Ali: A Life, Eig - B +

          Cassius Marcellus Clay, Jr. was born in Louisville, Kentucky on Jan. 17, 1942. He was the descendant of violent men, and distantly, possibly of Henry Clay, the great Senator. Louisville's blacks lived well under a local "polite racism" system, and the Clay's lived in a better than average black middle-class neighborhood. His mother, Odessa, cleaned houses in the white neighborhoods. His dad did odd jobs, most often as a sign painter. Young Cassius was distraught by the segregation he faced. Although his father told him he could never be rich in a white man's world, he had other ideas. At 12, he stepped into a gym and began training. It sparked his ambitions. "It offered respect, visibility, power, and money." It also transcended race. He did poorly in school, and was barely literate. He probably was dyslexic. Between the ages of 12 and 18, he fought over 100 amateur bouts. In his later teen years, he fought in the Golden Gloves in Chicago and began to experience life in a big northern city. He also was exposed to the ideas of the Nation of Islam, and began to question his slave name and religion. In 1960, he won the AAU's, and gold in the light-heavyweight division in Rome. He signed a deal with a Louisville syndicate of six wealthy men, received a $10,000 signing bonus, and bought a pink Cadillac. His professional career began Oct. 29th. He moved to Miami to train with Angelo Dundee. He won fight after fight, but his dancing, circling to the right and not slugging it out style failed to convince his critics.  Throughout 1961 and 1962, he beat no-names and rose through the ranks. In late 1962, he faced a mid-forties, former champ, Archie Moore. He dropped Moore in four. Soon, he was ranked fourth in the division, and not just for his boxing skills. He was flat out the greatest self-promoter America had ever seen. He was on a Time cover in March of 1963. He sold out the Garden in NY for a fight against the third ranked heavyweight. That summer, Clay had a tune up in London against Henry Cooper, while Liston fought against Patterson in Las Vegas. The big fight would be in Miami in the new year. The near unanimous consensus was that Liston would destroy the "loudmouth from Louisville." The experts knew Liston could punch, but seemed to overlook that Clay had put on twenty pounds of muscle in the last two years, was a decade younger, two inches taller and much faster than the champ. While Clay trained relentlessly, Liston coasted. On Feb. 25th, Liston quit after six rounds. The champ had just turned 22, made a million dollars for the fight and spent the night in Malcolm X's room with Jim Brown and Sam Cooke. The following day he embraced Islam. He would now be known as Muhammad Ali. His decision threw the white establishment into a frenzy. The WBA said he should be stripped of his title because he was a poor example for young Americans. Complicating matters,  the Army announced he twice failed their mental acuity test. He didn't fight for the rest of the year. He toured Africa. He married Sonji Roi, a beautiful woman from Chicago of somewhat questionable background. His rematch with Liston was deferred into the following year, after Ali had emergency surgery in the fall. The rematch took place in Maine in the summer of 1965, a time when "Ali may have been the most widely disliked man in America..." Ali knocked Liston out in the first round. Slowly but surely, the Nation of Islam, in the person of Herbert Muhammad, son of Elijah, took over his life. Herbert, who had introduced Sonji to Ali, convinced him to divorce her because she wouldn't comply with the tenets of the religion. He became Ali's business manager. The group of Louisville businessmen who had provided Ali with a quality set of honest financial services were let go primarily because they were white. Herbert began lining his own pockets. As the war in Vietnam escalated, draft boards reconsidered their prior decisions and Ali was reclassified as 1-A. Ali didn't want to go and soon couched his objections as grounded in his religious beliefs. He filed paperwork claiming conscientious objector status. He later claimed to be a minister. He was now so unpopular that he had to fight in Canada and Europe. White America still called him Cassius Clay. On April 28, 1967, he refused induction. The same day, the WBA stripped him of his title and NY suspended his license to box.

         Ali didn't have much to do and was alone most of the time. For someone who thrived on activity and attention, it was torture.  He married a young Muslim woman, Belinda Boyd, later in the year and soon thereafter was convicted of draft evasion and sentenced to five years in jail. He was on bail pending his appeal. To white America, he was a traitor; to black America, a martyr. He was also broke. A federal circuit court upheld his conviction. As the war in Vietnam became more and more unpopular and the draft resistance movement prospered, and as black men demonstrated on the victory stand in Mexico City, Ali began to appear a bit more mainstream. A federal court in NY ruled for Ali and against the commission that had lifted his license. He was back and no longer the bad guy. Everywhere he went, people chanted Ali, Ali, Ali. A fight with Jerry Quarry was set for Oct. 1970 in Atlanta. Black America's celebrities flocked to the fight. Movie stars, singers, baseball players, as well as pimps and drug dealers were there. Ali had become the face of black empowerment. He was 28. He won, and won again against Oscar Bonavena, but he was slower. A statistical study of his career done years later showed that pre- suspension Ali hit his opponents twice as often as they hit him. For post-suspension Ali, the numbers were equal. And since Ali's favorite punch was a left jab, that meant he was getting hit harder than he was hitting. Taking a punch became the key to his second career in the ring. His 1971 fight with Joe Frazier was called the Fight of the Century and each was paid $2.5M, more than Hank Aaron made in his entire career. A NY writer said: "Muhammad Ali had become Lucky Lindy, and the Brown Bomber, Bobby Kennedy and Joan Baez all rolled up into one irrepressible folk hero hailed as our favorite defender of the truth and resister of authority." On March 8, 1971, the Garden was packed and 300 million watched on closed circuit tv. Nixon had a line installed at the White House so he could watch and root against "that draft dodger asshole." The afternoon of the fight, Ali had a $40 whore to his room. Ali fought toe to toe and won the first half of the fight before he ran out of gas. Frazier pummeled him. In the 15th Frazier was bruised and bleeding when his left hook sent Ali to the mat. Smokin Joe won and retained his crown, but both men were very badly hurt and arguably, never the same.

          At the Supreme Court, the initial vote was to uphold the conviction. A clerk had Justice Harlan read a book about Black Muslims and he began to have doubts. Potter Stewart pointed out that they were about to send one of the most popular men in the country to jail. The Court compromised on a technicality about the the reasoning of the Draft Board appeal, and unanimously reversed the conviction. He returned to boxing and in the 27 months prior to his second fight with Frazier, he fought 13 bouts. He was not only slower, but some began to believe he was brain damaged. He was also speaking more slowly than he ever had. The heavyweight arena got complicated after George Foreman took Frazier's title and Ali was so woefully unprepared for Ken Norton that Norton beat him and broke his jaw in 1973. He beat Norton in a split decision rematch and won Ali-Frazier II in a unanimous decision. He earned a bout with Foreman, and what would become a circus and spectacle, was scheduled for Zaire, the former Congo.  Each boxer was paid $5M. With thousands of Africans screaming "Ali Boma Ye" he rope-a-doped his way back to the title. He was now an American hero, embraced by all, welcomed to the White House. He fought a series of stiffs until Ali-Frazier III, the Thrilla in Manila. He out-endured Joe in a match he said "was like death." Frazier's corner threw in the towel before the last round. Ali had asked his corner to let him quit. They had almost killed each other. For all intents and purposes his career was over. He would never be the 'greatest' again.

          He continued fighting bums. Everyone in his corner knew he was a shadow of himself. Belinda gave up and divorced him.  He married Veronica, who gave birth to his fifth child. He needed money and continued fighting people no one had ever heard of. After a fifteen rounder at the Garden in late 1977 with Ernie Shavers, the Garden announced that he couldn't fight there anymore. They put his health and well being before their desire to make money. Ferdie Percheco, his ring doctor, resigned. He lost the title to a young Leon Spinks in early 1978. He won the title back later that year, primarily because he trained, and Spinks drank a lot. He retired, but came back three years later and embarrassed himself against Larry Holmes.  His final fight was a loss to Trevor Burdick later in the year. 

          Ali was forty and in bad shape. He was slurring his words. shuffling his feet and occasionally drooling. He was diagnosed with Parkinson's syndrome. He travelled endlessly, flying hundreds of thousands of miles per year. In 1986, he married Lonnie, his fourth wife. "No matter where he went, he was the most famous person in the room, and even in his diminished condition, made pulses quicken and left lasting impressions." Everywhere he went, he basked in the love of his fans. When the Olympic torch was passed to him in 1996, the crowd chanted Ali, Ali. He was 54.  A decade later, he received the Presidential Medal of Freedom. Lonnie was a skilled businesswoman and finally got rid of Herbert Muhammad. She signed a marketing deal that netted the champ $50m. He was 74 when he died on June 3, 2016. His memorial service was televised around the world. 

        I do not remember a time in my life that I didn't admire Ali.  I'm not sure I ever even processed how much white America hated him. As an 11 year old, I was awed by his Olympic victory and amazed by his audacious, outlandish personality. Throughout high school, I saw him become world champion and a world-wide fan favorite. My college years, the last three of which were filled with anxiety about Vietnam, coincided with his opposition to the draft and his suspension. I was in law school for his first fight with Frazier. It was the era when you had to see him on Wide World of Sports because there were few broadcasts on tv. I remember listening to the Rumble in the Jungle on the radio. I was so sad to see him lose to Leon Spinks with Brent Musburger making an ass of himself as the announcer.  He then faded from public view and we next saw him lighting the flame in Atlanta in 1996. By then, Michael Jordan had surpassed him as the most famous person in the world. But MJ had a vast interconnected tv and video world at his fingertips. Ali was the most famous, and beloved, person in the world in the analog era. His faults and failures as a human being were endless.  He wasn't very smart. He was shallow. He was a faithless husband who fathered many out of wedlock children, and had thousands of woman over the years.  He showed no loyalty to Malcolm X. He succumbed to the harsh domination of his life by Elijah and Herbert Muhammad. He was the pawn of hucksters and shysters. He treated his opponents, particularly Frazier and Foreman, abusively, endlessly characterizing them as 'Uncle Toms'.  He was a horrid father. But he was on the right side of the big issues. He resented the way he was treated because of his color, and who wouldn't. He loved life and people; his generosity was extraordinary and his enthusiasm uplifted millions. He was, in my opinion, correct on Vietnam. I believe he was a great American, and someone I still admire, but considerably less because of all the miscues and endless personal failures enumerated here.  This is a very good book. Thanks to my brother, Will, for the recommendation.