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Page 2 Section II Portland Observer Thursday, October S. 1978
Ali Through The Years
A SKETCH OF MUHAMMAD ALI
In boxing, they talk o f the hungry fighter as being the
most dangerous . . . Muhammad A li, heavyweight
champion o f the world, believes that pride motivates a
man even more than hunger. . . “ I don’ t need to fight
anymore,” he’ ll say . . . “ 1 have all the money I need for
myself and my family . . . Why, then, am 1 fighting? It’s
my pride . . . I lost two fights and had to avenge those,
which 1 have done with Ken Norton and Joe Frazier . . .
Then I had to win back my title . . . Impossible they said
. . . you’ ll be injured for life . . . don’ t do it . . .
Foreman is too young and too strong for you. I had to
prove who is the greatest.”
He has been showered w ith every superlative
imaginable and a few more that he invented.
Boxing history’ s greatest and most controversial
salesman was born Cassius M arcellus Clay I I , in
Louisville, Kentucky, on January 17, 1942 . . . It is now
36 years later and there are some who may say that the
legend o f the most colorful, if not the greatest, o f
heavyweights has reached it ’ s peak.
Be it his tremendous ego or his fantastic showman
ship that has made him a magnet. Whether you like him
or not, or believe in his principles or not, he has played
the key role in boxing almost from the time he turned
professional in October o f 1960.
Even before that, as an amateur and ultimately an
Olympic Champion, he displayed evidences o f a per
sonality that attracted followers by the millions in every
space on the globe. But for his refusal to accept induc
tion, he might have become the great American hero.
His action cost him three-and-a-half years of ring work
and millions o f dollars in revenue.
The son o f Marcellus Clay, a Louisville sign painter,
was a tot o f destiny from the moment of his birth — ac
tually, he started talking at ten months — there has been
little to stop him since.
He has mellowed considerably and m atured
physically and mentally. His statements, once quippy
and more often humorously arrogant, are now expend
ed with much thought. " I don’ t talk anymore to hear
myself,” he says. “ I have discovered that the youth o f
this country pay attention to me. On their account, I
must say only what I feel is right and sincere.”
Just as his father was a flashy and talkative man,
young Cassius grew fast, talked faster, and had
something to say about everything. He was a restless
boy, with his share o f street fights, and a good part o f
his amazing reflex action was developed ducking
carefully-aimed rocks. He was exceptionally fast. In the
public playgrounds, he played softball, basketball and
volley ball. He was a marbles champion. " I had the
surest knuckles in Louisville,” he claimed.
He was the pet o f his mother, Odessa Lee, who affec
tionately called him “ Gee Gee." Given a bike for being
smart in school when he was twelve, he treasured it.
One day the bike was taken. Cassius reported the theft
to policeman Joe Martin. Martin also happened to be
the boxing instructor in the community gymnasium. He
took Cassius in hand, along with his brother, Rudolph
Valentino Clay. The stolen bike was forgotten. The
boys haunted the gym. M artin could see in Cassius a
boxing natural. He not only showed the right moves,
but also talked a great fight — even then. Clay’s early
competition was in a ju n io r version o f the Golden
Gloves. In 1960 he won the National Golden Gloves
heavyweight title in Madison Square Garden, although
he was only a lightheavyweight.
He also won the National AAU and 1960 Olympic
titles — both as a light heavy . . . He had 141 amateur
fights, losing only seven . . . His personality captured
the O lym pic village in Rome, where he talked to
everyone who would listen . . . He became the hottest
fistic prospect since Joe Louis . . . Everyone with money
— and some without it — bid for the services o f young
Cassius . . . Ultimately, Clay signed with what became
known as the “ Louisville Group” which included eight
millionaires among its eleven members . . . Angelo
Dundee, one o f the ablest o f trainers, was enlisted as top
second, conditioner and teacher . . . A ll o f the young
boxers bouts were fought under the Louisville Group's
aegis, including the title defense against Karl Milden-
berger in Germany in September of 1966 . . . His later
fights, beginning w ith his defense against Cleveland
W illiam s on November 14, 1966 in the H ouston
Astrodome, are independent o f the original Louisville
sponsors . . . Clay’s poetic spoutings have become dim
med by his religious learnings but neither his religion
nor his poetry have anything to do with his ability as a
fig h te r. . . He won the heavyweight championship in a
controversial clash with Sonny Liston on a technical
knockout in the seventh round at M iam i Beach,
February 25, 1964 . . . It was the culmination o f a dream
for the young man who had boosted even in grade
school that he would be the world champion . . . His first
defense was against Liston and he won that rematch on
a knockout in a much-discussed first round at Lewiston,
halt a stubborn, strong Oscar Bonavena in the Garden .
. . His fight with Frazier on March 8, 1971, was a classic
that left many questions unanswered about the super
boxer with the split personality. Jimmy Ellis, who knew
him best in the ring, couldn’t answer them. Nor could
Buster M athis, Jurgen B lin , M acFoster, George
Chuvalo, Jerry Quarry, Blue Lewis, Floyd Patterson
and Bob Foster, victims who followed. Against Norton,
the second time, he may have been fighting for his fistic
life. It was a little different than in the past, fighting
most o f the time just hard enough to win. The boy in
him and the clowning seems to have slackened with
maturity. Against Frazier in Super Fight II, he stuck to
his successful fight plan and the clowning o f the first
fight was not in evidence.
In Zaire, he went into the ring a four to one undeidog
against the undefeated and apparently indestructible
George Foreman, the baddest cat to ever climb through
the ropes. The odds would have been longer i f not for
A li’s personal favoritism and the sentimentality o f his
die-hard backers.
A li stunned the world, as he predicted, in stopping
Foreman in eight rounds and recapturing the coveted
crown he won ten years earlier from Sonny Liston,
another indestructible superman.
PLUSH BATH CARPET
Maine, in March of 1965 . . . In November o f that year,
he stopped Floyd Patterson in the 12th round o f another
highly speculative bout in Las Vegas . . . A li successfully
defended his crown nine times before his banishment
from ring action . . . His last competitive effort as the
recognized cham pion was against Zora Folley in
Madison Square Garden with a seventh round knockout
on March 22, 1967 . . . It was not until he fought and
stopped Jerry Quarry in the third round in the City
Auditorium o f Atlanta, Georgia, on October 26, 1970,
that he was permitted to return to any American ring . .
On December 7, I960, it took him fifteen rounds to
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