Here's a few far-out things I learned from an excellent PBS documentary I saw on Muhammad Ali/ Cassius Clay this week:
- The old footage shows him as long, lean, and very quick. He had the unorthodox strategy of ducking and even backing away from his opponents' jabs. Critics thought someone would catch up to him sooner or later, or that he'd lose his balance with all the backward leaning.
- He would reach at his opponents with his long arms, jabbing their noses with a flick of the wrist. It doesn't look like much, but it had great effect. His toe-tapping dances were kind of funny, too.
- He was an early rapper. Rhyming and rapping his playful boasts, and screaming collegially with his boxing buddies. He says he got some of his act from Gorgeous George, the fake-wrestling behemoth with the girly-hair.
- His championship bout with Sonny Liston was filled with high drama. Liston was a slow-moving moose of a man and no one--not even Ali's allies--really thought Ali had a chance of besting Liston. But Liston couldn't keep up with him. Finally seeing himself tiring, Liston put a stringent on his gloves and blinded Ali, but Angelo Dundee made Ali go back out into the ring and fight blind. Liston was defeated and Ali took the championship belt.
- Ali was already involved with the Nation of Islam on the eve of the Liston fight. This news was kept under wraps and it is speculated that it would have been leaked if he'd lost the fight with the intent on destroying Ali's career.
- He became very close to Malcolm X--the two imagining themselves as brothers. But when Malcolm discovered the duplicity of Elijah Muhammad (the Nation of Islam's leader) and learned of his many underage couplings, Malcolm became disenfranchised and aimed to take Ali and a young Louis Farrakhan (then Louis X) out of the group. Elijah one upped Malcolm by courting Ali, who had just changed his name from Cassisu Clay to Cassius X, but Elijah dubbed him Muhammad Ali. This was apparently a great honor, the name "Muhammad" was seen as a coveted designation perhaps reserved for someone like the star evangelist, Malcolm. This infuriated Malcolm and he left the nation without any of its big names. About a year later he was gunned down and Ali, who had turned against Malcolm, said something to the effect of "that's what happens when you mess with the nation."
Interesting stuff. A terrific athelete who cleverly invented an image for himself using the tools of the burgeoning television media, but who ultimately got caught up in error. Though the extent of institutionalized racism he and so many others had to live through would have made many a young man search for purpose that went beyond society's constraints.
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