Muhammad Ali kills time before ‘Drama in Bahama’

Press, 9 December 1981, Page 33

Muhammad Ali kills time before ‘Drama in Bahama’

By

GEORGE VECSEY,

of

the “New York Times,” through NZPA His religion prohibits magic. Muhammad Ali mentions this as he performs some sleight of hand in his hotel room while waiting for a fight some people say he should not attempt, and others suspect may never come off. While waiting it out, Ali takes three unequal ropes and makes them the same length without being detected. He stuffs a handkerchief into his huge fist and makes it disappear. He turns a half dollar into a nickel with a flick of his hand. But after that trick, he deliberately exposes the device that allows him to switch the coins. He says in the hoarse voice that worries his friends: “Muslims don’t believe in magic. That’s why I’ve got to explain what I do. I believe in God, and I believe in knowledge, in education. No magic, no voodoo.” He is wearing a chocolate brown suit with a clean shirt and tie at eight in the morning. He is all dressed up with nowhere to go, because he is mostly killing time until he gets into the ring with

Trevor Berbick on Friday night. If he gets into the ring. Three times in an hour, Ali uses the phrase “if the fight comes off.” Network television in the United States would not touch a fight by the most recognised athlete — perhaps the most recognised human being — in the world. He has gone to another country, where the local promoters finally got around to making tickets available, in a supermarket, last week. Ali’s sombre behaviour reflects the shaky financial status, as well as his own poor physical shape. He promises no magic in the ring on December 11 — just a tired man, nearly 40 years of age, trying to defy the fears of his admirers. His friends say he has taken too many punches since he began boxing as a skinny 12-year-old in Louisville, nearly 28 years ago. He admits that his mother and his wife do not want him to box again. He dismissed Dr Ferdie Pacheco for saying brain damage was evident in his speech. Ali admits “I couldn’t win a round” in his clumsy battle with Larry Holmes in Octo-

ber, 1980. And he has heard that George Foreman, whom he beat seven years ago, has said: “All the people who cheered him will be embarrassed for him now.” But Ali is beyond embarrassment. As he shifts from his repertoire of sleight-of-hand into his repertoire of rhetoric, he says, “I see the over-all picture.” He looks a visitor in the eye and he says: “Write this down. The price of certainty of being the greatest is a constant assault on my own personality and ability.” Why is he fighting again? He leans back on a couch in his chocolate brown suit, seemingly exhausted from running 3km that morning, and whispering: “Not because I’m broke. Not because I miss the limelight. Not because anybody makes me. It’s just the idea. Four times a champ. I remember when Floyd Patterson regained his championship.” Here Ali imitates the oohs and ahs of millions of astonished boxing fans, as heard over the static of a radio in a 1960 bout against Ingemar Johansson. Ali is his own sound-effects man. "Everybody said it was amazing that a man won the

heavyweight title back,” savs Ali. Patterson won the title two times: “But I’m going to do it four times,” Ali says. “Nobody will ever do it five times because you know as well as I do that people get old too fast. I used to run six miles (9.6 km a day but now I got to make an effort for three. “I can still do everything I want but I got to make appointments. Can’t do things on the spur of the moment like when you’re 20. Not even Muhammad Ali could win the title five times.” Ali has not fought since Holmes reverently peppered him 14 months ago. Because be could not get backing in the United States, he has allowed some associates to arrange a so-called “Drama in Bahama.” For the last eight weeks he has been a bigger attraction than the captured dolphins and barracudas in the lagoon behind the hotel. He is big enough to drag people out of the casino just to gape at him, which may not be exactly what the management had in mind when it made Ali a guest at the hotel. “Everybody knows me,” Ali says. “Not just in the West, but in China, in Russia, in Morocco, in Libya. They know me all over the world. I set up a goal for myself, to demonstrate to other people what can be done. I do it for

them. People tell me not to fight, but they are at the foot of the wall of knowledge and I am at the top. My horizon is greater than theirs. “Why do people go to the moon? Why did Martin Luther King say he had a dream? People need challenges.” A visitor relays a greeting from George Foreman, who quit boxing abruptly four years ago and is now serving a tiny Christian congregation in the pine woods outside Houston. Foreman has said Ali should not fight any more but should serve his own Islamic faith outside the ring. “Foreman’s a good man,” Ali says softly. “Don’t want to say anything against him, but you say he’s got 21 people in his church on a good night. I’ve got the whole world. If I make my comeback. I can see Yankee Stadium packed with people. There’s Billy Graham on my left, preaching Christianity. There’s a noted rabbi on my right. There’s Reverend Ike. There’s Wallace Muhammad. All of us preaching our.gods, like ponds and streams and rivers and lakes all going down to the ocean. That’s why I keep fighting. I’m spreading my faith.” Foreman’s point had been that Ali did not need to box any more, that he had such great visibility that he could preach his point of view far

from the boxing ring. Nearly 40. Ali has clearly not found any way of life more appealing than hanging around a boxing environment, training and talking — and putting his own brain cells on the line again. Many friends and associates say Ali’s voice worries them, that it is thick and slow, like coffee with too many grounds in it. One doctor in England claims that samples of Ali’s voice over the last 15 years indicate increased slurring, a sign of loss of irreplaceable brain cells. In a rare move for any boxing match, the promoters of the Ali-Berbick fight released a medical report issued on December 1. 1980, by Dr Dennis Cope of the U.C.L.A. medical centre. Ali bad gone to the centre after claiming he had become dehydrated from taking too many thyroid pills for the Holmes fight. Some people had suggested Ali had been taking pills to cut down on his weight. Cope’s report said Ali had come to the centre first on October 6 "complaining of lethargy, weakness and shortness of breath.” The report, which covered four visits to the centre, said: “The patient tended to talk softly and to almost mumble his speech at times, but when questioned about this, he was able to speak appropriately

without any evidence of a speech disorder. He was evaluated by both a neurosurgeon and neurologist who felt that his speech pattern was not pathologic.” The examination concluded: “That patient’s current health status is excellent and there is no evidence from a health standpoint that he should be limited whatsoever in his activities.” Ali explains his dismal showing against Holmes this way: “I took too many thyroid pills. Always used to double up on my vitamins. Bad idea with thyroid pills. Started training at 2531 b, (114.8 kg went down to 2171 b (98.5 kg for the fight. Too much. People saying: “Oooh, isn’t he pretty. But I was too weak, didn’t feel like dancing. I was dazed. I was in a dream.” Ali says he weighs 2321 b (105.3 kg but a lot of it has settled around his waist. He says he runs three miles six times a week, but the other morning at 5 o’clock, with the roosters crowing and the sun not yet dawned over the Caribbean, Ali chugged a mile and a half, walked half a mile throwing punches at the darkness with two light weights in his fists. He was delighted to stop and spar with a young man out for a dawn run, and did not seem overly offended when the young man asked: “What you doing here? You

fighting again?" After two miles at the most, Ali climbed back into Murphy’s limousine and returned to the hotel. His sparring session the day before had been equally bleak. Performing for about 300 tourists, who had paid SUS 3 apiece to enter the hotel theatre, Ali had pushed and shoved a lighter opponent for nine rounds, then went into a plodding twostep that was a parody of the young Ali. Later he lay on a bed behind the stage, wrapped in a white robe like a king being prepared for burial in a pyramid, and admitted this was tough work for a 39-year-old man. “Everybody over 40 is going to be rooting for me,” he predicted, adding yet another constituency to his legions. “I’m gonna beat Berbick badder than Holmes did.” Trevor Berbick is a big, strong Jamaican, 27 years old. who now lives in Nova Scotia. In his most recent fight, last April, Berbick lost a decision to Holmes in Las Vegas without ever showing fear of the champion. He also hit Joe Tate so hard in Montreal, in 1980, that Tate quivered in the ring for many long seconds before reviving. Ali has always had a genius for finding a deus ex machina — good luck, what-

ever you want to call it — in his moments of need. When he refused to serve in the military, the public mood eventually turned against the Vietnam War, allowing him to return to boxing. When he won his championships, he had the great vision to encounter the mysterious Sonny Liston in Miami Beach, the awed Foreman in the middle of the night in Zaire, and a totally inept Leon Spinks in New Orleans. This time Ali could be saved from a beating by the fiscal shorts. Franklin Wilson. a vice-president of Sports International, a Bahamian company formed to promote this fight, said last week that "there were sufficient elements of truth" to rumours of financial problems but he added: "that is old news now.” Wilson admitted that only 2000 tickets had been sold last week, but claimed nearly half the 17.000 tickets were now reserved through travel agents in the United States. Ali said: "We got some money up front. We got 5U5250.000 for expenses, and more to come later. If the fight comes off or not, that’s up to my lawyers. They handle that stuff and I do the fighting. I’m not worried. “A lot of people want to see me win the fourth title, but a 10l of people are against me. Rap Brown,

Stokely Carmichael, you don't hear from them. Martin Luther King, he’s gone. I’m the last of the heroes of the sixties. I’m fighting the odds. A lot of the white society doesn’t want black heroes. It’s like the old days, all over again. Wonder woman is white. Tarzan is king of the jungle. Batman is white. Evel Knievel jumps the Grand Canyon, nobody stops him. "There was an old lady, 80 years old. finished the marathon in New York. Thai’s 26 miles. I never ran 26 miles in my life, but an 80-year-old woman did it. and nobody made her stop. "There was this man in Canada. Terry Fox. He had an artificial leg from cancer, he ran almost all the way across Canada on one leg before he died and he was a hero. They didn't try to stop him. "Why are so many people worried about me fighting Berbick? I'll whip Holmes and everybody will say: ‘Whoo, four times, Muhammad Ali won it four times.’ I’ll defend my title a few times, then i’ll retire, go preach all over the world. What’s wrong with me trying it? You ever see so many people worried about one black guy in your life?" Then Ali winks at the visitor and asks again: "Do I sound like I got brain damage to you?"