MUHAMMAD ALI BOMAYE

Never an easy out with Ali.

Today is the first day for all baby boomers without Muhammad Ali. He was always there, even if we didn’t know it.

The Rome Olympic Light Heavyweight champion didn’t spark the interest in 1960 he would a few short years later.

Boxing changed sports, going from one of the big three along with college football and professional baseball in the golden years, to the almost forgotten heavyweight division today.

Nobody ever forgot Muhammad Ali, in the ring and out. He changed boxing the way Elvis Presley changed popular music.

Ali and Elvis had moves no one had seen in public, and both were criticized for them. Elvis refused to stand still at a microphone, Ali refused to stand in front of another boxer.

Instead, he used the ring like Steve Prefontaine used race tactics by setting a pace for his opponents to follow. Both the runner and the fighter wore people down, then dropped them.

Sports heroes like Ali seldom find greater fame, but he did. The Greatest kept greatness growing.

Muhammad Ali Bomaye and Howard Cosell

Ali beat some great boxers in the ring, but he killed the rest of us out of the ring.

The great Howard Cosell might have been the okay Howard Cosell without Ali.

As a preeminent sportscaster and host, Cosell brought a serious demeanor and heavy gravity to every event.

The Ali vs Cosell matches were classic.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BuFJ50fSAQU

You’ve heard of Rocky?

Muhammad Ali helped create the movie franchise with his fight against Chuck Wepner, the Bayonne Bleeder.

This is a clip from the pre-fight weigh in.

If Ali looks like Apollo Creed, now you know why.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s1yyx105V-k

Growing up in the Sixties, the big fights were on free TV.

In between big fights we had boxing programs we watched with our dads.

After Ali every fighter was either like him, or not like him.

Standing and throwing hands was old fashioned, dancing and jabbing was the future.

Until Ali, the ring looked normal, looked the same size for everyone. Then he started moving.

He shrunk the ring with his speed the same way O. J. Simpson shrunk the college football field with his speed.

Someone so big and fast was hard to fathom. Ali turned our dads into fans, at least he turned my dad into a fan and it was a surprising bond.

Too many early sports writers tried to shame Ali as a weak puncher who ran away from opponents.

The Greatest showed them why he’s the greatest.

He and Michael Jackson come on at the fifteen minute market.

Ali shuffle at 29:05.

Ali explained his fight strategy like this: Save your energy during the first two minutes of each round and fight like a maniac the final minute.

After he took George Foreman down, anything was possible.

That he’d go around the globe to fight turned him into World Ali.

No one questions if Ali stayed in the game too long, but that’s what the greats so.

Shaquille O’Neal stayed so long in the NBA he ended up dragging the court with the hated Boston Celtics.

Football players and baseball players stay too long and end up like Willie Mays, a shadow of their previous selves, but none of them take the sort of beating boxers do when they slow down.

What Larry Holmes fought Ali in 1980 it was more than a boxing match. Holmes chopped the legend down and made it impossible for fans to cheer him.

Ali stayed too long, maybe one fight too long, and soon after was diagnosed with Parkinson’s Disease.

From a personal point of view, I know Parkinson’s close up. My father in law got Parkinson’s and I trained him for five years before he died.

I could say I was his caregiver, and I was, but I like to think we trained more than we cared.

I’d sit in front of Grandpa Ken’s lift chair and ask him who he was fighting for today. It was therapeutic training. We’d each pick a fighter and hold our hands up to shadow box.

Parkinson’s wrecks so much in it’s victims that just holding hands up is tough, but Ken did it.

He often chose Joe Louis. I always chose Muhammad Ali.

I called the punches for Joe and announced the punches for Muhammad.

“Gimme your left, your left, now the right. Keep your guard up. Here’s comes the jab. Sticking the jab. Keep that guard up. Gimme the hammer, the fly swatter.”

Then I’d say, “The hands can’t hit what the eye can’t see,” and we’d stop to laugh. He knew what was coming next.

I’d get up and fly around the room waving my arms singing, “Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee. Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee.”

I’d do it twice, once for Ken, once for me. Now he’s gone and it’ll take three, one for Joe Louis, one for Ken, and one for Muhammad Ali.

He was a once in a lifetime figure, and he still is.

Muhammad Ali Bomaye.