Mulligan
Give me a museum and I'll fill it. (Picasso) Give me a forum ...
- Joined
- May 3, 2009
- Messages
- 9,343
I still remember the commercial from my childhood: "Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee, the great smell of Brut and the punch of Ali."
i haven't followed boxing much at all since it all went to pay-per-view. But when I was a kid in the 1970s, I think heavyweight boxing was in its "golden decade" that every sport seems to have. Not only did you have so many great fighters going at it with each other -- Ali, Frazier, Foreman, Lyle, Norton, Holmes and so on -- but all the big bouts were on live, *free* network TV. And those of us who watched it remember the calls from "Howard Cosell reporting from ringside".
But at the epicenter of the 1970s boxing universe, of course, was Ali. Whether you loved him or wanted him to lose, the entertainment and showmanship value was there. If there is one word I can use to describe him, it would be "iconic". Like Babe Ruth defined baseball in the 1920s, Ali symbolized boxing in the 1970s in a decade where the heavyweights got almost all the attention. And in a year when so many legends from my youth are dying off, 2016 marches on to claim yet another one. The Grim Reaper is having a career season.
I think it is hard for a general sports fan under the age of 40 to truly understand how "Big" heavy weight championship boxing was at one time. It truly was the pinnacle crown jewel event. I think "pay per view" lead to its general demise. Almost any village idiot at the time could rattle off the names of 5 heavyweight contenders in the 1970s. You would have to be a "Heavyweight Groupie" to know 5 now.
You mentioned Ron Lyle....That guy led an incredibly interesting life and very unrated. That 1976 fight with George Foreman was unbelievable and savage...They both should have been thrown in jail over that one. My favorite fight of all time.
Having the benefit of perspective it is easy now to see time had past Ali by before the first Spinks fight, but he had such a mystic presence about him it was hard to believe. When the Holmes fight was announced no one gave Ali a chance, but Ali got the public in such a frenzy the late betting money went heavy on Ali as underdog... Not such a good bet..
I actually have the DVD of Ali's last fight most forgot about and it wasn't the Holmes one. He tried one last attempt at a comeback in 1981 versus Trevor Berbick. Never seriously hurt, but despite winning a few middle rounds was clearly outpointed.
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