Original subtitles

Beautiful.

Rumble, young man.

Cook, Champ.

Float like a butterfly, Champ.

Rumble, young man.

Cook, Champ.

Everybody stop talking now. Attention.

I told you... All of my critics...

I told you all that I qas the greatest of all time...

Let's go back to the beginning.

Every race and color that's ever came to this country...

have shed they blood in this ring.

In the '20s and '30s...

you had the immigrant nations all going to America.

That's why you had all the Jewish fighters, Irish fighters...

and Italian fighters.

The game hasn't changed.

It's just different people playing the part.

- Boom. Boom. - You had to fight to make a living.

You can lose your life giving the people what they wanna see.

Nowadays, nine out of 10 are Mexican, Puerto Rican...

'cause they're the biggest influx now into America.

One-two combination... Left, right, boom.

This is what built America, man.

Every freakin' one of us...

have shed our blood in this ring.

But when Ali come in the game...

he just took it to another level...

A step above the crowd.

You know how great I am. I don't have to tell you about my strategy.

I'll let my trainer tell you. Bodini, come here.

Bodini, tell 'em. What are we gonna do?

You gonna float like a butterfly and sting like a bee.

Rumble, young man. Rumble.

That's what we gonna do. You heard it. That's my trainer. He'll tell you.

We're talkin' about 1958.

Cassius Clay walked in and said...

"I want everybody who weigh 175 pounds to stand up."

And everybody...

Didn't nobody know who he was.

He said, "I just wanna let you know.

You know who gonna win all this here thing here tonight?

It's gonna be me."

Cassius Marcellus Clay is a great name in Kentucky.

He meant a lot to black people... to the black community.

And he means a lot to the black community today.

I mean, who was more revered than Muhammad Ali?

More revered than any other fighter ever in boxing history.

More revered, perhaps, almost any other person in history.

Oh, yeah, we knew about him.

He was light heavyweight in the Olympics...

like I was a light heavyweight in them days.

This man was supposed to have been the fastest light heavyweight they've ever seen.

You got a guy 6 foot 31/2. He was moving like a middleweight.

And when you've got fast feet and fast hands...

which he had, that makes some sort of a fighter.

I am the greatest!

Was I jealous of him? Yes.

The guy was tall. He was good lookin'.

Everybody was jealous of him.

I was training in Angelo Dundee's gym.

Cassius Clay was there.

He was really busy searching for himself down there.

I remember one time he was saying, "Japanese are in Japan.

Russians are in Russia.

Germans are in Germany.

What country is called 'Negro'?"

And this guy stood up...

"What country is called 'White Folks'?"

The '60s, I think, was where black people as a whole...

came together and said, "Enough is enough."

We declare our right on this Earth...

to be a man, to be a human being...

which we intend to bring into existence by any means necessary.

I will be 21 January the 17th...

and I predict that by the end of 1963...

I will be the youngest heavyweight champion in history.

Cassius, since you're not worried about this guy Cooper.

How about when you get through with him? What are your plans after that?

Well, you're right. I'm not even worried about this big bum.

Cooper will only be a warm-up...

until I get to that big, ugly bear, Sonny Liston.

I used to train in southeast London in them days...

and I used to run, like, 4:00 in the morning.

And I used to see all these old girls, like mums and grandmas...

who used to be doing early morning cleaning, like, in the big factories.

They used to say to me, "You stop that loudmouth. Give him a good wallop."

I fought him at Wembley Stadium in front of 40,000 people.

He came in the ring with a blue silk dressing gown...

with a crown on.

You could feel the atmosphere. God, I mean..."Henry! Henry!"

It was so thick you could cut it with a knife.

So here we go. It's the fight of the year.

Clay from the right-hand corner, against Cooper of Britain.

See, '63 when I first fought him, he was a novice at inside fighting.

I mean, I roughed him up inside.

I had his nose bleeding in the first round.

And he kept looking at the ref... "Look, ref, break, break!"

Right into Clay's face, and he's scoring heavily with him. He's hurting the American.

I came from a working-class family.

No good fighter comes from a middle-class family.

You gotta be wanting to get out of the environment you're in.

That's what motivates a fighter.

My father was a boy soldier in the First World War.

He was in the Royal Horse Artillery, pulling them old cannons...

and he did a bit of boxing in the army...

so he taught us the fundamentals of boxing...

Got down on his knees and taught us that way.

And listening to stories about Granddad...

I mean, he must have been rather a character.

And he was into 20-round bare-knuckle fighting.

When Granddad was fighting a man, and if he had a wife...

and the wife sort of butted in...

my gran used to go up and start a fight.

And she never sort of pulled hair...

It was full bloody punches.

As a working-class lad like I was...

I never expected to get any honors. Good Lord.

I mean, I boxed because I liked boxing, all right.

Then, suddenly, I got a knighthood.

I've been to Buckingham Palace 10, 15 different occasions.

You know, and I'm a royalist. I believe in the royal family. I don't want a president.

I don't want some trumped-up guy who's, like, gonna con the country...

and wanna be a president.

The queen hasn't put a foot wrong. She's done everything right.

One or two of the family have just let her down a bit.

But I still want a king and a queen more than a president.

He's threatening, and he's teasing Cooper.

He was doing a bit of showboating.

He was dropping his hands, so I showed him one left.

I showed him another left, and then when he couldn't get back any further...

I hit him with a left hook.

And when I used to hit with the left hook...

the eyes used to shoot up to the top of their head...

and both his eyes were at the top of his head.

He's up at about three.

Well, he learned one thing.

He learned that, basically, he had a pretty good chin, if he didn't know that before.

He knew that he could take a good shot and then recover from it.

And now we come to round five.

The Ali fights were the worst cuts in my career.

Basically, the bone would come through the flesh.

A plastic surgeon stitched it.

He put 40 stitches on the inside, and 40 stitches on the outside.

The towel has come in from Cooper's corner.

Ali always paid me a great tribute...

'cause he always said, "Cooper hit me so hard...

he didn't only shake me, he shook my relations in Africa."

Now, that's a really good line.

You gotta give him credit.

I met Ali on September 22, 1963...

and he was dressed like a... kinda like a preppy white guy.

You know, he had a brown suit, and, like, straight pants.

The promoter of the fight, Bill King, asked me if I would...

sign to fight Cassius Clay, as he was known then, if I beat Mike DeJohn.

Mike survived the fight.

In the sixth round, I knock him down. Looked like he's dead.

He finally gets up. I knock him down again.

The referee walks over, picks him up off the floor...

then proceeds to give him a standing eight count.

I said to myself, "Man, I think I'm in trouble here."

I was lucky to win a 10-round split decision. It was a joke.

Next day in the paper Ali says, "I'm not fighting Chuvalo.

He fights rough and tough like a washerwoman."

So I said, "I gotta get dressed up as a washerwoman."

Chuvalo's a washerwoman. You know how women fight.

They have a wild... wild style...

Ladies style of fightin'. That's the way he fights.

So I went to a rental place and got a big bonnet hat.

I got a flower-print dress. And I put some makeup on.

I got some granny glasses perched down the bottom of my nose.

And my contract with Ali.

So I walk in. People are wondering, "Who the hell is this guy?"

I'm in drag. I said, "Yoo-hoo, cautious.

Yoo-hoo, cautious." And he looks over.

I said, "You forgot to honor this contract."

What I didn't realize, though, at the time, was that...

they were already negotiating a fight with Liston.

Float like a butterfly. Sting like a bee.

Rumble, young man. Rumble.

I'll get him at the weigh-in.

Sonny Liston was born to be a big, brute boxer.

We'd have these terrible sparring matches.

He was the only man to ever stand up to me. No one has ever stood up to me.

Liston will kill him... Kill him in the first round.

- Liston. - Second round, Liston.

Liston in four.

Dig that tonight somebody will die at ringside from shock.

I can remember watching Ali...

going to the weigh-in...

and he was ramping off all the time.

I thought, "He's gonna be completely knackered by tonight."

I thought Liston was gonna tear him apart.

I thought he was a lead-pipe cinch to win by a K.O.

Sonny Liston was an awesome...

powerful athlete.

Cassius Clay moved like a gazelle...

In and out, side to side. Off the ropes, and always in the center of the ring.

His strength was his speed. He was very fast.

Cassius Clay has surprised everyone.

He just took it to another level.

He was very gifted. Very gifted.

Seconds remaining in the sixth.

The crowd now cheering the challenger.

They might be stopping it. That might be all, ladies and gentlemen.

Well, it was a big upset. I mean, let's be honest.

Liston was a bit slower, where Ali could pick him off.

He could dance around him, you know.

And he made Ali look good.

A lot of people talk about Ali's greatest fight was with Cleveland Williams...

but Cleveland Williams had just been shot a few months before that fight...

and he wasn't the same Cleveland Williams.

I think that's Muhammad Ali's greatest fight ever... The first Liston fight.

- Come here, Champ. - I'm the greatest fighter that ever lived!

And I just turned 22 years old. I must be the greatest.

I told the world, I talk to God every day.

If God's with me, can't nobody be against me.

I shook up the world. I know God. I know the real God.

- Cassius, wait a minute. - I am the king of the world!

- Hold it, hold it, hold it. - I'm prettier.

- Hold it. You're not that pretty. - I'm a bad man.

I shook up the world.

I have a religion, which is the religion of Islam...

that most people don't understand...

and they don't seem to like.

I'm not one of these who run around...

forcin' my way in another man's restaurant...

and marrying out of my own race.

When he first fought Liston...

and he won the title, they praised him.

But when he announced it that he was a Black Muslim of Islam...

the white mass booed him.

Why do you insist on being called Muhammad Ali now?

That's the name given to me by my leader and teacher, the Honorable Elijah Muhammad.

That's my original name. That's a black man's name.

Cassius Clay was my slave name. I'm no longer a slave.

What the fuck is that?

When he really met Malcolm X, Malcolm X was filled with it.

He fed him some social science.

Fed him some political science.

And, of course, gave him some history.

And a bit of untruths to paint the story that...

"You are someone special. You are the greatest."

Malcolm X enlightened Ali in a lot of ways.

When Ali talked, a lot of times you could hear Malcolm.

Black children should learn about their own culture...

not about England, not about France, not about Rome.

They should learn about Asia and Africa.

They should learn about their own black selves.

I don't have to be what you want me to be.

I'm free to be what I want to be, and think what I want to think, right?

I don't believe in forced integration.

That period in history was very chaotic.

They had the Civil Rights movement.

They had the Black Muslim movement, and the split...

with Malcolm X and Elijah Muhammad, the leader of the Black Muslims.

Elijah Muhammad, the head of the movement...

is the father of eight children by six different teenaged girls.

I didn't have no meeting with Malcolm X.

- Who said that? - He came in the hotel...

and was in your room for a couple of hours.

No, he was there for about an hour or so.

But as far as linking me with him or something like that...

I don't know nothing about his plans or his future plans or what he's doing.

I follow the Honorable Elijah Muhammad.

Malcolm X rose to speak to his followers in Harlem.

One minute later, he was shot down by 10 bullets.

Eighteen minutes later, he was dead.

Say can you see

By the daqn's early light

The challenger is the first to enter the ring.

Muhammad Ali, Cassius Clay, 23...

champion, never defeated as a pro.

Kind of hard to believe now, this century, looking back in the '60s...

that Ali was kind of a... believe it or not... a social pariah at the time.

Muhammad Ali.

Couple days prior to the fight...

it had been set up that if Liston wins, I fight Liston.

If Ali wins, he fights Patterson.

The fight took place...

and Liston takes a dive.

Sonny Liston said, "All I care about is the do re mi."

And so he was tellin' me then...

he was boxing strictly for money.

It wasn't like he threw a fight. "I'm just fighting for money."

I mean, to me, he just didn't fancy the fight.

He knew Ali was just too fast, too quick for him.

And he just... I think he swallowed it.

Liston was scared to death of Black Muslims.

He was threatened by the Black Muslims.

And he took a dive. Everybody knows it.

I knew it, and I was quite vocal about it in the ring after.

If Liston would have lost legitimately, I would have had no qualms.

But since he took a dive, I voiced my opinion.

When they ask me about the army, I will say directly...

"No, I will not go.

Why should me and other so-called Negroes...

go 10,000 miles away from home here in America...

to drop bombs and bullets on other innocent brown people...

who's never bothered us?"

And saying, "My fight ain't with the Vietnamese.

Them people ain't did nothin' to me."

I think that gave all the young black men pride.

We could identify with that move that he made.

Cassius Clay, a member of the Black Muslim religion...

went immediately to the third floor of the induction center...

where processing began.

He came out and said, "I've got nothing against the Viet Cong."

He said, "They don't call me nigger."

If I'd have got up in 1940 and said...

"Well, I think the Nazis and Hitler, they're lovely people"...

the public would have turned against me.

The Ali situation when he didn't want to go...

I applaud that.

I mean, I think people should do that even now, today.

That stuff in the Middle East is bullshit.

We wanna tell them what to do...

and I think our government is wrong for doing that.

Muhammad Ali left the induction center...

to the cheers of supporters chanting...

"If he don't go, we don't go."

I'm the champ of the world, Mr. Athletic Commissioner.

And I'm here to fight for the title.

- Mr. Clay... - Muhammad Ali, sir.

- Mr. Muhammad Ali. Either one. - Just Muhammad Ali, sir.

When you appeared before this commission before...

if I recall correctly, you said you were the "people's champion."

Yes, sir.

Do you think that you're acting like a people's champion?

Yes, sir.

Ali was the W.B.C. Champion.

There was also another champion around...

Ernie Terrell... W.B.A. Champion. World Boxing Association champion.

Hey, man, I got a title.

All I wanted to do now...

I just wanted to go and get the one that Ali had...

and would pile it on top of this one.

Ali-Terrell, uniting the titles.

Muhammad Ali, the World Boxing Council champion...

and Terrell, the World Boxing Association champion.

It was originally scheduled for a showdown in Rutherford, New Jersey...

but there was so much heat exerted by the war veterans...

that they literally pushed the fight out of the United States into Canada...

because they were upset with Ali's stance on Vietnam.

I think I had a $250,000 guarantee.

Some guy said that, "There ain't gonna be no guarantees."

Well, when he said that, I pulled out of the fight with Ali...

and he fought Chuvalo.

The real reason Ernie Terrell pulled out of the fight...

Because his manager got beaten up.

His manager of record was Bernie Glickman.

His real manager was Tony Accardo...

a mob boss from Chicago with links to Frankie Carbo...

and the front man for him was Bernie Glickman.

I was a kid then. That's the way I look at that.

And I didn't know who was a mobster and who wasn't...

to tell you the truth about it.

Bernie Glickman went to see Herbert Muhammad, Muhammad Ali's manager...

I think he posed the threat...

"Herbert, if Ali wins the fight...

you're gonna end up in a cement box in Lake Michigan."

All Herbert Muhammad had to do was...

And his henchmen would come over.

And they beat the hell out of Bernie Glickman.

He went to the hospital, beaten within an inch of his life.

From the hospital he went directly to the loony bin...

to the mental institution, where he eventually lost his life.

He never saw the light of day again.

That's why I got the fight with Muhammad Ali.

Never been treated so nice in my life.

I haven't had no people makin' wisecracks.

Everybody's friendly... the children, the waitresses...

the hotel managers, the policemen...

Everybody's as nice as they can be...

and it's a lot different from where I come from.

I came from a poor neighborhood.

You know, just a working-class neighborhood.

Most fighters come from disadvantaged groups.

Hard to find a rich kid to be a fighter.

I mean, you got a punch to the nose, a bleeding nose...

The guy says to himself, "I don't want to make a living doing this stuff."

My mother and father were Croatians.

My father went to school two years.

He was eight years old, working tobacco fields.

My mother didn't have any formal schooling.

My mother used to pluck chickens for half a cent a bird.

She'd pluck 200 chickens to make one dollar.

And my father skinned cattle...

before they had machines to tear off the hide.

He used to do it with a broken arm.

My father was so paranoid about losing his job.

He would vacation every year for two weeks...

but during that vacation, he would go to work...

and watch, not one man, but two men do his job.

I mean, for 40 years, with this huge elbow jutting out of his arm.

Broken arm doing the work of two men.

He never complained about Canada ever.

He would just say, "Canada's a good country. It gave me a job."

I remember going over to Morgan's Cigar Store, which is like a variety store...

and they had a magazine rack, and on the rack...

was a magazine called The Ring.

Called itself "the Bible of boxing," as it does today.

And I saw these guys with muscles on the cover.

Open to the pages, more guys with muscles.

I said, "Man, this is for me." I went home.

"Ma! Ma! Get me a set of boxing gloves. I wanna be a fighter."

The way this fight figured...

Everyone thought that Clay would come out...

and dance around, just as he's doing right now.

When I fought Ali, I realized very quickly...

that he was the quickest guy I ever fought.

He wasn't a big puncher, but he was very, very quick.

Very, very fast on his feet, and his punches were lightening quick.

The plan was to go to the body. Bam, bam, bam, bam, bam.

Down to the kidneys. Over the kidneys. Steppin' over here.

And I would rake him to the body, and the idea was to slow him down.

I thought maybe he'd be pretty tired and I had a shot to knock him out.

In the first round Ali tried to con me into something.

He put his hand behind my head, pulled me close...

and then kind of dared me to hit him in the body.

And he tried to make it look like...

he was a real brave guy, he was a real tough guy...

but he only did it once.

And Cassius Clay...

wins a hard-fought, action-packed championship fight.

In the newspapers they made it sound like it was an easy fight.

It was far from an easy fight. It was a tough fight.

They didn't expect Ali to say that was the toughest fight he had up to that time.

You know, they didn't expect him to say that, but he did.

And he went to the hospital after the fight with bleeding kidneys.

And me... I went dancing with my wife.

The wife and I had five children... four sons and a daughter.

And I lost three sons, and I lost my wife.

I lost my three sons to drugs.

I lost my wife to suicide after the loss of our second son.

One son shot himself. Two others died of heroin overdose.

And my wife died, ironically, from pills...

that she'd taken from my sons in a previous drugstore heist.

The hold that drugs have on a person is unbelievable.

I was told by one of my sons...

that drugs had such a strong hold on him...

that when he and his brother would go down to use...

they would ask the dealer at the bar if he had...

and the dealer would show him the white stuff in the palm of his hand... the heroin.

And when they would see the smack in the dealer's hands...

my sons would be so desperate for it...

that as soon as they would see it...

within the flash of one single second...

the very first single second... both of my sons, on cue...

would crap their drawers.

Crap their drawers, soon as they see the drug.

Then they would pay for the drug.

Then they would take the drug into the bathroom of the hotel where they were...

and...

they would...

Then they would suck it up in a syringe...

and they would shoot it into a waiting vein.

And only then would my handsome sons clean themselves off.

Every time I tell that story I get sick to my stomach.

When my son died, four days later, my wife took her life.

That was such a bleak period.

I was in bed for a month and a half.

I don't even remember going to the bathroom during that period.

I must have, but I don't remember.

But I do remember my son Mitchell coming to visit me.

My son Steven was alive at the time.

My daughter Vanessa. My daughter-in-law Jackie.

My only grandchildren at the time, Jesse and Rachel, who are Steven's children.

And some of my friends coming over...

hugging me and kissing me and telling me they loved me each and every day.

Every day. And I remember articulating to myself...

after a few weeks, how love made you feel.

I said love makes you feel strong.

Love makes you feel tender. Love makes you feel secure.

Love makes you feel appreciated. Love makes you feel important.

I think we all have to feel strong, tender, secure, appreciated, important.

I think we all have to feel like that.

I'd like to do a song for you that I done...

two days before I fought Muhammad Ali, on The Jack Benny Shoq.

It's a strange song. Muhammad didn't like it too well.

But I'd like to do it for you.

From Hollywood...

Won't you come home dear Cassius

Won't you come home

I've trained the whole year through

Are you afraid, Muhammad

Are you afraid

Of what I'll do to you

- Why don't you call me my name, man? - Well, what's your name?

You told me your name was Cassius Clay a few years ago.

I never told you my name was Cassius Clay.

My name is Muhammad Ali...

and you will announce it right there in the center of that ring...

after the fight if you don't do it now.

When you're gonna fight, you don't go and try to make friends with the guy...

'cause you're gonna fight him.

- You heard me. - Don't call me no Uncle Tom.

- Just back off of me. - And so, ladies and gentlemen...

Uncle Tom.

Until he touched me, I was all right.

But he pushed me, and that's when we started wrestling.

Another interview has been recorded for posterity...

as the two gentlemen continue to promote the fight.

As you know, I have a question to ask him on the day of the weigh-in...

and his answer will determine how bad I'm gonna beat him.

I knew Ali was fast, so what I was gonna do...

I had a jab. I'm pretty good at it myself.

I was gonna throw the jab out there and beat him to the punch.

Ernie Terrell, pressing the champion, sending in stinging punches.

The first round was okay.

I felt like I fought pretty good then.

But then what happened is, he grabbed me around the neck...

and pulled me over to the rope.

Then he started pokin' me in the eye like this right here.

He was pokin' me in my face with this thumb...

and his thumb hit me in the eye...

and then he rubbed across the face with the heel of his hand.

Well, he said he didn't do it, but you know how that is.

None of my professional fights have been one thing dirty.

Terrell is known for being a dirty fighter.

He's got a record for being a dirty fighter.

When I got my eye damaged...

it just messed up my whole style of fighting.

So what I had to do then...

was come out with a peek-a-boo style, like...

Just to stop the punches.

And that's the way I fought the rest of the fight.

If you was a black boy growing up in Mississippi...

stayed in your place.

If you stayed in your place, you would have got along with all of 'em.

And when you crossed that line...

You know, trouble. It was just really rough.

Joe Louis was a black man.

In fact, I was shocked to find out that he was.

And all of the neighbors and everybody...

They would work real hard, fast...

"I wanna see Joe Louis. I wanna hear Joe Louis over the radio."

You know, really rejoicing.

And I just thought that anybody that had that kind of impact was great.

And when we moved to Chicago, I saw one of the gyms.

It was on the fifth floor of this building...

that I first put on boxing gloves.

Rocky Marciano trained there.

Jersey Joe Walcott trained there.

So as a kid, and I would go home and watch 'em on television when they fought...

and it was definitely an inspiration to me...

to come out here and do it myself, and that's what I did.

What's my name? What's my name? What's my name?

Most of the time when he said, "What's my name?"

That didn't bother me.

But gets to your patience.

- What's my name? - I noticed his hand was down...

So I was gonna try myself to get one in...

but he was out of punching range.

And there's the end of the fight.

A brilliant boxing exhibition by champion Muhammad Ali...

What is his name?

His name is Cassius Clay, far as I'm concerned.

When the fight was over, the only thing I wanted from Ali was a return bout.

All the other stuff... What do they talk about? That wasn't me.

I just wanted to get a return bout because I thought...

the one I fought in was flawed...

and I wanted the real, true chance to beat him.

You took a powder, Cassius

One day in March

To London and Toronto too

Ain't it a shame

You changed your name

I'll change your features too

I'll change your features too

Heavyweight champion Cassius Clay, at a federal court in Houston...

is found guilty of violating the U.S. Selective Service laws...

by refusing to be inducted.

Whatever the punishment, whatever the persecution is...

for standing up for my religious beliefs...

even if it means facing machine-gun fire that day...

I will face it before denouncing...

Elijah Muhammad and the religion of Islam. I'm ready to die.

I mean, it was a gutsy thing to do, but it didn't do him any good.

I mean, he had to have what? Three years out of boxing?

And they would have been some of his better years.

My brother Michael died in Vietnam.

They let me come home to the funeral. I was in prison.

And I watched my mother. You know?

And when we buried him, a part of her went with him.

You know? So, yeah.

I can identify with Ali when he said...

"It's not my fight, man. My fight is right here, man."

My intention is to box, to win a clean fight.

But in war, the intention is to kill, kill, kill, kill...

and continue killing innocent people.

'68 was a wonderful time for me.

I had been rescued from the gutter in Houston, Texas.

My life was nothin' but a thief and a bandit and a mugger.

If someone would come up and talk politics to me, didn't ring a bell to me.

And then having a chance to represent my country in Mexico City...

and I'm standing in the middle of that ring...

just won my Olympic gold medal, people started applauding...

I said, "I gotta let them know where I'm from. Hey, look, I'm from America."

So I waved the flag.

I got home, and some people took offense to it.

"How could you do that? How could you do that when the brothers were doing that?"

And looking back in hindsight, put another chip on my shoulder...

'cause I dared anyone to even bring that up again in that fashion.

So it just made a tougher guy out of me.

With Ali, it was principles, you know...

and I think that if he had his choice to make over again...

knowing Ali, he would make the same one.

The heavyweight championship is at stake...

as champion Joe Frazier...

takes on Jimmy Ellis.

Joe Frazier becomes the undisputed heavyweight champion of the world...

I ain't botherin' him. Don't he bother me.

I don't pity on nobody when I climb through the ring.

I go out there to take him out.

These boxing authorities...

people who will rate Joe Frazier over me...

and rank him the champion when I've never been beat...

And for Joe Frazier to be a champion, he's gotta beat me.

See, those eliminations were only imitations.

He's not the real champion, and I will...

After a three-and-a-half year layoff he fought Jerry Quarry.

Then he fought Oscar Bonavena.

Even when they let him come back...

he was still a stride ahead of the pack...

but that's where they started reachin' him.

That's where they started touching him. That's where they started hitting him.

Before then, they wasn't even putting a glove on him.

If he goes down again... It's over!

I prove 'em wrong every time.

They said I couldn't come back. No fighter has ever come back.

They look real bad when they make these public statements and can't back 'em up.

It's bad to predict against me.

All I say to all of my fans out there, and anybody who's been following me...

I don't encourage nobody to bet...

but please don't put nothin' on Joe Frazier.

The heavyweight champion of the world, Joe Frazier.

You couldn't get Joe Frazier on this show... "How do you feel, Champ?"

He has no rhythm, no footwork, no class.

He cannot talk.

And who told him he could sing? He can't sing.

Well, he came from a very, very humble background.

I don't care. He's the other type Negro.

He's not like me, 'cause he's the Uncle Tom.

He's not an Uncle Tom.

Why did he insist on calling me Cassius Clay...

when even the worst of the white enemies recognize Muhammad Ali?

He keeps saying Clay. "He's still Clay.

He gonna stay Clay, and to me he'll always be Clay."

Joe Frazier told me, "This guy keep callin' me an Uncle Tom."

And he said, "I don't want my wife thinkin' that I'm peepin' in windows."

He actually thought he was calling him a peeping Tom.

He didn't know what an Uncle Tom was.

Joe couldn't come back with him verbally. He couldn't...

You know, he wasn't a match for Ali that way...

so he had to prove it with his fists.

In 1971, that was truly the fight of the century.

Hadn't been a fight like that, with that much magnitude...

that much interest, in the history of boxing.

The first fight had all this suspense...

About Ali coming back after his layoff, and they were both undefeated.

It was a hell of a buildup. It was a hell of a fight.

Muhammad Ali entering the ring there...

with his Black Muslim entourage behind him.

Joe Frazier had all the fighters' respect in the top 10.

But anybody that ever saw him fight...

and understand the game of boxing...

will tip their hat to Mr. Frazier.

...in the red trunks.

Joe Frazier in the green trunks.

They appear very light.

That was a hard left hook that caught Frazier.

He knows that.

Ali wasn't the same guy that I had fought in '66.

In '66 he was quicker and he had more stamina.

He could throw punches at length for a longer period of time.

Joe Frazier was a tough pit bull.

A little dog, man. Trust me. Joe Frazier could fight, dog.

Joe Frazier was relentless.

His biggest asset was his constant punching and the intensity of his attack.

He never... It was punch after punch after punch after punch.

The round is over. The round is over.

What a round.

Muhammad Ali was really out that time.

Ali's best punch... the jab.

Left and rights to the body.

I'm sittin' three rows ringside. I'm lookin' at him.

When he hit the canvas, his eyes was like that...

but when he hit the canvas... boom.

His back didn't even stay. Just boom...

He just come right back up and stood up...

and looked at him like that.

I said, "Okay."

As a fighter, when you see that in a fighter...

that's respect.

I think Muhammad Ali, if he had it all to do over again...

he would have just been nice to Frazier, and won on points.

Frazier just couldn't lose. He was prepared to die in that ring that night.

And Joe always felt kind of betrayed by his own people, I think...

because most black people were rooting for Muhammad Ali against Joe Frazier...

and Joe Frazier felt more like the average black guy from the ghetto.

He was blacker than Ali. He was poorer than Ali.

He had a tougher upbringing than Ali.

Joe Frazier brought the best out of Ali.

Ali brought the best out of Joe Frazier.

It took two to keep our sport at the head of the pack.

There it is. The round is over.

The winner by unanimous decision...

and still heavyweight champion of the world...

Joe Frazier.

Even now, if you talk about Ali to him, Joe will say...

"God's punishing Ali because of all the things he's done."

And you couldn't win with Ali.

When it come down to you talking and him talking...

everybody gonna be on his side.

Joe couldn't take that.

And I don't blame him.

I've raised 10 kids...

and there's always one child who can take a joke, and another who can't.

Muhammad could say something...

and just tick Frazier off, and Muhammad would be smilin' about it.

Walk right.

Ali, who it seems to me has taken Kenny Norton more lightly...

in the pre-fight buildup here...

than any opponent I have known him to fight.

Either Kenny Norton is a much better fighter...

than anybody thought...

or Muhammad Ali has gone back a lot more...

than one could have reasonably believed.

The final round... round 12.

Good right! And that right hurt Muhammad Ali.

He knew his jaw was hurting, but he didn't know it was broken.

So he gonna keep right on going. And that's the man that comes out of him.

Everybody know I wasn't in shape for the Norton fight.

I was at a nightclub with Howard Cosell out all night before the fight.

The press even wrote about how I wasn't living clean.

Muhammad Ali... Norton could beat him on any given night.

I don't think he's ever beaten Kenny Norton to be honest with you.

Ladies and gentlemen...

the referee, Frank Rustage...

Seven points, Norton. Five points, Ali.

There it is! One of the greatest upsets again in boxing history!

I was afraid of Joe Frazier because you can't hurt him, I thought.

I seen him beat Muhammad Ali and rest his head on his chest.

I said, "No one does that! He conquered the man in that first fight."

But I'm number one contender. I had to face him.

When George Foreman hits you, it's like a Mack truck hitting you at 40 miles an hour.

And when Joe Frazier hits you, it's like a Pontiac hitting you at 100 miles an hour.

There's a different feel to it, you know.

But they both hurt.

Frazier has never taken this kind of punishment.

Frazier's down again!

Frazier is being battered in Foreman's corner.

Joe's about to go down and does! And it's over!

Once a guy climbed one of those Mount Everest...

he's conquered everything.

It's the easiest time in the world to push him down...

'cause he's already made it to the top.

After he beat Muhammad Ali, there was not that much left of Joe Frazier.

I tell you, if I'd fought him two years earlier, it wouldn't have been like that.

Once I became heavyweight champ of the world, and the way I'd done it...

looking at the film, and people telling me I'm the best fighter ever.

"Never been a puncher like you, George." All those pats on the back, compliments...

I started to eat them, really.

I faced Kenny Norton who had even beaten and broken Ali's jaw.

And beat him twice, if you ask me.

Frazier... Creamed him, knocked him down.

So I figured, I'm gonna fight Muhammad Ali.

He's the least of all those guys. He's older.

This is gonna be the easiest fight of my life. I wasn't even nervous.

I had to trick him into this fight. I had to make the world think my legs were gone.

"He can't dance no more. Previous fights show where he stands in the corner."

I did that on purpose, man!

Can I dance? Is the pope a Catholic?

Is you colored?

Just like I thought Sonny Liston was gonna rip Muhammad Ali apart...

I thought George would do the same thing.

I figured, I'm just gonna walk in and win this fight in maybe one, two, three rounds.

Knock him out. The most confident I'd ever been in a boxing match.

Ali, bomayel Ali, bomayel Ali, bomayel

I'm happy because, for the first time I don't have butterflies, I'm not nervous.

This is what I always wanted from boxing.

The bell rang. He comes out, lands a few shots.

I land a good one. He tries to run.

I corner him up, beat him whenever I wanted to.

I thought, this is gonna really be easy. If I can only get him into an exchange.

Then after I'd beaten him up really good in the side.

And I said, "Come on." He said, "No way!" and covered up.

And I remember I went whalin' and whalin'.

I thought I was gonna get him, and that bell rung.

It must've been about the third or fourth round.

He looked at me as if to say, "I made it."

From then on, it was a different fight.

You could tell Foreman was, like, frustrated.

The worst thing punchers can do...

is sling their big punches and hit thin air.

I tried to get him. I tried to corner him. I tried every shot in the world.

But he took it. And he started whispering, "Is that all you got, George?

That all you got?" Then I really tried to get him.

Look at Ali. Continues to taunt George.

Definitely serious. Tremendous combination by Muhammad Ali.

Ali played a trick that got into his head.

Even when he thought of punching at his body, Ali was blocking him.

He was like this. 'Cause Foreman was swinging this way.

And when he swang it up top, he had his hands like this.

And Ali was looking at him, pulling him to him. "Is that all you got?"

He is definitely head hunting with his right hand.

Ali could take a good punch, 'cause I used to hit him in the gym.

Another strategy that he was working on...

I felt that he was gonna do in the real fight...

that is throw punches, back into the corner and let him bang him.

By the seventh round, playing around, dropping his hands.

I said, "I'm gonna get him now 'cause I'm gonna drop my hands."

I heard Angelo scream, "Muhammad, don't play with that sucker!"

And when I did that, he picked his hands up and that was the last chance I had.

He backed away from the corner, and I turned to spin him...

and he hit me with a one-two combination... left, right, boom!

And the right hand caught me. I fell to the floor, tried to break the fall.

When I was knocked down, I looked up in the corner...

'cause I was told never listen to the referee, find your cornerman.

I raised my head up. I found Dick Sadler. He told me, "Stay down." I'm waiting.

Then he's, "Okay, up!" 'Cause you wait and let him count.

When I jumped up, the fight was over. I was no longer heavyweight champ of the world.

I was devastated.

Eighth round knockout!

He knocked out George Foreman!

He did it with such guile, it was so beautiful to watch him.

I thought for sure he was gonna be annihilated.

And as the fight started to unfold, you could see what was happening.

Then when it happened, it was like, "Holy mackerel!" What a Hollywood ending.

Have you seen anything more Hollywood than that?

Probably the best punch of the whole fight...

was never landed.

Muhammad Ali, as I was going down, stumbling, trying to hold myself.

He saw me stumbling. Ordinarily, you finish a fighter off.

I would have. He got ready to throw the right hand and he didn't do it.

That's what made him, in my mind, the greatest fighter I ever fought.

If I remember rightly...

George Foreman injured himself and had to put the fight off.

And he stayed in Africa.

Well, I think they got a few tribes women over there.

He over-enjoyed himself. So he was never quite the same.

When he got into it with Ali, Ali just knew he had too much for him.

We were in Deer Lake and he was getting ready to fight George Foreman.

A lot of women around. And I said, "Man, you know, you gotta be in shape.

Don't take no chances with these women."

And that's when he told me, "Shut the hell up."

He says, "I've been doing this... You don't know boxing.

I know boxing. You don't tell me what to do."

And I shut up.

Went on about my business, you know.

Like he said, he knew what he was doing, and he did.

'Cause he won the fight.

Ali had so many... so many people around him.

Everybody had a little job to do... that they could do for him.

Howard Bingham, flash man, camera man.

Booker, he was the security guard.

Lloyd Wells had a few girls come around.

I tell you, man, the women that came to that camp...

He had his pick. You hear what I'm saying?

This man had his pick of the most finest women that I ever seen.

And I was thinking, "Damn! Why can't it be me?"

Ali, bomayel

Muhammad Ali had picked up something else along the way.

I guess when he had the troubles with the draft.

Then he'd gone to Africa, and people believing in him. "You mean so much to us."

He found something to fight for other than money and championship belts.

And when that person finds something like that, you can't hardly beat them.

I proved that Allah is god...

Elijah Muhammad is the messenger, and I have faith in them.

And regardless to the world and the pressure...

I made it an easy night because Allah has power over all things.

See, fighting ain't about how big and how strong you are.

Fighting's about how patient you are.

God had a way of getting George Foreman's attention.

I told you! I told you in the beginning you couldn't beat us.

But you're gonna be champion again one day when the prophet's finished.

Next time, why don't you be pushing on the ropes. Let the man hang out there.

It wasn't me. It was God!

I came home and I was angry for a long time.

I figured I'd been betrayed by my manager.

I'd been given things in my water. The ropes were loose.

I had all the kind of excuses that filled me with hatred and revenge.

I felt like I lost everything, not just the championship of the world...

but I lost myself as a man.

Foreman attempted a comeback, but that ended in 1977.

I fought Jimmy Young in Puerto Rico in March of'77.

After the decision, Jimmy Young is the winner.

I couldn't believe that. I went back to the dressing room.

And as I was walking back and forth to cool off, I started thinking.

Who cares about a stinkin' boxing match when I got money, I got cars?

I said, "I could retire and then die."

Die! I couldn't fight it.

It just started dominating my conversation.

I realized I was about to die in a dirty old dressing room with all those homes I had.

Right within my thoughts I heard a voice say, "Do you believe in God?

Why are you scared to die?"

So I tried to make a deal with the voice. I said, "I'm still George Foreman.

I can box and give money to charity and for cancer."

And a voice answered me right back, "I don't want your money. I want you!"

And I remember tears coming down because I knew that was it.

My leg gave out on me. And I said, "Y'all, I'm fixin' to"...

Before I could say another "die," I was gone.

Within a split second, over my head, under my feet was just nothin'.

I looked behind me and I seen...

I saw everything I'd ever worked for crumble.

Like you burn a piece of paper and it stands and you touch it and it crumbles.

I was dead. Smelly old death. And this horrible smell that goes along with it.

I just got mad. I said, "I don't care if this is death.

I still believe there's a God." I just didn't believe in religion.

When I said that, a gigantic hand just reached in...

nothing, hopelessness, no more, and pulled me out.

And I was alive in that dressing room again.

Evidently, they had picked me up off the floor.

I saw blood coming out of my forehead. I hadn't been cut from the boxing match.

But I saw it. My masseur said, "Move your hand!

He's bleeding where they crucified him!"

And I started screaming, "Jesus Christ has come alive in me!"

I fought eight men to get in the shower and start screaming...

"I'm clean! Born again! Hallelujah!"

They strapped me down in an ambulance.

And I said, "You just witnessed a miracle and you won't believe it."

They rushed me to intensive care.

I lost a boxing match, but I was where I wanted to be in life.

And I've been telling that story since.

I'm talking about Jesus Christ, the true son of the living God.

The first time that I ever stepped in the ring...

I was in the Colorado State Penitentiary in Canon City.

When I got up in the ring and I looked around...

I knew then that this is where I belong.

It was like putting the rabbit in the briar patch.

- How long were you in the penitentiary? - Seven and a half years.

- You went there for what? - Second-degree murder.

It was a six-by-eight cement slab.

One blanket, no pillow.

A bowl of spinach.

And every three days, you get a meal.

That's the hole.

I was still doing push-ups on a bowl of spinach.

And when they put me in privileged max where they were giving me three meals a day...

I started doing a 1,000 push-ups in an hour.

When I was in jail, me and this guy got into an confrontation.

He had a knife. I didn't have one.

When he hit me with the knife... boom.

And he hit a main artery going to the heart.

So they had to open me up, cut me across.

Put all my insides up on my chest.

I had 36 blood transfusions.

Died twice on the operating table.

But it wasn't my turn. God gave me another shot at life.

When I got out, I was 28.

I won the national A.A.U. Title.

I fought Duane Bobick and I knocked him out.

He didn't move for five minutes.

I wanted to be a pro. I wanted to be one of the guys...

so my people sent me to spar with Ali.

I worked with him for, I think, four rounds.

He was a special person. He didn't try to take advantage.

Then I left from there and I went up to the Catskills to work with Joe Frazier.

Tell Frazier this fella's a good amateur and he's not out for no reputation.

Give him a good little boxing lesson, but don't hurt him.

But if you make Frazier look too bad, which I believe you will, 'cause you're a good boxer.

You'll hit him all night with those jabs...

that you don't hit me with, but you'll hit him all night.

People like what they saw. They saw...

the raw talent that was there that over a period of time would develop.

I was 30 when I turned pro. I fought Ali four years later.

The rest is history.

I knew that was my time.

I knew that this was the moment that I worked for.

This is where I had to put it all together in one night.

Ali was such a good fighter, 'cause Ali really didn't need a lot of room.

He was sharp, man. He'd come over your jab. He could beat your hook.

Everything I had to do was from right in here.

I couldn't open up 'cause if you open up, that's all he needed.

Uppercut was my best punch.

Bang! Bang! Bing!

Then bop, bang, bing! Then bop, beep, beep, beep, bop!

Tenth round was a close round.

But I think I won it because I was in the controlling position.

There was 19 of us... 14 boys and five girls.

And we grew up in the projects.

We didn't always have a lot.

But we cared for each other. We looked out for each other.

I came from a family of religious people.

My mother's father was a bishop.

My mother's mother was a missionary.

My father's mother was a missionary.

My father's father...

was a bootlegger.

I took after him, didn't I?

They gave me 15 to 25.

I'm in solitary confinement.

I had this dream...

I was fighting for the heavyweight championship of the world.

And guess who it was... in the dream.

Ali.

And when I got out...

the things that I was doin' in the fight, it was just like the dream.

In the eleventh round, I'm ahead on all scorecards.

I was starting to move more. Getting him to reach at me.

And he threw a right hand. Pow!

And it knocked me into the ropes.

Well, I already know how to fight off the ropes.

I learned how to do that in prison.

I took some shots. I took some shots.

Freddy Nunez, the referee, stopped it.

I couldn't believe it, you know.

I'm ahead on all scorecards.

"Come on, man. This is my moment."

Am I bitter? Forget about it.

I never took it personal.

If there don't be no Ali, you think you'd be sitting here talking to Ron Lyle?

About what?

But I'm still fighting. I'm just in the corner now.

I'm showing 'em how to fight. I'm teaching 'em how to fight.

I like trying to make a difference in their little lives in the boxing game.

If I can shed a little light on some knowledge of the game...

and they pick it up and they use it and they take advantage of it...

it's all good... that's what I'm here for.

It will be a thrilla and a chilla and a killa...

when I get the gorilla in Manila.

I know, yeah.

- I got your conscience with me. - Yeah, how 'bout that?

- I'm gonna keep it right here in my pocket. - Ain't gonna do it.

Fifteen rounds. And here is round one.

The Thrilla in Manila was a heck of a fight.

They both kind of died in that fight.

Neither fighter was the same after that fight, markedly so.

Frazier is hurt.

Is puffed around both eyes.

It's all over!

Boxing is a strange sport.

You can overstay your welcome and you can get physically hurt.

Wiped out. Devastated mentally.

Your brain can only take so many shots to the head.

The Thrilla in Manila was Ali's exit.

He take that, he could be the president of the United States.

'Cause he's still sharp at this time.

But like all fighters, and I'm no different...

you want to know if you can still do it one more time.

Earnie Shavers, he's the hardest puncher I ever faced...

and that's including Foreman.

He hit me, man, and my feet just came... The ground came up and met me.

I ain't never been hit like that.

Earnie Shavers was the hardest I ever been hit.

Ali don't even hit compared to what Shavers did.

Earnie Shavers, the challenger...

he has knocked out his opponent 19 times in the first round.

Oh, good right hand by Shavers!

Right hand. And Ali is hurt!

Oh, a right hand!

Another flurry by Ali.

Toe to toe!

What a fight!

Leon Spinks, a gold medal winner at the 1976 Olympic Games in Montreal...

is a young man on the move.

Since turning pro, he's had only had seven fights.

And number eight will be for the heavyweight championship of the world...

as he takes on Muhammad Ali in Las Vegas.

You think he is an old man though?

Any man is old when he's 36.

Spinks, incidentally, is a tremendous underdog...

at 8-1 Las Vegas odds.

So here we go for round one.

Big question here...

Can Muhammad Ali, with three minutes to go...

and the final round coming up, come back and win this fight?

Okay, there is no tomorrow.

He just got hammered! Spinks just got hammered with a right hand!

And Spinks comes back with a counter. Another counter! Another! Another!

And Spinks backing up the champion.

With eight seconds remaining, he just hammered Ali!

Ali looks like he's in trouble.

He's leaning against the ropes. With two seconds.

The new heavyweight!

They didn't rob me. He did win the fight.

I did lose it. It was close, but I did lose it.

And that's not gonna help me.

Going around talking about it, it's not gonna get the title back.

We just admitted the strategy was wrong.

We made a mistake. We all lose in life.

We're gonna lose our mothers, our fathers, our brothers, our sisters.

We can lose our lives, our eyesight, our health.

And you just have to learn to live with these conditions and keep going.

Leon, what did you do after the fight last night?

That good, huh?

With whom?

You feel you have any extra responsibility as far as your image goes?

I don't know. I just stepped in. I won't know until I get deeper into it.

Heavyweight boxing champion Leon Spinks is in the Bahamas today...

denying drug possession charges...

made against him early yesterday morning in his native St. Louis.

The challenger of tonight's bout...

the former two-time great champion...

from Louisville, Kentucky, Muhammad Ali, the greatest.

There's the bell. And we're under way. Round one!

And a good exchange as round... Ali does his little shuffle...

and the crowd loves it!

All he needs to do is survive to 15 and he's the next champion of the world.

For the first time, unprecedented if he does it.

Then he says he wants to retire. Retire as the first black...

ever to retire as heavyweight champion of the world.

It's all over!

And Ali is the world heavyweight champion for the third time.

And here comes the Ali circle.

A tremendous crowd of people are pushing their way in.

I says, "I cannot go out on another loser. It's terrible."

I should have quit after Foreman.

I went too long. I took one too many.

That's why I'm so lucky today to be here...

able to make these boasts.

And now, forever champion.

To get away clean. To come back and get out...

and be able to say, I'm the first black man...

to win and get out clean.

I wish I was smarter than I am.

But if I could write and read and spell as good as everybody else...

that got a college education, I wouldn't be who I am.

I was 13 years old working in an ugly old shoeshine shop in the car wash.

Smoked some marijuana, got high. I was selling marijuana on the street.

I didn't want to do that anymore.

I said, "I gotta stop." At that time I was, like, 16 and a half, 17 years old.

Quit. Started boxing.

All I had was some talent and a heart.

My trainer at the time knew Angelo Dundee.

He said, "We're going up to Deer Lake, Pennsylvania...

to see Ali at his training camp."

Ali happened to have scheduled a exhibition, and no one was there for him to box.

So he asked me, "Do you want to box me?"

I said, "I don't want to box you, man. I ain't ready for you."

He said, "I ain't gonna hurt you. I ain't gonna hurt you."

We boxed three rounds. He didn't hurt me, but I ended up with a black eye.

And that was something that I was proud of, that I could show off...

me being a sparring partner, me helping Muhammad Ali.

That was even more a thrill. It was like, "Wow, I'm with the champ."

But it was a whole mess up there.

Everybody was jealous and jockeying for position...

trying to be closer to Ali than the next person.

One time, we all drove back to Chicago to get paid.

Ali went in the bank, and called each person in the bank...

and paid 'em and came back.

And somehow, somebody said, "How much money you got?"

"Well, I got 10,000." "I got 5,000. How'd you get more than me?

You didn't do this, and I was doing this and I was doing that!"

They was arguing about who was getting more money than what.

And my thing was...

he didn't have to give me anything, 'cause he pays you every week.

And it went on and went on and went on that way until I left.

The last day was when he fought Chuck Wepner in 1975...

when I got my last pay for $3,000.

I said, "I can't be your sparring partner no more. I gotta go do my own thing."

He wished me luck. And that's when I took off.

Ain't nobody gave me anything.

Don King controlled my situation. They had me.

I fought one year, six times, and made $700.

I thought he was finished with me.

I wasn't supposed to be there. My legs were too small. I was just to copy Muhammad Ali.

I couldn't fight. I couldn't take it. But I proved them all wrong.

Three years later, I'm heavyweight champion of the world.

How do you think you'll do against Muhammad Ali?

Muhammad Ali... There's no question about Muhammad Ali anymore.

There's no more Muhammad Ali. There's only one Larry Holmes.

Muhammad Ali has seen the bright side. Now he's on the dark side.

I've had two years rest. Two years off.

Two years off, and I'm gonna whoop Holmes.

It's hard to say no to all that adulation.

It's hard to say no when you're constantly in the public eye...

when you're as revered as he was.

I will destroy Holmes.

And I want you to play this thing over to the public...

He wanted to do what he wanted to do.

Just like me. Just like you.

Here comes Larry Holmes.

The W.B.C. Heavyweight champion.

A man who deserves recognition.

I was put in a no-win situation. I beat him up, I beat up an old man.

He beats me up, I never had it.

All those years I was with him, I never heard him curse at me like that.

I never heard him curse period like that, you know?

"Motherfucker." "Son of a bitch." "Kick your ass." And "I'm gonna fuck you up."

He's lost his cool already!

But he said all that, and I was like, "Whoa."

Green having trouble getting the fight started.

The bell for round one.

Wide-eyed, posturing Ali.

I wanted to bully Ali around...

like he would bully somebody else around as a sparring partner.

I'm the man. This is my domain.

You're trespassing. And now you have to pay for it.

Good right to the belly!

My thought was to go and back him up, keep him up against the ropes.

And make him fight. Just make him wear out.

He was concentrating on protecting himself.

And I was able to just go straight in...

and do whatever I wanted to do because there was nothing coming back at me.

Ali gets to his feet...

ever so slowly for the 10th round.

You could see when Ali fought Holmes, he was shot.

He wasn't the same fighter in any way, shape or form...

that he had been in the years previous.

I was almost afraid to hit him in the body.

I was in the camp with him many times that...

when he went to the bathroom, he was urinating blood.

And I didn't want to do that to him.

Holmes's corner keeps telling him to punish Ali.

When Holmes had him in front of him...

it was like hitting a slow-moving heavy bag...

a heavy bag that once had skills, but the run was over.

It was time to go. Time to quit. Time to call it a day.

I realize the legend that this man has been.

I would hope they would stop this fight.

By Ali passing the torch to one of his sparring partners...

it was time for him to step down.

I wanted him to quit like he quit.

Just like he did... sitting on the stool, and me walking away.

The whole game's over! I'm the chief second!

- I stop the fight! - All right.

I went to his room after the fight.

And I said to him, man... I said, "I love ya."

He said, "If you love me, why did you beat me up like that?"

When I left, he said, "I will be back. I will return."

I didn't see any health problems in the future for him.

I thought he was gonna be okay. But of course, we all know that he's not okay anymore.

That he has health problems resulting from...

either a predisposition to that condition or to boxing...

or maybe it's a combination of both.

All this problem he's got now...

has nothing to do basically with Parkinson's...

what they call his Parkinson's syndrome...

And I was with him, and he had his doctor with him.

And as he went out of the room, his doctor explained to me.

He said... 'Cause I said to him, "Boxing hasn't done this to Ali."

He said, "Look, Mr. Cooper, what you gotta realize...

he got hit so many times on the back of the neck...

some brain cells have been killed off at the base of his brain.

It's these brain cells that trigger a chemical release.

They're not doing that."

I think that boxing had some effects on him...

but basically, this Parkinson's thing...

it's something that's...

I've never seen this on any human being like it's affected Muhammad Ali.

At the time I saw him with Holmes...

I thought more a sense relief than anything else...

that it's finally over...

and that these people still remember him as a great champion.

'Cause there's too many great fights to remember.

And the last one he had was kind of... was kind of a sad ending.

But they all knew at one time he was the greatest.

"You're not the champ. Look at you, you losing. You lost three rounds already.

Come on, Leon. I hit you four times."

This worries a man.

He put it on the line, brother.

The representation that he gave to the black community...

will never be forgotten, no matter what.

I am the greatest!

Float like a butterfly.

He was here. It was a fund-raiser.

It was for Parkinson's, the disease.

And they were taking pictures for different newspapers and magazines.

Macleans magazine took a picture of Ali touching my hair and him saying to me...

"Hey, man, you got some pretty hair."

When I last saw him, he was out walking.

And I was just elated.

I would like to see him a well Ali for the rest of his days here.

I would just hope that that happens.

I am the greatest!

He had a big heart, good chin.

Fast feet, fast hands. What more do you want?

You can't get anything else.

I love Ali like a brother...

and like a guy that is a celebrity...

like a guy whose done a lot for a lot of people.

Ali was one of those guys that...

made you feel good about yourself.

He'd make everybody feel good. You know, everybody.

Ali, bomayel Ali, bomayel

I look at Muhammad Ali today, especially, and I see a hero.

Forget about some minority and all of that. This man was a hero to the world.

And heroes, it doesn't matter if they lost an arm or leg...

they're still beautiful because of what they've done.

When I see him, he's love.

Ali was all about love, man. You know what I mean?

Like I say, he can't speak for himself...

but we can speak for him.

Float like a butterfly! Sting like a bee!

Float like a butterfly! Sting like a bee!

Float like a butterfly!