I constantly have this argument with people
whenever the topic of Boxing comes up.
Who was the greatest heavyweight of all
time?
It seems that most go for the likes of Mike
Tyson, for instance, most likely because of the epic and ferocious ability that
he exuded from such a young age, the spectacular way he was able to vanquish
opponents in the ring. I have to agree, his knock outs were spectacular, even
if against also-rans fighters. But yes, he was one of the greats.
But not “the Greatest”.
I watched ‘When We Were Kings’ for the
umpteenth time during breakfast this morning, and still laughed out loud with
reverence and awe whenever Ali spoke. The overflowing pile of books I have
accumulated of the subject of Muhammad Ali over the years has taught me many
things that I constantly strive for. I loved Ali since a young age, always
trying to emulate his light footwork, attempting to “float” like he and Bruce
Lee did, around my friend’s backyard while we snotted each over with boxing
gloves, flicking out jabs, and shuffling our feet. It wasn’t until I was older
that I grew to respect the man, his actions, and his words.
His words helped me attempt to achieve
things that in my quietest moments, I thought I could never pull off. I have
been a part of 6 Australian Taekwon-do teams over the years, my first being in
2003 when I was 19, my latest (and hopefully not my last) back in 2014. Every day I juggle a pile of commitments that
will take years to complete, but Ali is one of the things I recall, and it
gives me strength, fortitude and perspective.
Immediately
after I saw the news of his death, I wiped away some tears, and was compelled
to put down some thoughts. As I began typing this, I realised they don’t all
seamlessly connect, as Ali has said and achieved a lot that has inspired me
personally, so they’re in chunks. If even one sentence and example makes you
nod or remember something, or sparks something in you, then that’s one more
person on the planet that I am happy to say Ali has touched.
2013
World Championships.
“My
Toughest opponent has always been me” – Muhammad
Ali.
Though all the memories, 2013 stands out
the most in my mind as it was 6 years after the previous one. I was turning 30,
and to top it off, I was still relatively new to freelancing paid work in
comics, and my first short story was for a little publisher in the US, coinciding
with the World Taekwon-do Championships in the UK. Suffice to say, it was a
busy lead up, with training and drawing to make deadlines.
I really didn’t know if I could do it.
But, to motivate myself, I surrounded the
house (and eventually brought with me to the UK), the words of my idol, Ali. In
both my comic book and publishing aspirations and fighting, the words
resonated. I’m not going to plaster all
his quotes here that I had, but they very much helped me, even just to get out
of bed and put the training gear on early morning, or come home after a long
day at work to train at the gym, or run at night. (To this day, after barely
any sleep, and a full 11 or 12 hour day at work, I still find myself with the
fortitude to stop at the gym and slog it out for an hour or 2, despite not
having anything immediate on the horizon to strive for. Just, for me, I
suppose.)
“One
day, I won’t be around to answer people’s questions, or advise young aspiring
athletes. What I want to say is for the people whom I’ve never met. It is for
the boys and girls whose hands I will never hold. It is for the champions to
come. These comments are for every spirit on the downside of advantage:
Champions
aren’t made in gyms. Champions are made from something deep inside – a desire,
a dream, and a vision. They have to have the skill and the will.
But
the will must be stronger than the skill.
When
I was boxing I would set a goal for myself to demonstrate to other people what
could be done, and to prove to myself that anything was possible when I set a
goal then worked to achieve it. We create out own realities according to our
thoughts and beliefs. The critics who told me what I couldn’t do didn’t know as
well as I what I was capable of.
Everyone
wins and everyone loses every now and again. If we didn’t experience loss, we would
never know what we are capable of. The
important thing to remember is:
You
don’t really lose when you fight for what you believe in. you lose when you
fail to fight for what you care about.” – Muhammad
Ali.
So how did it all go? Well, the US release
was fun, but not Earth-shattering. I know only a handful have ever seen the
book in Australia, let alone cared about it. But, one could argue that that
experience eventually lead to the current projects I have on the drawing board,
and ones possibly to come. It’s all experience. And you have to keep going.
“…If
you want to win, the will can never retire, the race can never stop, and the
faith can never weaken.”
Regarding the 2013 fights, well, I remember
after winning a fight or two, I lost my first fight in years. Faith did weaken.
I was drained, sure- no sleep because of the last minute 1-day delay of the
division, and not feeling well, I hadn’t had a meal in 24 hours. Regardless,
this guy was very good. In fact, he went on to win Gold. After watching it
weeks later, the fight looked far more even-looking on footage than it felt.
And the judges awarded it close, but still, I felt horrible. I remember my left
ribs were sore (and to this day, become stiff if I lean on that side sitting
for too long). I’d coped a few decent
hits to the head, so consequently a bit “punchy”, and exhausted. I needed
space. I ended up in a quiet corner of a locker room, Dobok top off, gloves
still on, tears streaming down my face. I knew some point later in the day, we
had team sparring events, so I had to pull myself together. Stupidly, this
popped into my head.
“Inside
the ring or out, ain’t nothing wrong with going down. It’s staying down that’s
wrong” – Muhammad Ali.
I returned to the hall. We were all pretty
wiped but I knew we had to step up and do our best in this next event. Seeing the
first fight become a one-sided affair, and the referee not doing much to
control the nonsense, and loved ones watching on, was enough to spur me on to
step in for my turn again after the earlier defeat.
The fight lasted seconds. KO with a left
hook. I later discovered this gentleman won Bronze in my individual division,
which makes me imagine to this day what could have been if the Draw for the
fights had been a little different.
Now Australia
didn’t win the event overall, and I didn’t come away with a Sparring medal, but
this fight still stays with me to this day as I was able to mentally redeem
myself, and to walk away knowing that we can achieve, even when we fail. I have
never stopped being my toughest opponent, though.
------
Last year, I
completed my DVA (Doctorate of Visual Arts) in the field of Comic Books;
looking at the process, historical context of US, Australia and the UK, with an
eye towards the development of my own comic series. When I began, apart from
being a fan, and having researched American Superhero comics previously in my
honours year, I had only dabbled in creating comics as a fan of drawing and
reading; not by having an understanding of the disciplines of comic book art
development and the methods of applying sound visual storytelling that I would
then come to learn through the following years of learning, seeking out
professions here and overseas for feedback and review, practice, and execution .
My Doctoral methodology in this regard was described as “Action Research”; it
reminded me a lot of Martial Arts, which I have trained in since my early
teens. Training with those who are some of the best of their discipline;
Masters, Grand Masters, noted competitors and team mates, it is no different, and
is a series of skills that will be continued to be studied and researched, I
predict, for the rest of my life.
Again, Muhammad
Ali came to mind when adopting this philosophy, and it’s something I try to
consciously feed to students in my Uni classes (if I’m not making a Jack Kirby
reference :P), particularly those who aren’t sure how to tackle the immediate
problems they may face, overcoming a creative obstacle.
“ All of my life, if I wanted to do something, I
studied those who were good at it; then I memorized what I learned, and
believed that I could do it, too.
Then I went and did it.” – Muhammad Ali.
“Everything
that God created has a purpose. The sun has a purpose. The clouds have a
purpose. Rain has a purpose…even the smallest insect, and fish in the sea have
a purpose.
Regardless
of how large or small, we were all born to accomplish a certain task. It is the
knowledge of that purpose that enables every soul to fulfill itself.
One
person with knowledge of his life’s purpose is more powerful than ten thousand
working without that knowledge” – Muhammad Ali.
When I was a kid in year 7, I really
couldn’t sit and watch boxing like I do now. I recall falling asleep on a few
occasions watching fights on TV. They weren’t cartoons, so I wasn’t too
invested. There was one tape that my Dad had which was “Rumble in the Jungle
1974” and “ Cassius Clay vs. Sonny Liston 1964”.
These I loved.
Seeing the man dubbed ‘The Louisville Lip”
brag and joke and stand up to these bigger, brutish supervillain-types of Sonny
‘The Bear’ Liston and young George ‘The Mummy’ Foreman, use to make me laugh,
like Spider-man taunting the Rhino or Juggernaut from one of the comic books
I’d read. He was a superhero.
As I got older, I particularly noted that
the fights were a great contrast, between a man who was at the beginning of his
career, and a man a decade later, who was beginning the downward years of his
career. What strikes me now to this day was that Ali, who gave away the best
earning years of his life, when he was at his fighting peak (look at those
fights against Cleveland Williams, and Zorah Folley) for his religious and
racial beliefs, had to re-invent himself skillfully, and change the way he
fought his opponents. He adapted to life. No long able to duck and dance
against the younger and tougher men that his division had to offer, Ali had to
expose weaknesses, and overall, use experience. And if none of that worked,
such as against the powerful Joe Frazier, he had to use psychological warfare
(harsh sometime, but it sold tickets), and just good old fashioned guts and
determination.
Yes, I humbly believe he fought too long.
Spinks, though an avenged win in the end (and a third Heavyweight title) should
have been the curtain call. But such is the desire of the fighter to keep
fighting, long after the body ceases to be fully capable. But much can be said
for that spirit to carry on.
The first fight against Liston in 1964 is
another lesson in itself. Ali (then Clay) was proving to all the naysayers that
he had the ability to achieve what everyone told him was impossible; beat Sonny
Liston to be the Heavyweight Champion of the World. Early in the fight (I want
to say Round 4, I think), Ali began to complain his eyes were stinging. It was
speculated the liniment uses to stop cuts bleeding to Liston’s face had gotten
in Ali’s eye. Liston, known to be in the Mafia’s pocket, was speculated to have
cheated in this instance, by having the liniment on his glove, and smearing it
into Ali’s face (since the Boxers had never touched heads at this point, and
Liston was struggling to even tag Ali until the complaint). Angelo Dundee,
Ali’s trainer, frantically washed Ali’s eyes in vain, as Ali was ready to quit
(calling out “Cut my gloves off!”, trying to claw his face.) Dundee, sensing
the referee’s presence, shielded him from getting a proper look at Ali, and
assuring Ali that the sweat would eventually wash the product from Ali’s eyes,
instructed Ali to dance for a round (virtually blind), and try to survive the
onslaught of punches Liston would barrage him with.
So Ali danced. And by round 6, Ali could
see again, and began to fight back. So much so that by the beginning of round
7, Liston, who realised Ali wouldn’t give in, spat out his mouthguard and
refused to get up.
Ali had won.
No matter what life throws at you, and as
tough as it’s going to get, and even when you are ready to quit, you have to
keep going. Even when you initially try again, and you feel like you’re
stumbling around blind, you put your hands up and keep dancing.
That’s what Ali
taught me.
I was sitting here marking a pile of
student work after spending a rainy morning scrolling through the news, hoping
that the news of Ali would get better. Waking up to see that my hero, since as
far back as my ill-fated days as a little kid trying to box and failing
miserably, was on life support, was not the way I wanted to greet the weekend
of work. A selfish thought, given the biblical downpour of rain, washing away
poor folks’ cars merely a kilometer from the house.
We are lucky. I’m not a religious man. But
I grew up with friends devoted to the spirituality of the church, or to their
God, and I respect that; if the good aspects of religion bring them and their
families comfort, then who am I to be a jerk about it? I hate the twisted
aspects of it: war, poverty, mental and physical abuse, but that’s painting
everyone with the same brush. It’s no different than assuming because I like
Ali and Boxing that I’m an unintelligent thug who goes about punching people in
the street. Ali, was someone I immensely respected, who was Muslim. And though
I don’t share the exact same beliefs, I do admire his love and devotion to the
teachings of Islam, the love and peace he spoke of from his teachings, and his
thoughts on racial equality, particularly now in a world still full of hate,
turmoil and distrust. He understood the big picture, more than many other
so-called leaders and politicians. He had compassion. His work with the United
Nations, Special Olympics, his talks with the Dahlia Lama, are just a small
taste of the compassion the man had. Look up his speeches. It makes you forget
for a moment the violence of war in the world. And you may say, “Boxing is
violent”- yes, but maybe two people competing in a ring and walking away at the
end is better than nations fighting and losing countless people.
Look, I don’t
pretend to understand the bigger picture, but at home at the very least, I try
to remind myself and my partner that despite what hardships we may feel we have
at any particular time, I know that we live in a country not ravaged by war, we
have family somewhere at any given point that love us, a roof over our head,
food in the cupboard, a few hard earned dollars squirrelled away to enjoy some
life a little later in the year. We’re doing just fine. My parents taught me this value; not in words
per se, but through experience. It wasn’t always like this. So as an adult, I
try to recall and reflect, and be thankful. We may not be where we want to be,
but to paraphrase Ali “…We are free to be who we want to be”.
I apologise that the tone is somewhat
self-indulgent, but in order to share, even if it’s just myself, what the
G.O.A.T meant to me, then this exercise of coming to terms with the loss was
worth my afternoon.
If you can track down a book called King of the World by David Remnick, it’s
a great look at Ali, in the context of the era, the Heavyweight division, the
Civil rights movement, Malcolm X etc. ESPN’s extensive look at his career in
the Heavyweight Boxing box set is a wonderful overview of his best, and obscure
fights you don’t usually see. And I would also recommend trawling thru Youtube;
everything from his complete Wide World of Sports interviews with Howard
Cosell, to his Parkinson interviews in 1971, 1974 and 1981, to his appearances
on the Dean Martin Celebrity Roasts can all be found on there. They’re amazing.
To finish up, by my bed side, among the
giant pile of “to Read” are two books, where much of Muhammad Ali’s thoughts,
poems and inspiring words can be found. Two in particular: More than a Hero: Muhammad Ali’s life lessons by Hana Ali, and Muhammad Ali: The Soul of a Butterfly. Anyone with a passing interest in the
Champ should check them out. They’re great pick me ups. There is one chapter in
the latter book which, given today’s horrible news, seems appropriate. If you
have indulged my thought streams about my hero, I do appreciate it.
How I would like to be remembered.
“I
would like to be remembered as a man who won the heavyweight title three times,
who was humourous, and who treated everyone right. As a man who never looked
down on those who looked up to him, and who helped as many people as he could.
As a man who stood up for his beliefs no matter what. As a man who tried to
unite all humankind through faith and love. And if all that’s too much, then I
guess I’d settle for being remembered only as a great boxer who became a leader
and a champion of his people.
And I
wouldn’t even mind if folks forgot how pretty I was.” - Muhammad Ali
That’s why he is the Greatest.
January 17, 1942 - June 3, 2016
