The Greatest turns 65
I recall the evening - I must have been about 15 - when my dad took me down to Varsity Stadium to watch a fight on closed circuit TV, between George Forman, who had been destroying opponent after opponent after opponent in a round or two - and an aging Muhammad Ali. Everybody I talked to said the same thing - they were cheering for Ali but they thought that he too would be destroyed. And then the fight started, and round after round Ali stood against the ropes taking the best Forman could dish out - the so-called rope-a-dope......before coming alive and knocking out Forman. Was it the 8th round? I think so. What a passion play - boxing, international politics....hell, even James Brown was there.
Time flies away like swallows on the wing. It is hard to believe that a whole generation of kids have no idea what a big deal this guy Ali was in his time.
2 comments:
Loved your post. My stepdad introduced me to watching boxing - Ali & Foreman - wow. And the days of Ali.....the personna....we'll have to see if we can find some documentaries for the generations below us - I always educate all my generations about the halocaust - why not Ali........!!!! Time Capsules!
I grew up with my dad being a big boxing fan, and a huge Ali fan, so it's no surprise I developed an admiration for the man.
These days, I'm not so sure about boxing as a sport, but I still watch it from time to time.
It's good, too, to look back at some of those classic bouts; to look back to a time when being a boxer wasn't necessarily synonymous with being illiterate. Great guys, true sportsmen, real legends.
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