounds it looked like I was the one who might have had the crystal ball as Jimmy outboxed, outmoved, and outmaneuvered Joe. Then, in the third, Joe unloaded that left hook of his and Jimmy staggered backward, halfway across the ring and into the ropes. He momentarily recovered, but the fight was over right then and there. Late in the fourth, Joe cornered Ellis and nailed him with several trip-hammer lefts, flooring Jimmy. Jimmy got up, but was in no condition to defend himself. Trying to keep Frazier off him, he succeeded momentarily. The
n, just before the bell, Frazier unloaded with one of his patented howitzers, a left hook flush on Jimmy's jaw and Jimmy went down in sections, his foot grotesquely wedged under his body.

  How he got up I'll never know, but get up he did and made his dazed way back to the corner, the round over. I asked him how he was and he responded, "Fine," which all fighters do regardless of whether they are or not. Chuck Wepner, upon once being asked by a referee, "How many fingers do I have up?" answered, "How many guesses do I get?" The ref, believing he was fine, allowed the fight to go on. However, I didn't think Jimmy was "fine," although he told me in the corner "Geez, Angie, I was a little dazed, but I'm fine. I was only put down once." That did it! Hell, if the kid didn't know how many times he had been knocked down, why should I break the news to him? So I told him, "Jimmy, you were down twice, but you only remember once. That's why I'm stopping the fight."

  Frazier was now the recognized world heavyweight champion. But there was still an elephant in the room—or division, if you will—the man Budd Schulberg called "The Once and Future Champ": Muhammad Ali. Now his name was being mentioned as the only logical opponent for Joe Frazier.

  In the prime of his life and at the peak of his career, with his title stripped, his passport revoked, and banned from boxing, Muhammad Ali was suddenly without a way to earn a living. His legal bills appealing his conviction, which had come down two months after his refusal to step forward for induction—a $10,000 fine and a five-year prison sentence—were bleeding him dry. Left with little more than rent money and hope, he refused to carry a beggar's cup, continuing to look for ways to keep afloat and cope with his uneasy existence, one away from the spotlight he craved and away from the millions he had once earned.

  Here entered Gene Kilroy, a class act if there ever was one. I had first met Gene after Ali's fight with Zora Folley at the Garden. Well, to be truthful, I didn't so much meet him as shoo him out of the dressing room after the fight with a "no ... no ... no," thinking he was just another of the horde of well-wishers trying to crowd into the dressing room. Little did I know that he had befriended Ali, then Clay, at the Rome Olympics. Nor that he would play an important role in Ali's being able to make it through his three-and-a-half-year exile.