Muhammad Ali’s last fight was against Trevor Berbick in 1981, five years before I was born.
As a sports-mad youngster I was always hungry to learn about great athletes in various codes and Ali appealed to me enormously.
His story of overcoming early adversity, becoming the heavyweight champion of the world, taking an unpopular stand and losing the title, before recovering it and earning a respect and status few athletes have ever attained is the stuff of legend.
His style, charisma, charity and humour were all totally unique.
Ali became an obsession. I collected books, posters and videos. There was so much to find out and there still is.
An old VHS from Cash Convertors featured a series of Ali’s famous fights, including the Rumble in the Jungle and Thriller in Manilla titles. However my favourite bout was a 1976 scrap against Richard Dunn in Munich.
Dunn was a tough Yorkshireman and is notable for the fact he was the last person to score an official knockdown against Ali. The champ retaliated by knocking him down five times in the fifth round. Dunn proved to be vulnerable to Ali’s right hand and as Dunn stubbornly rises after each fall, Ali points to the right hand and exaggerates the lead-up to each punch.
When the referee puts Dunn out of his mercy, Ali spins his arm around like a windmill in a showcase of brash and hilarious showmanship.
When I was 18, I watched When We Were Kings for the first time. A neighbour had a copy and suggested I would enjoy it. I watched it once, replayed it instantly and viewed it maybe seven more times before returning it to its original owner. I then brought two copies of my own, just in case I lost one.
When We Were King’s blew my mind. It completely changed the way I viewed sport and as an aspiring reporter the lessons were invaluable. The way the film personalised the athletics, captured the wider societal context of the Rumble in the Jungle and injected humour where appropriate was something that expanded my sporting IQ.
The great American sportswriter Red Smith (ironically a fierce critic of Ali) said, “any sportswriter who thinks the world is no bigger than the outfield fence is not only a bad citizen, but also a lousy sportswriter.”
Sport is so much more than names and numbers on a score sheet. It’s a microcosm of society and the good and bad that entails. I hadn’t figured that out until I watched When We Were Kings.
The other thing When We Were Kings introduced me to was the blues. I had no interest in music until I saw BB King perform Sweet Sixteen in the movie. Blues (Ali was a big fan) like sport is a similarly powerful and authentic expression of human emotion. Blues to is a microcosm of society.
Ali like B.B. King was a timeless original. Ali represented something bigger than stats in a record book. His example is something to aspire to, whatever the field, and that’s why his death is so keenly felt by people who didn’t see him fight. He is one of us, yet he isn’t.
B.B. King once said “We all have idols. Play like anyone you care about but try to be yourself while you’re doing so.”
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