Original subtitles

I'm fat, I'm sturdy, and can't possibly be beat. It's 207 pounds.

Just about ready to begin. Round one. This time...

In the history of boxing, there have been many great champions in different

weight divisions.

But through the decades, there is one group of fighters that has fascinated

the world.

The heavyweights.

The 20th century has seen many great heavyweight champions.

But as in all things, there are always those few who stand above the rest.

Men who have captivated the public both in and out of the ring.

These men were honored in their generation.

Even more, they have become legends for all time.

by many to tell just how I knocked out so many of my opponents.

As far as I'm concerned, that day has gone.

And today I have a new way in knocking them out. And I will show you.

This is Jack Johnson, one of the most controversial fighters in the history of

boxing. Many consider him the greatest heavyweight ever.

certainly in the same class with Jack Dempsey, Joe Louis, and Muhammad Ali.

On December 26, 1908, after trying for years to get a title bout, his wish

would come true, beating champion Tommy Burns in Sydney, Australia.

Johnson gives Burns a terrible beating, so bad that in the 14th round, with

Burns on the verge of being knocked out, police stop the cameraman from filming.

A few seconds after this last frame of film, the referee stops the fight.

Jack Johnson is the heavyweight champion of the world.

He was the first black title holder.

He also went out with white women. He taunted his white opponents. He was very

bold. He followed Tommy Burns all the way to Australia to force him to fight

him. When he won, he kind of boasted.

It was felt in the United States and other white countries that Jack Johnson

represented something very evil.

The famed author Jack London covered the Johnson-Byrne's fight for the New York

Herald. His column was venomous, with each paragraph showing his distaste that

a black man could defeat a white man.

He called for a white hope.

The former revered champion Jim Jeffries, who had retired undefeated

three years earlier to his farm in California, wrote London, One thing is

certain. Jim Jeffries must emerge from his alfalfa farm and remove the golden

smile from Jack Johnson's face.

Jeff, it is up to you.

The reference to Johnson's golden smile was not misunderstood.

Johnson had replaced his front teeth with gold ones.

This is the Jack London we all grew up loving, reading White Fang and Call of

the Wild and all such things.

There were all kinds of racist songs.

composed and played in dance halls and burlesque places in praise of Jeffries.

It was vicious press, vicious press about Jack Johnson.

This was yet another one of those times where history and boxing, and

specifically the heavyweight championship, intersected in the most

interesting and electrifying way.

America went on Jack London's bandwagon, the call for a white champion, a great

white hope.

spanned the United States.

You had rodeo riders and gandhi dancers and track walkers and circus freaks all

showing up to become the white champion.

It was a promoter's dream.

Everybody was a white champion.

The year after he won the title, Johnson was challenged by middleweight champion

Stanley Ketchell, the Michigan assassin.

Ketchell, who some considered the greatest middleweight of all time, was

35 pounds lighter than Johnson.

but had a tremendous punch.

For 11 rounds, Ketchell puts up a courageous performance.

In the 12th round, Ketchell shocks the screaming fans by knocking down Johnson.

It takes but a moment for Ketchell to realize his mistake.

Quickly getting to his feet, Johnson lets loose with a tremendous right hand

to the jaw.

The fight is over.

Ketchell's career would end a year later.

when he was murdered at the age of 24.

Johnson flaunted his victories, and the cry throughout the country was again

aimed at Jim Jeffries as the ultimate white hope.

Finally, Jeffries succumbed. He agreed to come out of retirement and fight for

the honor of the white race.

A little more than five years after he had retired, Jeffries, wearing a gray

suit and white cap, steps into the ring.

In Jeffries' corner, urging him on is former champion James J. Corbett, a

boxing legend.

Said Gentleman Jim before the fight, the black boy has a yellow streak, and

Jeffries will bring it out of him when he gets him in the ring.

Once the fight starts, Corbett, in the safety of his corner, screams insults at

Johnson. With every insult, Johnson retaliates on the face and body of

Jeffries. Between punches, Johnson would continue his verbal challenge to the

hysterical Corbett.

Johnson spent half his time saying, come on in, Mr. Jim, you want the same thing.

You want some of this? Come on in, Mr. Jim. You're next.

He really didn't care. He could have beaten everybody in the crowd that

afternoon.

The bout is scheduled for 45 rounds, but it is evident by the 12th round that

Jeffries is not the fighter of old.

The five-year retirement and having to lose close to 100 pounds are coming back

to haunt him.

Finally, in the 15th round, Johnson decides to end it. He sends the

exhausted Jeffries sprawling to the canvas, taunting him to get up.

Johnson puts him down again.

These are the first knockdowns Jeffries has suffered during his career.

Jeffries is helpless.

His cornermen illegally assist him to his feet.

Jeffries is finished.

Rather than see their fallen idol counted out, Jim Corbett tows the

referee text record to stop the fight.

Egged on by the press, Johnson's victory caused race riots throughout the

country.

It was not so distant from slave times and Reconstruction.

There were riots in every major city that one could think of the minute the

news of Jack Johnson's victory was announced.

Revenge was the order of the day.

If there were no white hopes available to crush Johnson, the American legal

system became a convenient alternative.

Johnson was convicted of transporting a woman across state lines for immoral

purposes.

Faced with spending time in prison, he fled the country.

Jack Johnson was one of the most culturally sophisticated figures in the

history of boxing.

Knew about music and theater and had a taste for fine wines and spoke French

and Spanish and read widely.

He was very sophisticated.

Unable to fight in the United States, Johnson put his title on the line in

Havana, Cuba against Jess Willard, a towering six-foot, six-inch giant.

The 37-year-old Johnson is but a shell of his former self.

Willard knocks him out in the 26th round.

Later, Johnson claimed he threw the fight, showing as evidence the famous

photo of him shielding his eyes from the sun as the referee counted him out.

Few experts believed his story.

Finally, in 1920, five years after losing the title, Johnson returned to

the United States and surrendered to federal authorities.

He served eight months in a federal prison.

He retired from the ring in 1928 when he was 50 years old.

Jack Johnson just was what society couldn't take, a

burr under its Victorian saddle.

Jack Johnson loved to beat the white man, to infuriate the writers, to race

cars at outrageous speeds, to open a club, Cafe Chicago, that served liquor.

anytime, anywhere, anyhow, all against the law.

And just to go on as Mary, having a good time in a society that wasn't given

to a good time before World War I.

It was a tight-corseted, tight-lipped, tight-ass society.

In 1946, Johnson died in an automobile accident at the age of 68 while driving

to the championship fight between Joe Louis and Billy Kahn.

He lost control of his sports car and crashed into a telephone pole.

A reporter later wrote, Jack Johnson died crossing the white line for the

last time.

Jack Johnson was a big inspiration because of what he did out of it right

here, so bold.

Jack Johnson was a black man back when white people lynched Negroes on

weekends, every weekend, back in 1909.

They would send a letter saying, you fighting a white man? And, nigger, if

you knock him out, we'll kill you. He said, just kill my black buckles. I'm

going to knock this white man cold.

And he would knock the white man out. And the Ku Klux Klan would be burning

them. They killed Negroes all over the country. When Jack Johnson wanted to

fight, they had riots all over America.

It was so serious. And Jack Johnson, he's bad.

He had to be a bad, bad black man. Wasn't no black models to defend him.

Wasn't no NAACP in 1909. Wasn't no Rob Brown.

Wasn't no Move.

All these black groups. Wasn't no Angela Davis. No Hugh Newton. No Malcolm X. He

was by himself.

Jack Johnson.

It was so long ago, people still had log cabins in this country. And they rode

horses and wagons and stage forces to fight. He was one black man in the midst

of all the rednecks. Would kill rich Negroes every day. He would dress up in

pretty suits. Negroes are not dressed up in these. He put on pretty white

neckties and pretty white.

white women. You know that nigga was bold.

He married white women.

You would get lynched for looking at a white woman in them days. That man

married white women and walked around and took pictures with his white women.

Married two of them. And they'd run him out of the country because a white

woman, he left the whole country and fought out of Cuba.

He was bad.

Back in 1909, man.

Man, you know, Jack Johnson was the greatest. He had to be the greatest of

all. Wasn't no Black Panthers, wasn't no bodyguards, white people, lynching

niggas, wasn't no television, wasn't no telephone.

And that Negro was doing all that stuff in them days. He was bad when you think

about it.

I know I'm bad, but he was crazy.

July 4th, 1919.

World War I has been over less than eight months.

And the country this day will celebrate its 143rd anniversary of the signing of

the Declaration of Independence with picnics and parades.

Nevertheless, throughout the country, millions will be waiting to receive the

news from Toledo, Ohio, of the long-awaited heavyweight fight between

champion Jess Willard, who four years earlier knocked out Jack Johnson, and

the 24-year-old roughneck challenger from Manassas, Colorado, Jack Dempsey,

the Manassas mauler.

Prize fighting was illegal in most states, but famed fight promoter Tex

Rickard gambled that the popularity of the sport with a common citizen and

returning soldiers would outweigh the protest of reformers who were trying to

outlaw boxing altogether.

There is no doubt that Tex Rickard has put together one of the great fights of

all time in one respect.

He has got a challenger there who is a tiger-eating fighter.

Dempsey had taken care of the two.

ahead of him in 25 and 38 seconds, both in the first round.

Earning his right to face Willard, and still the promoter of the fight,

Tex Rickard, feared for Dempsey.

Willard had already killed the man.

He actually went into Willard's room and told him, be careful, don't hurt him.

Tex Rickard had a special 97,000-seat wood stadium built, and on the morning

of the fight, spectators arrived early.

In the protocol of the day, the heavyweight championship belt is

displayed and both Willard and Dempsey calmly pose for photographers.

Willard is more than five inches taller than Dempsey and almost 60 pounds

heavier. Even more, Willard has never been knocked down in his eight-year

career.

The temperature in the ring is a brutal 110 degrees.

Both fighters predict knockouts, but unknown to Willard, Dempsey's manager,

Doc Kearns, has a major financial reason to end the fight early.

Kearns bet $10,000 at 10-1 odds that Dempsey would knock out Willard in the

first round.

In the opening seconds, Dempsey stalks his opponent.

Dempsey came out and he fought from a crouch, almost a panther-like crouch.

And after about a minute, he sprung up with the left hand and caught Willard on

the jaw, kicking in his jaw.

The crowd is amazed as Willard goes down for the first time in his career.

Unlike today, the rules of boxing in 1919 did not require the fighter to go

to a neutral corner.

The Jesse Willard fight would have been stopped in the first round today.

Jesse Willard is knocked down repeatedly. He gets up and he's knocked

down. It's grotesquely calm.

Very tall, man. He was like a giant.

And Dempsey would crouch and go low, and he was sort of like a force of nature.

In fact, it was more of a gentleman's sport before Dempsey. And Dempsey had

this sort of sensual approach where he basically wanted to kill his opponent

and rush across the ring.

And people had never seen anything quite like that before.

He went right after Jess Wood right away, like a black panther

on a huge elephant.

He got right on him. And he just, I don't think we'll have hit Dempsey once.

He just went after him and he could kill that man.

The savagery that Dempsey displayed had never been seen in a boxing ring before.

People couldn't believe it.

And that sort of set him off for the Jack Dempsey, the Manassas Mauler.

He was a killer.

As Willard tries to get up for the seventh time, the round ends, but no one

realizes it.

Dempsey rushes to his corner and leaves the ring, believing the fight is over.

The euphoria for Dempsey lasts about 30 seconds.

Though Willard appears helpless, the round ends before the referee can count

him out.

Dempsey's manager, Doc Kearns, screams for his fighter to get back in the ring.

It was all over. They had to call him back.

They had to call him back.

And then he proceeded for two more rounds to beat the daylights out of him.

It was just like whipping out a huge punching bag.

At the end of three rounds, Willard has suffered a broken jaw, two fractured

ribs, and five missing teeth.

His corner informs the referee that he's had enough.

Jack Dempsey is heavyweight champion of the world.

Dempsey's triumph.

triggered in 1919, the first year after the close of World War I,

a new era in sports.

It was an era Paul Gallico called the golden age of sports. And the first man

who was in the pantheon of greats was Jack Dempsey, Babe Ruth, Bill Tilden,

Red Grange, and Bobby Jones.

But the 1st, July 4th, 1919,

Jack Dempsey.

Six months after knocking out Jess Willard, the Roaring Twenties were

ushered in with several important events.

On January 16, 1920, the 18th Amendment to the Constitution, Prohibition, became

law. The selling of liquor became illegal.

That same day, the First Assembly of the League of Nations convened in Paris.

In March, Mary Pickford, the sweetheart of the screen, married Douglas

Fairbanks. The 19th Amendment gave women the right to vote, and in November,

Warren G. Harding was elected President of the United States.

In the midst of these events, Dempsey put his title on the line only twice in

the next two years, knocking out both his opponents.

But the gates were small.

The public was looking for another spectacle that would equal the Willard

Dempsey brawl.

Ever the showman, Promoter Tex Rickard decided on an international event,

pitting Dempsey against the popular light heavyweight champion of the world,

George Carpentier of France.

Carpentier was a war hero.

To create interest, the draft-dodging stories that would plague Dempsey

throughout his career emerged.

Jack got a bad rap in World War I because he was declared ineligible for

supporting his family.

but he had a very sharp manager named Jack Kearns.

So Kearns had him appear at a working site, and they had him with a

sledgehammer in his hand and these working clothes on, except his patent

leather shoes were showing underneath the pants.

It made very bad press for Jack.

As he did in Toledo, Record built another stadium at Boyle's 30 acres in

Jersey City, New Jersey.

It was boxing's first million-dollar gate.

Twenty camera crews were there to record the fight for posterity.

This fight would also present a communications first, the first national

radio broadcast.

For the first three rounds, the fight is even.

But in the fourth round, Dempsey, on the left, uses his weight and strength to

take over.

He again becomes the tiger that pulverized Willard.

He sends Carpentier to the canvas, apparently for the count.

But suddenly, at the count of nine, Carpentier leaps to his feet.

Five seconds later, Carpentier is down for good.

Sitting in the stands, studying the fight, is a young boxer who had just won

his match on the undercard.

He is convinced he sees a flaw in Dempsey's style.

The fighter's name, Gene Tunney.

The more he thought of it, the more convinced he became.

But he found that one night, when he studied Carpentier,

push over for a right cross, a normal right punch to the jaw.

But Dempsey was hard to hit, and he was a man that used to put brine, beef

brine, rub it into his face all the time and toughen his skin, so it was

hard to lacerate his skin and draw the blood.

He used to chew pine.

So his jaw just became like iron.

It was very hard to knock out Jack Dempsey, extremely hard to land upon.

Two years after knocking out Carpentier, Dempsey would defend his title again,

winning a 15-round decision over Tommy Gibbons.

During those years of inactivity, Dempsey was seen in newsreels trying to

change the savage boxing image that the public had of him.

He would delight audiences by playing with children, making public appearances

and hobnobbing with a Hollywood crowd who idolized him.

At a charity event, Charlie Chaplin challenged him to a fight, yelling at

Dempsey that he would knock him out and take the title away.

The ever-obliging Dempsey amused audiences as famed actor Douglas

Fairbanks refereed.

With a come-from-behind victory, Charlie Chaplin had knocked out the heavyweight

champion of the world.

Dempsey had defended his title only four times in four years, and the public was

clamoring for more.

Promoter Tex Rickard decided on another international extravaganza, similar to

the one with Georges Carpentier of France.

He would pit Dempsey against the massive champion from Argentina, Louis Firpo,

undefeated in 26 straight fights, 21 by knockout.

80,000 fans jammed New York's polo grounds on September 14th, 1923.

One of them was 13-year-old Matt Rossoff.

Ferpo was a wild, swinging boxer.

Dempsey was a fighter.

He came in advancing, crouched, bobbing and weaving, ready to

tear his opponent apart.

His whole being was seeing the expression on his face.

If you could see his eyes, they were blazing. Couldn't wait to get to his

opponent.

Dempsey knocks Furpo down early and often.

After seven knockdowns, Furpo retaliates.

Living up to his nickname, the Wild Bull of the Panthers, he knocks Dempsey out

of the ring.

He landed on the boxing writer's table, just on the fringe of the ring.

And I was sitting...

while Forbes rose back in the ringside on the side that he came out, I saw the

reporters who were sitting there pushing him in the back, helping him back in.

Fans were just up on their toes and screaming.

And it was a very, very exciting moment.

And when he got back into the ring, everyone was on their feet. They figured

that Dempsey was going to go back down again, but he didn't.

In the second round, Dempsey comes out as he did in the first.

A left hook and a right send Furpo down again.

After three minutes and 57 seconds of punishment and nine knockdowns, Furpo is

finally out for good.

Jack Dempsey retains his title.

It was a baby with home run.

It was a red-grained, 100-yard kickoff return.

This was excitement.

This wasn't safety first. This was safety last.

And in the roaring 20s, and it had become a subject.

Excitement was the name of the game.

And Dempsey was feeding it.

For the next three years, Dempsey did not step into the ring to defend his

title.

Rather, he appeared in motion pictures and stage productions and took time out

to marry Hollywood actress Estelle Taylor.

While Dempsey was capitalizing on his title without fighting, Gene Tunney was

rising in the ranks, fighting 18 times without a loss.

A ten-round championship bout between Dempsey and Tunney was scheduled for

September 23, 1926, in Philadelphia.

New York would have been promoter Tex Rickard's choice, but Dempsey's license

in New York State was revoked when Rickard refused to match Dempsey against

the superb black contender Harry Wills.

Rickard thought Tunney was an easy opponent for Dempsey's first fight in

over three years.

Everybody thought Dempsey would win.

never realizing that one man was going down and

the other fella was coming up.

Tunney had all the characteristics to be a great

fighter. He could box.

He could take a punch.

He knew boxing.

He was a good student of boxing.

And, of course, I didn't think he could lick Dempsey before. As good as I think

Tunney may be, I don't think he can lick Dempsey.

From the beginning of the fight, it becomes evident that Tunney, on the

right, has done his homework.

His countless hours of watching films of Dempsey have prepared him for every

lunge and rush of the champion.

We all expected to see Dempsey knock out Tunney.

However, the fight didn't go that way.

superior boxing ability, thwarted Dempsey's rushes.

He was a counter-puncher. Dempsey would rush in, throwing his punches rather

wildly.

Tony would meet him with a left jab, and in the first round hit him with his

right that jarred Dempsey.

When the bell ends the pipe, most people believe that Tony has won every round.

On the day that Tunney beat him.

Sixth of the eight columns of the New York Times, page one, were on the fight.

You can't imagine any sporting event now, and this is the New York Times.

Tunney was given a ticker tape parade in New York, his hometown.

Thousands turned out to greet him.

But ironically, Dempsey became more beloved in defeat than Tunney was in

victory.

Dad had the bad luck to have knocked off the idol of the 20s, when maybe one of

the greatest gate draws in the history of sports.

And so Dad, the clean-cut guy, comes in with a scientific approach and dances

rings around him, and they wonder what's going on here.

Maybe, I guess, this is just the way the world turns. All great things have to

come to an end.

Though many experts predicted that the loss to Tunney was the end of his

career, the 31-year-old Dempsey did not agree.

He wanted a return bout.

Before he would get the chance, he would have to meet Jack Sharkey.

Sharkey skyrocketed to fame by defeating Harry Wills, the black heavyweight whom

Rickard had prevented Dempsey from fighting.

Said Dempsey, I want to be convinced that my ring days are positively over.

Maybe Sharkey can convince me.

Ten months after losing the crown to Tunney, Dempsey met Sharkey at Yankee

Stadium in New York.

Even as an ex-champion, Dempsey earned $352,000.

At the time, the highest paid baseball player was Babe Ruth, who on his way to

hitting a record 60 home runs, received just $70,000 for the entire season.

For six rounds, Sharkey is out pointing Dempsey.

In the seventh round, Sharkey, on the right, continues his attack, often

complaining that Dempsey is hitting him low.

Toward the middle of the round, Sharkey turns to protest to the referee.

The ever-alert Dempsey hits him with a tremendous left hook.

Many at ringside think that referee Jack O'Sullivan might disqualify Dempsey.

But after a slight hesitation, O'Sullivan counts out Sharkey.

The veteran Sharkey had disobeyed the cardinal rule to protect yourself at all

times.

It was a one-punch knockout.

He would do anything to win. He was just a mean old critter, as they say,

down south.

But that's the result that he wanted, you know.

Dempsey was now certain he would meet Tunney again and win back his title.

The fight was scheduled for September 22, 1927 at Soldier Field in Chicago,

almost a year to the day after they last fought.

Dempsey was still the favorite of the fans and the betting favorite for the

second fight, although there couldn't have been a reason for it.

But a lot of people do not bet with their heads. They bet with their hearts.

A lot of that money came from Al Capone, who was a big, big, big Dempsey fan.

Contract signing for this fight.

Dempsey demanded something that had never been in the rules before.

Fearing that Tunney would stand over him and beat him, he got up.

He asked that a clause be put in that a man go to a neutral corner upon scoring

a knockdown.

At his insistence.

The second fight gets underway before more than 100,000 spectators. The

majority certain that Dempsey will win back the crown.

The second fight, we expected to again see Dempsey tear into Tony and knock him

out. But the second fight appeared to be a repeat of the first.

Dempsey advancing and bobbing and weaving and throwing punches from all

sides.

Tony calmly backing off mostly and countering Dempsey, keeping him

unbalanced until the seventh round.

In the early part of the round, Tunney leads with a straight left.

Dempsey counters with a long right and a lunging left.

As Tunney falls into the ropes, Dempsey catches him with a vicious left hook.

Tunney, who here before had never been down, ever.

Fifth-length slide melts into the canvas.

Dempsey stands in the corner.

And Dave Barry, the referee.

He's first pointing, then yanking to get Dempsey to go across the ring because

Tunney has almost fallen in the corner in which Dempsey is standing in.

Dempsey's just looking at his handiwork.

He finally goes. The estimate was between four and five seconds.

He was out. He was out. You see his face. You see him crumbling there. He

would not have made it.

Tunney gets up at the count of nine and goes on to win the decision.

But many believe Tunney was saved by what has gone down in history as the

long count.

He's always felt that he could have gotten up in time.

It was all a matter of about four seconds.

If you look at the film, you see that he looked pretty wide awake at the count of

two, three.

But Dad was in phenomenal physical condition.

His legs were in the best shape.

and that's why he could get up and dance around and get away from Dempsey.

Dempsey couldn't keep up with him.

Tunney was knocked down in the seventh round, but many believe it was the only

round he lost.

And what nobody remembers is Tunney knocks Dempsey down in the eighth round

and goes on to finish in a ten-round decision, having won 19 of the 20 rounds

between the two.

But what everybody remembers is that 20th round.

That seventh round, the long count, and it was still probably one of the most

famous moments in all of sports.

He accepted defeat gracefully.

Never said anything unkind about any opponent.

As rough and tough as he was in the ring and mean and cruel, that's how

nice and decent he was outside the ring.

Thank you, Bill.

A few months after the fight, Dempsey retired for good.

Again, revered as much in defeat as he was in victory.

He appeared with politicians at charity affairs, and when he opened what would

become a popular restaurant in New York, Mayor LaGuardia officiated at the

groundbreaking ceremony.

Tunney defended his title once the following year, winning a technical

knockout over Tom Heaney.

Then, with no more worlds to conquer, He retired as undefeated heavyweight

champion of the world.

Despite his two victories, Donnie never attained the idolatry of Jack Dempsey.

To the public, Dempsey would always be the portrait of what a fighter should

be. The face of Jack Dempsey set the standard for the prizefighter's face. If

you looked like Dempsey, the trainers would look for a better culture look at

you. Dempsey attitude.

And Dempsey was so popular.

He was the first glamorous heavyweight champion.

And Clark Gable was fashioned after Jack Dempsey to get that manly look.

His whole career, he was Jack Dempsey.

Unlike Dempsey, Tunney appeared more like a college professor rather than the

heavyweight champion of the world.

I think there's no fighter probably in the 20th century that was perhaps more

misunderstood than that.

He was always...

misjudged and he was always thought to be not a natural fighter

then when they found out that father was also a reader a closet

reader on the side in the 1920s that didn't go down too well because to them

readers in that time were dreamers and maybe fools

When you're a boxer and a fighter, you're supposed to look the part and

play the part.

And I don't think Dad had any intention in playing that role or wanting to

conform to that way of thinking.

In retirement, Tunney and Dempsey remained friends.

Perhaps the respect they held for each other was confirmed at Soldier Field in

Chicago in 1957, the 30th anniversary of the long count.

Both men now in their 60s.

decide to settle the argument once and for all, who was the better fighter.

Jokingly, they spar, with no one landing a blow.

Then, as thousands roar their approval, they both come to the same conclusion.

It would be better to forget the fighting and dance the night away.

This is Arlington National Cemetery, the revered final resting place for

America's great heroes, men and women honored by their nation for their

lifetime contributions to the country in war and peace.

It is hallowed ground.

The marble markers tell a story of America, none more dramatic than that of

a man who created history, an icon honored in death for what he did in

life.

Near the Tomb of the Unknown Soldiers stands a memorial that on one side

simply reads, Lewis, the Brown Bomber, World Heavyweight Champion, 1937

-1949.

My father's real name is Joe Lewis Barrow, and many people didn't realize

that. But when he started boxing, he had a very large signature, and when he

registered for an amateur bout, he said Joe Lewis, and he couldn't get the

barrel on the card.

So the fellow there said, just use Lewis. It won't matter. It's just a

name. Just use Joe Lewis.

In the summer of 1935, James J. Braddock, a 10-to-1 underdog, won a

unanimous decision over heavyweight champion Max Baer.

The Braddock victory was considered one of the greatest upsets in the history of

the heavyweight division.

But no one expected Braddock to keep the title very long.

For lying in weight was an undefeated 21-year-old heavyweight from Detroit

with 22 straight wins.

Eighteen of them knockouts. His name, Joe Lewis.

Lewis's most impressive victory, knocking out former heavyweight champion

Primo Carnera in the sixth round.

The fight world's new sensation, Joe Lewis, Detroit brown bummer, talks over

his astounding knockout of Man Mountain Carnera with dancing champ Bill Robinson

and manager Roxburgh.

Joe, you promised to knock Carnera out in the fifth round last night. Now, how

about it?

Fifth round slipped by me last night, so I knocked him out in the sixth round

because that's the round he said he was going to knock me out in.

Now what punch did you use to lick him with?

With a left hook and a right cross and then the same punch again.

Six weeks after knocking out Carnera, Lewis was in the ring against the most

terrified opponent he would ever face.

There was a fighter in Miami.

His name was King Levinsky.

Filled neckties.

After.

And his sister...

was his manager.

And Jimmy Cannon, the great sports writer, said, it's the first time a

fighter was ever carried into the ring.

He didn't want to fight Lewis.

On September 24th, 1935, Lewis knocks out former champion Max Baer in the

fourth round. His third knockout in three months, raising his unbeaten

string to 25.

He is now rated the number one challenger for Jim Braddock's

heavyweight crown.

While Lewis was gaining worldwide publicity, another familiar name was

second in the rankings behind him, the former world champion from Germany, Max

Schmeling.

The two challengers meet at Yankee Stadium on June 19, 1936, less than two

months before the Olympic Games are to begin in Berlin.

Lewis is a heavy favorite to defeat Schmeling.

and put a lie to Nazi propagandists advocating the philosophy of an Aryan

master race.

Joe Louis was an undefeated fighter.

Nobody could beat him. Along comes this ex-champion from Germany named Max

Schmelling. Joe Louis was making a career of knocking out ex-champions. He

had knocked out Primo Canaro, an ex-champion. He had knocked out Max

Baer, an ex-champion. Now he's going to knock out Max Schmelling.

But Max saw something. And what he saw was something that we all saw

in retrospect.

Joe Lewis with that perfect stance, when he threw a left, he'd throw the left

and drop it, making it open for a right.

And that was a simple little maneuver like that that Max Schmeling saw.

And Lewis did it.

Bop.

Knocked him down.

Lewis is down for the first time in his professional career.

Just before the end of the fifth round, Schmeling lets loose another blockbuster

right hand.

It lands full on Lewis's chin.

Lewis has to be helped back to his corner.

For all intents and purposes, the fight is over.

Lewis has little remembrance of the ensuing rounds.

It is in the twelfth round that Schmeling puts an end to it.

Lewis slowly crumples to the canvas.

and is counted out.

Schmeling returns to Germany on the airship Hindenburg.

He is mobbed by well-wishers as Nazi propagandists extol Schmeling as an

example of Aryan racial supremacy.

He was not a Nazi. He was not a member of the Nazi party.

He once told me, yes, he went to dinner with the Fuhrer.

He had been asked four times, and you did not turn the Fuhrer down five.

Then he added, I once went to dinner with Franklin Roosevelt. That did not

make me a Democrat.

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In the United States, Schmeling's victory over Lewis made him the logical

contender to meet champion Jim Braddock for the title.

Over several months, there were legal battles as to who would be Braddock's

opponent. The realities are that Joe Lewis wanted a shot at the title, and my

mother said that he was absolutely devastated, devastated when he lost to

Max Schmeling in 1936, because he didn't think he'd get another shot at the

title.

Rumors began to circulate that if Schmeling defeated Braddock as expected,

the heavyweight crown would be held hostage as long as the Hitler regime

existed.

After a series of legal maneuvers, the Braddock camp came up with a unique

proposal. They would sign to fight Lewis with one main condition.

Even if Braddock lost, he would receive 10% of Lewis's and his promoter's purses

over the next 10-year period.

Newspaper writers referred to it as Braddock's lifetime annuity.

Well, I'll tell you, I honestly believe that I'll win by a knockout sometime

around the eighth round.

One year and three days after being knocked out by Schmeling, Lewis would

become the first black heavyweight since Jack Johnson to fight for the title, a

span of over 22 years.

The 1937 fight between Lewis and Braddock was a major fight in several

respects.

Joe Lewis, a sensation, was challenging, who not incidentally was

black.

And he carried hopes of people.

The black communities.

And Braddock was no slouch. He knocked Lewis down in the first round.

And put up a fairly good fight.

In the eighth round, Joe Lewis makes history.

Joe Lewis becomes

the heavyweight champion of the world.

It's uncanny throughout the history of the heavyweight division.

There are moments when history and pure boxing intersect.

It happened with Jack Johnson and his confrontation with the Great White Hope.

It certainly happened with Joe Louis, which both electrified the black

community and also made a huge population of white people stand up and

take notice.

Next, Louis had three easy victories, but he told his close friends he would

not be a true champion until he beat Max Schmeling.

My father personally told me.

that he didn't feel or wouldn't have felt that he would have ever been the

heavyweight champion had he not had a rematch with Max Schmeling.

Because there had been this cloud on his title.

And for him, it was very important for him to erase that cloud.

New York, heavyweight boxing news.

World's champion Joe Lewis and challenger Max Schmeling signed for

their title bout in June.

Max KO'd Joe the last time they met.

I'm going to be in the best of shape, and I'm sure there's going to be a very

good fight.

And how about you, Max?

I'm happy that I have the chance again to fight for the title. I hope the best

man may win.

Politically, the world was in turmoil.

Adolf Hitler's armies were on the move.

World War II was little more than one year away.

It was all set up so that these two, Schmeling and Lewis,

could meet this time. Lewis as a champion and Schmeling.

as the former champion who already dethroned Lewis and knew his number and

everything else. And what made the cheese more binding was that it was a

world event. It was the United States against Germany.

Uncle Sam against Hitler.

What a setting.

There were riots and parades in streets.

There actually were people who didn't want that second fight between Lewis and

Schmeling to happen and tried to boycott it.

And had pickets around Yankee Stadium so people couldn't get in.

There was a fervor to that that we can't understand today.

Joe Lewis was like music.

And he moved slowly.

He was almost like fast slow motion.

You could see what he was doing.

Faint guys.

He was always in pursuit.

He was always hunting.

He was always looking for that spot.

If you let him have it, you're gone.

In the opening minutes, Lewis maneuvers Schmeling against the ropes, then lands

a devastating right to the jaw.

As Schmeling hangs on, Lewis continues with lefts, then a paralyzing right to

the kidney.

Schmeling is defenseless.

Referee Donovan sends Lewis to his corner.

and begins to count.

Joe came out of his corner, approached Schmeling and hit him so hard.

Schmeling went down with a scream that you could hear throughout the ringside.

I thought that his neck had been broken.

Schmeling's corner throws him the towel.

symbolic that their fighter has had enough.

The whole country rejoiced. We were all one, blacks and whites, together and

celebrating this.

That's what made it so good.

Jimmy Cannon, who was a major, major force on the scene then as a writer, and

a friend of Lewis's, went into his dressing room before the fight and said,

Joe, I picked you in five rounds.

Lewis, then having his hands wrapped.

So his hand was like this.

He was able to extract the thumb and go one round.

Lewis took the rest of 1938 off, then easily defended his title twice in early

1939.

A little more than a year after winning the title, he faced an unlikely

challenger, two-ton Tony Galento, a short, out-of-shape, wild-swinging

bartender from New Jersey.

Tony, how do you feel after the workout today?

I feel swell. I could kill this guy Lewis right now.

Well, you better. I'll knock you out. In the early part of the fight, Galento

knocks Lewis down, and for a few moments, the crowd thinks it might be

witnessing the birth of a new champion.

It would be a more humiliating defeat for Lewis than his first fight with

Schmeling.

Tony Galento was indomitable spirit.

After the fight, I had him in two movies, and Tony would look like a stuck

pig at the end of the fight.

Tony was still saying, oh, that bum, don't lose to the bum. And one of the

rematch, I could knock him out. He's a bum. He kept saying that to the end.

It was ridiculous, absurd, but there was something sort of marvelous about it.

Galento's use of the word bum soon became part of a phrase used to describe

Lewis's opponents.

After defending his title four times in 1940, with three knockouts and one

decision, 1941 ushered in what became the Bum of the Month Club.

Starting in January, Lewis fought five times, once a month, scoring four

smashing knockouts.

On June 18th, 1941, he was scheduled to meet his sixth opponent in six months.

His name?

Billy Kahn.

Over in Kahn's camp, Jimmy Braddock, the ex-camp, drops by to get the real

lowdown. Listening in, we hear.

Well, how are you going to bring that fighter back to the Irish, Phil?

Well, I'll bring it back with this left hand, Jim. And this.

This was not a member of the Bum of the Month Club. Billy Kahn had been light

heavyweight champion.

And for 12 rounds after giving away maybe the first three out of sheer

fright, then figuring he could handle a bigger Joe Lewis, jab, move, clinched,

in and out, in and out.

Back in the 12th round, he hurt the big jabbers out of Lewis.

Rocked him.

Lifted his foot from the canvas with a left, right, and uppercut.

And Billy Kahn went back to his corner and said, hey, I can beat this guy.

Now his corner's telling Billy, Billy, wait a minute.

You're ahead on every judge's card. Just laugh.

The 15th round. Get to the 15th round, you're the heavyweight champion.

And so in the 13th round, Billy Khan tried to go toe-to-toe, duke it out with

the brown bomber.

The point was you moved on Lewis. You did not stand and tried to trade punches

with him.

Khan, who had moved, now decided he would trade.

Bad, bad decision.

And he understood then and there and forever what the brown bomber was all

about, because my father knocked him out cold in the 13th round.

Well, you go to their dressing rooms afterwards, and you see my father's

photographs of my father afterwards, and Joe was having these towels over him.

His face was swelled. Billy Kahn just beat the devil out of him for 12 rounds.

But afterwards, Kahn was asked in his dressing room by Jesse Abramson, Billy,

you had the fight. Why did you do what you did in the 13th round?

Kahn's answer, what's the sense of being Irish if you can't be stupid?

We interrupt this broadcast to bring you this important bulletin from the United

Press. Here is what has happened.

President Roosevelt told Secretary Ernie half an hour ago that the Japanese had

attacked Pearl Harbor.

The United States Naval Base on Oahu Island in the Hawaiian Islands.

This means that war is underway between Japan and the United States.

With war declared, boxing was eager to prove its importance as a home front

morale builder.

With this in mind, Lewis and his promoter Mike Jacobs came up with a

unique idea.

They would schedule a return bout with Buddy Baird.

and donate the entire purse to the Naval Relief Society.

This time, Lewis knocks Bayer out in the first round.

The following day, he enlists in the Army.

Joe Lewis answers Uncle Sam's call to arms, donating his last purse, $70,000,

to Navy Relief.

He's now ready for the sergeant.

What's your name, General?

My name is John Lewis Bower.

Lewis was now beloved nationally for his generosity, humility, and patriotism.

We're going to do our part, and we will win because we are on God's side.

Thank you.

Lewis's contributions to Navy and Army relief charities totaled more than $100

,000.

more than a million dollars by today's standards.

But the generosity had unknown pitfalls for Lewis.

He was unaware that his donations to charity were considered taxable personal

income.

All efforts to schedule a return bout with Khan were turned down by the War

Department, but it did not keep Lewis out of the ring.

The Army sent him around the world, giving exhibitions wherever the troops

were stationed.

When he was discharged from the Army in October 1945, he had given 96

exhibitions and logged 70,000 miles.

In almost four years of Army service, the champion had not earned a penny, yet

his income tax debt had grown to more than $100,000.

There are a lot of stories about my father in the IRS. There's no question

that the deductions could have been allowed.

They chose not to.

In spite of all of that, in spite of the bureaucracy, in spite of the meter

running on the interest of what he owed, no one person, no one

organization, no one bureaucracy could bring Joe Louis off the pedestal that

this country placed him on.

He was the champ in everyone's mind. He was the hero in everyone's mind.

Louis fought twice in 1946, knocking out Billy Kahn in the eighth round of their

long-awaited return bout.

And then three months later, he finished off Tammy Mariello in the first round.

But he was running out of worthy opponents.

They finally dug up an obscure heavyweight named Jersey Joe Walcott.

Jersey Joe Walcott was no stiff.

Jersey Joe Walcott was a real good prizefighter.

Jersey Joe Walcott had been a sparring partner of Lewis's.

But Jersey Joe Walcott was one of those who couldn't get a fight then, among the

heavyweights.

But after the war, Joe Lewis ran out of opponents.

And in 1947, he signed to fight Jersey Joe Walcott in the garden, Madison

Square Garden.

Although Lewis has been idle for more than a year, bookmakers still make him a

ten-to-one favorite.

Incredibly, Walcott knocks Lewis down twice, once in the first round and

again in the fourth.

Besides his knockdowns, Walcott is quicker throughout.

Sports writers and fans alike are certain that if both men are still

standing at the end of the 15th and final round, Lewis will lose his

championship.

Lewis is humiliated. He feels that Walcott has beaten him.

Well, the decision comes in and it's given to, out of force and habit, I

guess it's given to Joe Lewis.

In an incredible split decision, Lewis retains his title.

As it turns out, my father was disappointed, almost embarrassed.

But in his true character, he set up a rematch at his own desire because he

didn't want to have any questions, any clouds about whether he was champion or

not.

This time, it is the Lewis of old.

He knocks out Walcott in the 11th round.

Eight months later, Lewis announced his retirement.

With the crown now vacant, two challengers fight for his title.

Ezard Charles becomes champion when he defeats Jersey Joe Walcott in a 15-round

decision.

The word circulated that Lewis needed money and would fight again.

If he won back his title, Lewis would become the first man to come out of

retirement and regain the heavyweight championship.

But I feel good, I'm in great condition, and decide I'll offer Sam some money.

A two-to-one favorite to win back his crown, Lewis is badly beaten in a 15

-round decision.

The scorecards unanimously show that Lewis won only three rounds.

Nevertheless, Lewis continues his comeback, winning eight fights in 1950

and 51.

Still heavily in debt, Lewis is induced by a $300,000 guarantee to fight a

young, unbeaten heavyweight with a murderous punch.

The fighter's name?

Rocky Marciano.

Whether the debt was correct or not, whether they gave penalties at an

inordinate rate or not, the fact is Joe Lewis loved this country, recognized he

owed them money, and he was going to do the only thing he could to repay the

taxes, and that was fight Marciano.

In retrospect, it seems incredible that oddsmakers made him a 6-5 favorite to

beat Marciano.

The fight is a massacre.

Lewis struggles pathetically to make it a contest.

The stories there simply are that Rocky Marciano didn't want to fight my father.

My father was Rocky Marciano's hero.

And growing up in Brockton, he really believed in the spirit of Joe Lewis and

coming from poverty to success.

Rocky's people said, if you ever want to be on the caliber of a Joe Louis in the

history of boxing, if you have an opportunity to fight him, you should.

I think the saddest and the most teary-eyed sight

was watching Joe Louis lying outside the bottom rope in Madison Square Garden

after he'd been knocked out.

by Rocky Marciano.

At the end of the fight, the stories were that Rocky Marciano came into my

father's dressing room to apologize and hid tears in his eyes. And my father

consoled him and said, Rocky, the best man won.

It's okay.

At age 37, Lewis again retired.

But the IRS was still hounding him.

Against the advice of his friends and family, he became a professional

wrestler.

He then started taking high-powered drugs and began having hallucinations

that people were out to kill him.

His job as a greeter in a Las Vegas hotel brought criticism from many in the

press.

My father loved Las Vegas.

It was because of Las Vegas that he felt a sense of worth himself.

He created wonderful friendships with Frank Sinatra and Barry Gordy and others

through Las Vegas.

The fight game grew under my father's realm in Las Vegas, and so he was happy

there.

On April 12, 1981, Joe Louis suffered a severe heart attack and died, just one

month short of his 67th birthday.

Celebrities from all over the world flew to Las Vegas for his funeral service.

I love what he was, and I love what he is.

A statue of our times.

An example for men of all ages and all colors.

He is now and will always be the champ of my prayers.

God bless you, Joe.

The fight's over.

And you walked out of the ring with dignity and decency.

A few days later, he was buried in Arlington National Cemetery.

The final resting place for heroes.

And that is the way it should be.

For Joe Louis was an American worthy.

This is Muhammad Ali on his farm in southern Michigan.

He begins this day as he does every other, rising at five in the morning for

prayer, practicing his devotion to the Muslim faith.

Though his ability to move and speak have diminished, his mind remains clear

and sharp.

Muhammad Ali retired from boxing in 1981.

Today, he remains one of the world's most recognized figures.

his controversial past still the subject of much debate.

Said a respected journalist, you cannot write the story of Muhammad Ali without

telling the story of America during the last decades of the 20th century.

On November 5th, 1963, Bedlam erupts when world heavyweight champion Charles

Sonny Liston and Cassius Clay meet in Denver to sign contracts for their

upcoming title fight.

Sonny Liston is 35 years old, an ex-convict with a long rap sheet and

alleged ties to the mob.

He has lost only once in his 11-year career.

Liston's goal in this upcoming fight, to silence the brash young fighter many in

the press refer to as the Louisville Lip and Gaseous Cassius.

Well, 100% would be coming to see me, but 99% would be coming to see me get

beat. You really feel that? Because they think I talk too much.

But I got these.

And they represent your thinking?

These represent dynamite.

There he is.

Cassius Clay, the man later to be known as Muhammad Ali, is the 1960 Olympic

champion with an unblemished professional record, 19 wins and no

defeats.

For several months, Clay has taunted Liston, hounding the man he calls the

ugly bear.

Whether confronting him in the street or in training, Clay's goal is simple, to

unnerve the meanest, toughest heavyweight to come along in years.

You look at me, I'm loaded with confidence.

I can't be beat. I have 180 amateur fights, 22 professional fights, and I'm

good as a girl.

Well, he got himself really worked up to scare Liston to make him, Liston, think

that he was a nut and he was crazy.

That was the act.

Those bullies in jail are scared of nobody except a crazy person.

A crazy person doesn't care what you do to him. He's going to put a knife in

you. And Liston understood that from his little stay in prison.

He looked at Ali like, this guy's crazy. I mean, no matter what I do to this guy,

he's going to keep coming.

Clay's outrageous antics evoke memories of another flamboyant showman, the

professional wrestler of the 1940s and 50s, Gorgeous George.

Gorgeous George told him, dress all in white. That's going to irritate

everybody. They're going to want to see your butt on its white duff there.

You're almost making fun of them to dress all in white. Say things that

irritate people.

Because just as many people buy tickets, they want to see you get killed as

they're rooting for you.

Either way, it's five bucks in a seat.

As Cassius Clay and Sonny Liston enter the ring on the evening of February

25th, 1964, the odds are heavily in favor of Liston.

More than 90% of the sportswriters in attendance believe that Liston will

defeat Clay.

Many think that Clay will not last the first round.

When you see the young Cassius Clay, you basically want him to lose because he's

such a fool.

And then when he gets in the ring, it's like he's a different man. He's so good.

Then you want him to win. He's so fast that you almost can't believe your eyes.

And Sonny Liston was just dazzled.

Defying the skeptics and his own personal doubts, Clay survives the first

round.

Liston didn't know what to make of it. He was scared of what he was up against.

And, you know, you can psych out your opponent. Ali used to psych them out.

I mean, can you imagine being in the ring waiting for Ali to come in? And

when you see him coming in, he's giving an interview to a radio man as he's

walking to the ring.

Well, you know, what does that do to a man waiting? He said, well, he's not a

bit worried about me, is he? He's giving an interview.

By the fourth round, Liston tires.

Clay continues on the offensive.

Back in his corner, Clay has trouble

with his vision.

There is suspicion that Liston's gloves have been illegally doctored with a

blinding substance.

Clay implores trainer Angelo Dundee to stop the fight.

Cut the gloves off. I want to prove that the world is dirty work afoot. I said,

sit down.

I started watching him. Put my finger in his eye, though. Checked it out. Put it

in my eye. It burned.

There is concern that the referee may stop the fight.

Finally, when the 10-second buzzer sounds, I'm relieved.

And I only gave one instruction.

I said, run.

And that's what he did. He ran for a half a round, cheered dogs, cleaned out

his vision, and he started slapping the guy around again.

Liston is unable to take advantage of Clay's impaired vision.

Clay then steps up the attack.

By the sixth round, Clay dominates the sluggish champion.

The fighters return to their corners.

There is confusion on Liston's side.

Sonny Liston refuses to answer the bell for round seven. His corner claims an

injured shoulder.

The fight is over.

Jashus Clay is the new heavyweight champion of the world.

I would have slept in a hollow log and drunk muddy water before I would have

said he had any type of chance in that fight. And I thought Sonny Liston would

be...

heavyweight champion at least for one more millennium, maybe two.

I saw no way that Ali could win that fight.

The next day, Cassius Clay

announces what has been rumored to be true for months.

Cassius is not my name no more.

Officially Muhammad Ali now. Muhammad Ali, right. Muhammad Ali. That's my

name.

Muhammad Ali has embraced the teachings of the Muslim faith and the Nation of

Islam.

For more than a year, he does not fight.

Rather, he preaches the word of the Nation of Islam across the cities of

America, promoting racial separation and pacifism.

Angel food cake is the white cake, but the devil food cake is the chocolate

cake.

Hatred is not a word that Ali knows.

The only time in his life he ever used the words when he first got in with the

Muslims and they were a hate group.

and he was uncomfortable with it, and he was never the same, and he wasn't a good

person. Right after the listen fight, he turned into someone we hadn't seen

before, someone we didn't like.

We look at all the angels, we see white with blonde hair and blue eyes.

Now, I'm sure if there's a heaven in the sky, and the colored folks die and go to

heaven, where are the colored angels? They must be in the kitchen preparing

the milk and honey.

Well, remember one thing about Muhammad Ali. He was 23, 24 years old. He was a

kid. So if...

He didn't express himself with the consistency of Thomas Jefferson at

times.

So what? He was not leading the civil rights movement in Selma and Birmingham.

He was a kid.

On May 25, 1965,

15 months to the day after the first Clay Liston bout, a rematch is scheduled

in Lewiston, Maine.

What are we going to do, Drew? We're going to float like a butterfly and

sting like a bee. Oh!

Rumble, young man, rumble. Oh!

That's our motto.

Tension is high for this fight.

Newspapers run stories that members of organized crime and the Nation of Islam

have threatened the lives of both fighters.

Amid this explosive backdrop, Cassius Clay enters the ring for the first time

as Muhammad Ali.

Incredibly, despite being heavyweight champion, he is still the underdog.

Refereeing the fight, former world heavyweight champion, Jersey Joe

Walcott.

Muhammad Ali is able to land only two hard punches.

Ali throws a straight right.

Liston goes down.

Ali stands and yells at his fallen opponent.

Referee Walcott tries to move him away from Liston.

He is concerned that Ali may hit Liston as he gets up.

Under the rules of boxing, Walcott cannot start counting over Liston until

Ali goes to the neutral corner.

Ali should have been disqualified.

Get to the neutral corner, get disqualified.

In 17 seconds, he was on the floor. He got up and they started fighting.

And so a guy from the audience comes in and stops him.

Matt Fleischer, the dean of boxing reporters, yells to Walcott that the

fight should be stopped since Liston was down for more than 10 seconds.

Walcott hears him and stops the contest.

In 2 minutes and 12 seconds, Muhammad Ali has retained the heavyweight crown.

Shouts of fits are heard.

Questions are raised as to how one of the toughest fighters in history could

be knocked out with one punch.

The Phantom Punch, as some have called it.

That's baloney. The guy didn't see the punch.

The guy had his face facing the canvas. He never knew the shot was coming.

He hit him on the temple, and he was disoriented there.

He got hit hard. I hit him with a punch that Jack Johnson used called the Anchor

Punch.

Muhammad Ali would successfully defend his title eight more times between 1965

and 1967.

But he is drawn ever deeper into another world, the political and social tumult

sweeping over America in the 60s.

His pro-black pronouncements scare and confuse many white Americans.

His opposition to the war angers many more as America's participation in the

Vietnam conflict escalates.

1966 would see more than 150,000 American troops fighting in Vietnam.

with tens of thousands more on their way.

Muhammad Ali, who had failed the military intelligence test twice in

1964, is not eligible for the draft.

I don't expect Einstein to be the heavyweight champion, and I don't expect

Muhammad Ali to be Einstein.

He is a genius of a different kind. There are physical geniuses. There are

geniuses of character.

And I think Ali had genius in both those areas.

I have always maintained if Muhammad Ali had been educated up to his potential,

the world would never have heard of him. He would have been a doctor or an

accountant or he may even been a politician, who knows?

But he wouldn't have been a boxer.

In 1966, the Selective Service lowers the test scores needed to be drafted.

Muhammad Ali, once deemed unfit to serve in the armed forces, is now reclassified

1A. Now, all of a sudden...

I'm 1A without any test, without notifying me or checking to see if I'm

any wiser than I was the last time or any worse.

Ali's lawyers immediately request a military deferment based on the

religious grounds that Muhammad Ali is a Muslim minister.

Their request is rejected.

I will not go 10,000 miles from here to help murder

and kill.

Another poor people simply to continue the domination of white slave

masters over the darker people of the earth.

And here's this black man standing up, only in his 20s, young black man saying,

I got no quarrel with the Viet Cong.

He said, no Viet Cong ever called me nigger.

On April 28, 1967, Muhammad Ali is ordered to report to the Army Induction

Center in Houston.

Three times his name is called to step forward.

Three times he refuses.

Mr. Muhammad Ali has just refused to be inducted into the United States Armed

Forces. Notification of his refusal... Indicted and later convicted for failing

to submit to the draft, Ali is sentenced to five years in prison.

He remains free while his case is under appeal.

The U.S. State Department confiscates his passport.

FBI surveillance has stepped up.

The governing bodies of boxing strip his championship titles.

Ali's boxing licenses are revoked, preventing him from fighting and the

right to earn a living.

Can my title be taken without me being whooped? No!

One more time.

Leaders in the black community, including the Reverend Martin Luther

King, show their support.

My view is on the draft very clear. I'm against it.

And I think the sooner our country does away with the draft, the better it will

be for everybody.

But to other Americans, Ali's actions are viewed with disdain and disgust.

One of those, Jackie Robinson, the former Brooklyn Dodger who broke

baseball's color barrier in 1947.

Cassius has made millions of dollars off of the American public.

and now he's not willing to show his appreciation to a country that is giving

him, in my view, a fantastic opportunity, hurts a great number.

Muhammad Ali refuses to hide.

He continues to speak on college campuses.

I'm not allowed to work in America. I'm not allowed to leave America.

Home of the brave, land of the free. He even tries his hand at acting, playing

the lead role on Broadway in the production of Buck White.

Ali scraped by, made speeches and got fees.

It was a very, very tough period in his life. And Ali had to resort to

a lot of devices to keep bread on his table for his growing family.

While his lawyers seek to overturn his conviction, the state of Georgia grants

Ali a license to fight.

On October 26, 1970,

Ali steps into the ring for the first time in three and a half years and

scores a technical knockout over Jerry Quarry in three rounds.

The threat of a long jail sentence still looms ominously, but Ali's exile from

boxing, which began in 1967, has ended.

Eager to regain the heavyweight title stripped from him four years earlier,

Muhammad Ali challenges the newly crowned world champion, Joe Frazier.

Many still call their struggle on March 18, 1971, the fight of the century.

Joe Frazier is at the peak of his career.

His professional record is perfect.

26 wins, no losses, with 23 knockouts.

For weeks on end, Ali taunts Frazier.

calling Frazier the white man's fighter and the stand-in champion.

And slip it.

He's going to talk to me.

Ain't that some nerve? He's going to talk to me.

That's going to be one heck of a talking night.

20,000 fans jam into New York's Madison Square Garden.

300 million more watch via closed-circuit and satellite TV.

Never before has there been such anticipation for a heavyweight fight.

Every celebrity who was around at the time was at that fight. People forget

that Frank Sinatra was so anxious to get close to the action.

He got a photographer's credential and shot pictures for Life magazine.

So he was right up on the apron.

I mean, that's the sort of effect that fight had on people.

If Ali can defeat Frazier, he will join Floyd Patterson as the only heavyweight

to regain the championship crown.

Ali had not been fighting for some years, and when he came back again, he

was the underdog for the state.

And he talked about his opponents in ways that made them out to be the white

man's favorite.

So that when he went in the ring, he had all of black America behind him, and it

would be a triumph for blacks.

In the 11th round, Joe Frazier rocks Ali with a stinging left hook.

Ali is stunned but is able to hold on.

Though exhausted and trailing Frazier, Ali carries on.

He will not go down.

Ali was sent out, told he had to knock Frazier out in the 15th round. And he's

screaming at Frazier, fool, go down. You cannot stand up. God has ordained me to

win this fight. Go down. Go down. You cannot stand against God.

At which point, Frazier slips a punch.

Throws a left hook and just before he throws it, says, well, God's going to

get his ass whipped tonight.

Bang, down goes Allen.

Three, four, five.

He takes the mandatory eight count.

The only knockdown of the fight.

The fight ends.

Joe Frazier scores a unanimous decision over Muhammad Ali and retains the world

heavyweight title.

Afterward, both fighters are hospitalized.

Joe Frazier would be in and out of the hospital for the next two weeks.

While Muhammad Ali loses the decision in the ring, he wins his battle against the

U.S. government three months later.

On June 28, 1971, the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously overturns Ali's conviction

when it is learned that the FBI illegally tapped his telephone.

Muhammad Ali is finally vindicated.

And the reason I didn't go to jail out of Vietnam was the FBI, CIA ain't

following me. They eavesdropped and watergated and heard me on phone calls

and sent girls on me and set traps up for me. They found out I was parents.

America opened their doors and their arms to this guy and said, you're right,

we shouldn't be in Vietnam. You're absolutely right. Are you willing to

give up being the champion of the world and go to jail?

That's sure that you're right. I mean, who?

Who would do that? Who would give up millions of dollars, fame and everything

you work for, for a political belief?

Few people.

Muhammad Ali would fight 13 more times from 1971 through 1973.

His record over that period?

12 and 1.

His only loss? When Ken Norton breaks his jaw and earns a split decision.

1974 would see Muhammad Ali avenge his defeat to Joe Frazier.

winning the 12-round unanimous decision at Madison Square Garden.

But by this time, Frazier is no longer champion.

George Foreman now holds claim to the world title.

It would be in the African nation of Zaire that Muhammad Ali predicts he'll

win back the heavyweight crown by knocking out George Foreman, the

meanest, hardest-throwing heavyweight since Sonny Liston.

When George Floyd meets me, he'll pay his debts. I can drown to drink of water

and kill a dead tree. Wait till you see Muhammad Ali.

Bolstered by Zairean President Mobutu's pledge of a $10 million purse, the first

heavyweight title fight ever to be held on African soil is scheduled.

What was Zaire like? Everything you could possibly think.

that could go wrong, went wrong with the fight, including running out of money.

It took a stadium that wasn't a stadium. Couldn't buy tickets for it because you

had no chairs, no aisles, no rows.

How do you see people in a thing like that?

A lot of people died there.

A lot of people died. About 13 that I can remember counting up were shot by

Mobutu for not doing their job right.

In the early morning of October 30th, 1974,

Ali and Foreman finally square off.

Foreman is a four-to-one favorite.

Most believe his sledgehammer punches, which crushed Frazier and Norton in less

than two rounds, will wear down Ali as well.

The most bizarre fight I've ever covered. In the middle of the jungle,

people forget what time that fight started to tie in with American times

with primetime television.

It started at 4 a.m. Can you imagine people fighting each other at 4 a.m.?

Less than a minute into the second round, Muhammad Ali retreats.

Trainer Angelo Dundee and others in Ali's corner shout to him to get off the

ropes. He does not listen.

I was scared to death. I mean, every round I was scared to death. When he

started that rope-a-dope routine, I'm whacking him on the butt. Get the hell

off of there!

After the fourth round, when Ali really lands about...

Four or five combinations on George and leaves him stunned. He comes back to the

corner and he says, well, I got him now.

I can knock him out if I want.

And Angel says, well, do it. You know what I mean? Like, hey, let's get out of

here. It's going to rain.

He says, no, I'm going to have a little fun first.

Ali comes out strongly for the eighth round.

George Foreman goes down.

He's counted out.

Muhammad Ali has regained the title of heavyweight champion.

In 1975, Joe Frazier and Muhammad Ali agreed to meet in the Philippines for

super fight number three, the Thrilla in Manila.

Both fighters are showing their age.

The years of punishment have taken their toll.

Regardless, the public clamors for this rematch.

Muhammad Ali causes a sensation.

Once again, his theatrics enrage and embarrass Joe Frazier. When I get the

gorilla in vanilla.

Ali could tell a fight.

And sometimes he denigrated or appeared to denigrate the opponent. He tried to

infuriate Frazier because when you infuriate your opponent, he doesn't

think clearly and makes mistakes.

At the opening bell, Muhammad Ali and Joe Frazier charged to the center of the

ring.

What made that fight so great is Frazier's almost knocked out in the

first round.

And then Frazier comes back.

It's a constant ebb and flow, and you say, my God, how much longer are these

two guys going to be able to stand toe-to-toe and do this?

And I saw two guys in an arena with no air conditioning.

I don't think I've led an exemplary life, and when I get to hell, I will

know what to expect, because that's what it'll feel like. Like that arena felt

that day at high noon in Manila, where the boiling point just percolated over.

Everybody was melting in their seats.

For the next 13 rounds, they continued to batter each other.

I didn't know how those two guys survived, I swear to God. I mean, I was

exhausted just climbing up and down the steps.

I thought Mahan was completely spent.

But he sucked it up, bought it from nowhere.

When it looked like Frazier was going to be licked, he came back and threw the

damnedest right hand he had ever thrown.

And now he said, fool, you don't have any right hand.

You're an old man. They told me you're an old man. And he hit him with another

right hand.

And then it's a fight. And it was a fight he had not bargained for.

By the 14th round, both Ali and Frazier can barely move.

Frazier is out.

He can't see. He can't breathe. He's out.

Ali is three feet away from him.

Can't walk the three feet to throw the punch. That will end the fight.

Joe had taken so much punch that was inhuman. He should not have come out

again. And in our corner, we were just saying, I hope he doesn't come out. I

hope we don't have to do what we're going to have to do, which is going to

be kill him.

Tending to Frazier.

His trainer, Eddie Futch.

And then it's Eddie Futch who makes the decision, and wisely so, that we've got

to stop this because it can't go on. It cannot go on at 15 pounds. Someone will

get hurt, and it's not going to be my fighter. And Joe never forgave Eddie

Futch for saying no.

And as far as I'm concerned, he should never stop thanking him for saying no.

While trying to console Joe Frazier, Eddie Futch is heard to have said, no

one will forget what you did here tonight.

The fight that has created a situation where Ali looks at Frazier and Frazier

looks at Ali. And if you use the names, they are linked forever. You cannot use

one's name without the other. Because when Ali walked out of that ring

supported by like 20 guys, he came out and he leaned over to where all of us

were sitting. And he said, that's the closest you will ever see to death.

And he was right.

Both fighters are badly beaten.

Frazier spends the night in almost total darkness. His eyes are swollen shut.

Ali's condition is not much better.

He made this tragic

discovery that he could take a punch.

And so the cumulative effect...

was extraordinary, and it took a terrible, terrible toll on him after a

while. In other words, he won, but he lost.

From 1976 through 1977,

Ali successfully defends his title six times.

But it would be a lightly regarded former Marine corporal named Leon Spinks

who would score one of the greatest upsets of recent heavyweight history.

On February 15, 1978, Sphinx shocks an under-trained and overweight Muhammad

Ali, earning a 15-round split decision.

Soon after, the press and some in Ali's camp suggest that the 36-year-old Ali

should retire.

His age and epic struggles against Foreman and Frazier seem to have sapped

his ability and desire to fight.

Questions are raised about his health. His speech and reflexes have slowed.

A rematch with Spinks is arranged for seven months later in New Orleans.

There is no clear favorite.

If Ali wins, he will be the first heavyweight in history to capture the

world title three times.

Ali decided, I guess, that he was going to wake up his own echoes, and did.

But those echoes were becoming dimmer and dimmer and dimmer.

As the rounds go by, the excitement builds.

Though the fight remains a sluggish affair, many in the crowd sense that

history could be made this night.

The final bell sounds.

The fight is over.

Muhammad Ali wins a 15-round unanimous decision and with it becomes the only

heavyweight to regain the title three times.

It would be the last time Muhammad Ali would stand victorious in the ring.

He retired from boxing soon afterward, only to make an ill-fated comeback,

suffering two humiliating defeats.

What was sad was the Larry Holmes fight.

And there was no way he was going to win. And even Holmes, who had trained

under him, who had adored him, didn't want to hit him. He'd keep looking

around at the referee.

Finally, in 1981,

Muhammad Ali retires once and for all at the age of 39, and one of the most

glorious eras in boxing comes to an end.

The ensuing years were difficult for Muhammad Ali.

His generosity and bad business decisions had cost him millions of

dollars. His motor skills and speech continued to deteriorate, the diagnosis

of Parkinson's syndrome confirming what many had feared.

Through it all, Muhammad Ali carried on, quieter and slower than before, but with

dignity and compassion.

On July 19, 1996, the opening ceremonies of the Centennial Olympic Games in

Atlanta are reaching their climax.

American swimmer Janet Evans climbs the ramp leading to the Olympic cauldron.

Waiting to meet her, Muhammad Ali.

Muhammad Ali lighting the torch is one of the great sporting moments I

witnessed. And when Ali was suddenly standing there with that torch, I'm not

ashamed to admit that I pulled back tears.

Everybody's supposed to feel sorry for him. You can't feel sorry for him. The

guy's a star.

He is a champion.

He is showing people that have Parkinson's and Alzheimer's and other

diseases. You don't give up. You keep right on going.

He loves people.

And he wants them to love him.

That's called an alley world.