All language subtitles for Muhammad.Ali.S01E04.720p.WEBRip.x264-GalaxyTV

♫ ♫

He rules the night space
even now,

bestrides the treacherous domain
with thighs of bronze.

A dancing mural of delights.

Oh, Ali, Ali...

What music hurts the massive
head tonight, Ali?

The drums, the tin cans,
the guitars

and mbira of Zaire?

Ali, Ali, bomaye.

The rumble in the jungle?

Beauty and the beast?

Roll call of bum-a-month.

The rope-a-dope?

The Thrilla in Manilla?

Ali, Ali.

"The closest thing
to death," you said.

Was that the greatest,
saddest prophecy of all?

♫ ♫

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NARRATOR: By the summer of 1974,
the United States was beset

by a crippling oil embargo,

skyrocketing inflation that had
staggered the American economy,

and a corrupt
and scandal-plagued president.

(applause)

REPORTER: There's
the president waving good-bye.

You can hear the applause.

(applause continues)

NARRATOR: As court-ordered
desegregation of schools

spread across the country

and white people continued
leaving cities for the suburbs,

some black activists

who had marched and protested...

Or even taken up arms...

Turned to politics

in hopes of achieving change.

Electoral politics became
much more important.

A lot of black mayors
were beginning to be elected.

More traditional routes of
empowerment were employed.

And I think the country
concluded

that Vietnam was a mistake

and that maybe Ali was prescient
in his refusal to go.

NARRATOR: Muhammad Ali's loss
to Joe Frazier in 1971

and then his comeback victory in
their rematch three years later

had softened perceptions of him,

even among those
who had once despised Ali.

He continued to venerate
Elijah Muhammad,

the 77-year-old leader of
the nation of Islam.

Though the sect had receded
from public view, it had,

in fact, expanded, with over
70 mosques across the country,

more than 200,000 members,

and a business empire

with assets in
the tens of millions of dollars.

If you think the world was
surprised when Nixon resigned,

wait till I whip
Foreman's behind.

(laughter and applause)

ALI: He's slow.
He has no skill,

no footwork. He's awkward.

And I have given him
a name.

I named Floyd Patterson
"The Rabbit."

I named
Sonny Liston "The Bear."

And he shall be known
officially as "The Mummy."

(laughter)

The Mummy.

FROST: Why "The Mummy?"

Why? Because he fights...
When he's fighting,

if you ever watch him
in the ring, he...

He drags like that
after his opponent.

(laughter)

NARRATOR: Considered a longshot
in his upcoming title match

in Zaire, in Africa,
Ali promoted himself

as a champion of
black nationalism and Islam,

and this time derided
his opponent, George Foreman,

the current undefeated

heavyweight champion
of the world,

as "the Christian"
and the white man's hope.

MAN: Ali makes the stakes
very high in this fight.

This is the fight
about the black world.

This is a fight about
the whole black world

coming together, who's
going to be the champion

of the black world.

And he says,
"Foreman is not this.

"Foreman is the white man's
champion,

and I'm the champion
of the third world."

MAN: For me, George Foreman
has always been

what I would call
a counterrevolutionary fighter.

At the same 1968 Olympics
where Carlos and Smith

raised the clenched black fist,
it is George Foreman

who pulls the American flag
out of his trunks

and starts waving it around
after he wins a gold medal.

So in some ways, it's necessary

for Muhammad Ali to fight
George Foreman in Zaire in 1974,

because Ali is the ultimate
revolutionary athlete

fighting the
counterrevolutionary athlete.

I'm representing god.

I'm representing the freedom
of black people in America.

I want to win so I can come
home and speak for the brother

who's living in rat-infested
houses,

sleeping on concrete
in the ghetto,

can't go on television
to speak.

So this for me is a holy war.

This ain't just no fight
with George Foreman.

I'm fighting for
the freedom and equality

of the black man of America.

(bell clangs)

♫ ♫

NARRATOR: On July 17, 1974,
Muhammad Ali invited

a busload of reporters and their
families to a picnic lunch

at his training camp

in the pocono mountains of
eastern Pennsylvania.

It had been eight weeks
since he'd begun training

for George Foreman,

and though Ali had already
trimmed ten pounds

from his 6'3" frame,
he hoped to lose another ten

in the two months
before their title fight

in Kinshasa, Zaire,
in September.

ALI: I don't have no managers,
no bosses.

I run when I want to run, train
as long as I want to train...

NARRATOR: Ali, now 32 years old,

told jokes and stories
just as he always had.

He recited poetry,

ordered his sparring partners
to pummel him...

ALI:
Keep blasting.

NARRATOR:
And promised reporters

that Foreman "can't hurt
what he can't hit."

"Bet the house on me,"
he told them.

For this fight, I've
wrassled with alligators.

I've tussled with a whale.

I done handcuffed lightning
and put thunder in jail.

You know I'm bad.

I have murdered a rock,
I injured a stone,

and I hospitalized a brick.

I'm so bad, I make
medicine sick.

I'm so fast, man, I can
run through a hurricane

and don't get wet.

When George Foreman meets
me, he'll pay his debt.

I can drown a drink of water
and kill a dead tree.

Wait till you see
Muhammad Ali.

♫ ♫

TODD BOYD: Mobutu Sese Seko is
the dictator in Zaire,

which had previously
been known as the Congo,

the Belgian Congo
when it was colonized.

Mobutu will stage
this legendary boxing match

in a location that's, of course,
quite symbolic

because of the rising
consciousness around Africa,

particularly for many
African Americans.

NARRATOR: Mobutu Sese Seko,
the president of Zaire,

had come to power

in a Belgian- and
American-backed military coup

that overthrew

the democratically elected
government.

He routinely tortured
and killed his opponents,

and amassed an enormous
personal fortune,

siphoning the profits

from the country's
booming mining industry

into offshore bank accounts,

while many zairians scraped by

without electricity
or running water.

Muhammad Ali and George Foreman
accepted Mobutu's millions.

DON KING: He had all the money,

one of the richest dictators
at the time in the world,

and so now he had opportunity

to bring his people
in his country

to the forefront of the world.

WOLE SOYINKA:
That's what dictators do.

They stage extravaganzas

to distract people
away from their misery

and also to focus the wrong
kind of attention...

They think is the right
one... on themselves.

He's a despicable, extravagant
character who owns

not just houses
but streets of houses

in the home country
of his bosses, the Belgians.

He used to import cartons
and cartons of champagne,

specially bottled for him.

He drank nothing else but that
particular brand for breakfast.

That's the kind of individual
he was.

♫ ♫

(crowd cheering)

NARRATOR: On September 10th,

Ali along with his wife
Belinda, his brother Rahman,

his mother and father,

as well as an entourage of
2 dozen friends and associates,

arrived in Kinshasa
aboard Mobutu's private plane.

"Foreman is a stranger coming
to my home to fight me,"

he told a crowd of
5,000 zairians

who were there to greet him.

"He is a Belgian."

President Mobutu had built
a new runway for jumbo jets

and a four-Lane highway to
connect the airport to downtown.

To retrofit the city's
decrepit 62,000-seat stadium,

one hundred tons of
refrigerators, steam tables,

showerheads,
and boxing equipment

had arrived from Belgium.

Ali and his entourage
were housed

at one of Mobutu's
presidential compounds

25 miles outside of the city,
in n'sele.

MAN: We was staying at
Mobutu's quarters

out on the Congo river.

I mean, that was the most
beautiful sight I ever seen,

because the river,
you could see the lilies

going down the river,

and in the evening
the sun would set,

and you would see
all of that beautiful color

in that water,

and I shot some pictures of
that so I could keep it.

♫ ♫

NARRATOR: George Foreman
seemed ill at ease in Africa.

He had arrived to
far less fanfare than Ali

and moved into the villa
of a zairian official

a few miles down the road
from his opponent

and kept mostly to himself.

On September 16th, Foreman's
sparring partner caught him

with an elbow, opening
a cut above his right eye.

Though it required no stitches,
Foreman's doctor concluded

that the wound would take
weeks to heal

and called for the fight
to be postponed.

Local officials, who
had spent millions of dollars

on preparations and worried
that any delay

could mean risking
the torrential downpours

and fatal floods of the upcoming
rainy season,

claimed that Foreman's camp

was overstating
the severity of the cut.

ALI: I want the president

to put strict orders
on the airport.

Don't let George out
of this country.

(laughter)

Please don't let him go.

I'm ready. I'm dancing.

DON KING: George Foreman
wanted to go home.

And I know already...
And I already said

in the back of his mind
he got accidentally cut,

but he don't
want to stay in Africa.

I know once he got back
in America,

he wasn't coming back.

If he got back to America,
it was over with.

That fight was done for.

NARRATOR: When Foreman asked
to go to France or Belgium

for a second opinion on his cut,
Mobutu said no.

He had reportedly confiscated
Foreman's passport.

Eventually the fight was
rescheduled for October 30th

at 4 a.M. Zaire time.

I'm going to float
like a butterfly

and sting like a bee.

George can't hit
what his eyes can't see.

Now you see me,
now you don't.

You think you will,
but I know you won't.

(laughter)

ALI: George Foreman.

MEN: Bomaye.
Bomaye...

MAN: See, Foreman didn't go out.
Foreman stayed in his camp.

And I would watch Ali
walk through the streets.

People touched him.
Ali was loose.

And he knew they loved him.

All those people in Kinshasa

made a choice for him
over Foreman.

And so when that fight hit,

everybody... I don't know anybody
wanted Foreman to win.

NARRATOR: When Ali
ran in the countryside

around Mobutu's compound,
crowds turned out to cheer him,

chanting "Ali, bomaye,"
"Ali, kill him."

CROWD: Ali, bomaye! Ali, bomaye!
Ali, bomaye...

♫ ♫

NARRATOR: One day in n'sele,
Ali ran into Veronica Porche,

an 18-year-old pre-med student
from southern California

who had been hired by Don King
to help promote the fight.

They had met weeks earlier

at an exhibition match in
salt lake city.

At first, he paid
little attention to her,

but as she boarded the bus
back to Kinshasa,

he offered to join her.

The two spent the trip

discussing their childhoods
and families.

VERONICA PORCHE:
It made a good impression

because I said, "oh, he's
a nice guy. He's humble."

He's not, you know...
That public persona

was not there.

And not that I disliked
the public persona,

it was more when he
was bragging.

NARRATOR: Ali hoped
to see her again.

Belinda had returned
to the United States

when the fight was postponed.

PORCHE: The first conversation
that we had

where he expressed interest
in seeing me again,

I said, "well, you're married."

And he told me
he was getting divorced.

I asked one person,
who told me,

"yeah, they're having
a lot of problems."

And another person said,
"well, they're both my friends,

so I don't want
to say anything."

I did try to find out if...

I didn't just take his word
for it.

But I became convinced that
he was telling the truth,

so that's why
I did see him again.

NARRATOR: In fact,
Ali was seeing

at least two other women
in Africa.

When Belinda returned to Zaire,

she stayed in a hotel
in Kinshasa.

She and Ali quarreled;

he accused her of having slept
with another man.

Veronica remained out of sight,

quietly visiting Ali
at his compound.

So we would walk along the water
in the evenings.

It was really beautiful,

and talked, and he gave me
a lot of his lectures

that I later found out that he
had taken ideas

from sufi books
and had written them.

But at the time, I thought he
had written it all himself,

and topics like
love and friendship.

And it was so beautiful.

I actually fell in love with him
listening to those lectures.

♫ ♫

NARRATOR:
As the fight approached,

more than 600 journalists
arrived in Zaire,

including George Plimpton,
Hunter S. Thompson,

and Norman Mailer.

(jump rope swinging rapidly)

Time!

ALI: I fight
in many European countries,

and it's a greater feeling
fighting in a black country.

I fight in Africa because
I'm fighting in my homeland.

(man translating into french)

Thank you very much.

ALI: America's not
my original homeland.

My original
homeland is Africa.

ANNOUNCER: Ladies and gentlemen,

the world heavyweight champion,
George Foreman.

NARRATOR: George Foreman,

who had finally resumed
full workouts,

made little time for reporters

and gave them
almost nothing to write about.

Though his training sessions
were well-attended,

he barely acknowledged
the crowd,

preferring to put in his work

and return to the hotel
in Kinshasa,

where he was now staying.

ALI: I'll bruise up
George Foreman.

If I don't knock him out,
I'll cut him up!

All around his face will
be nicks and cuts.

I'm so sharp,
when I'm finished,

it'll look like I had
a razor blade.

QUINCY TROUPE: Most people
thought, to be truthful,

that Foreman
would win that fight,

even if they loved Ali.

You have to understand, I mean,
Foreman was

this overwhelming,
big knock-out artist

who just whupped everybody,

you know, and everybody
couldn't get past that.

And, you know, they just
thought that he was

gonna destroy Ali.

NARRATOR:
The day before the fight...

What Ali had dubbed
"the rumble in the jungle,"

his trainer, Angelo Dundee,
headed to the stadium

to inspect the ring,

which had been built beneath
a temporary tin roof

in case the heavy rains
finally arrived.

He didn't like what he saw.

The canvas floor was
soft and slanted,

and the ropes sagged
from the heat.

The trainer tightened the ropes
and leveled the floor

as best he could.

At 2 a.M. On October 30th,

Ali boarded a bus
to the stadium.

The mood in his dressing room
was grim.

Everybody but the fighter
was fearful

he would be hurt or worse.

MAN: Ali wasn't scared.

Ali had no fear.

My biggest fear is, should he
get hurt, what are we gonna do

for a hospital over here?

You know, that was
the big fear for me.

But Ali had no fear

because the honorable
Elijah Muhammad told him,

"Allah is in your corner.
He doesn't have Allah."

And that was Ali's
booster rocket.

NARRATOR: Five minutes
before the fight,

the boxer squeezed into
a toilet stall with his manager,

Herbert Muhammad, and read
aloud from the qur'an.

In George Foreman's
dressing room,

the champ joined hands
with his cornermen,

including Ali's one-time trainer
Archie Moore.

"I prayed that George wouldn't
kill Ali," Moore said later.

BOB SHERIDAN: There you see him,
president Mobutu Sese Seko,

the man that absolutely runs
this country.

And what a job he has done.

Never before
in the history of boxing

and perhaps in all sports
has there been

an event that packs the drama,

the true excitement,
the suspense,

and especially the mystique
of this spectacle.

They said it couldn't happen
in the deepest part of Africa,

but here we are.

George Foreman
has that serious look.

Ali definitely talking to him.

Look at the stare
on George Foreman.

Look at Ali give him the word.

So the stage is set, round one.

The heavyweight championship

of the world at stake.
(bell clangs)

Here we go.
Ali quickly across...

NARRATOR:
Muhammad Ali struck first,

surprising almost everyone.

SHERIDAN:
The light right hand

taken on the forehead by
George Foreman, the champion.

NARRATOR: Though he made Foreman
chase him into the corners

and along the ropes during
round one, he did not dance.

(crowd cheering)

♫ ♫

NARRATOR: Foreman launched
punch after punch,

assuming he'd need to land
just one to end the fight.

SHERIDAN:
The referee separates them.

About 8 seconds left
in the round, round one.

Foreman and Ali ending
round one.

(cheering)

NARRATOR: In Ali's corner
before round two,

his team begged him to stay
off the ropes

and away from Foreman.
(bell clangs)

SHERIDAN: Here we go,
round number two...

DON KING: Ali shocked everybody
'cause he wouldn't tell nobody

what he was doing,

and Angelo Dundee and all of
them was pulling their hair out.

SHERIDAN: Foreman tries
to work the body.

Neither one of those punches
did any damage.

None of those punches
are doing any damage at all.

None, absolutely none.

There's the light flicking
left hand

to the face of George Foreman.

Foreman pushing
the head back of Ali.

We were able to observe
a little bit of puffiness

under the left eye
of George Foreman.

The left eye, not the right eye.

Oh, what a combination
landed by Ali

to the face of George Foreman.

Round three just underway...

NARRATOR: In round three,
Ali went back to the ropes

and allowed Foreman
to swing away at his body

while he fired combinations
at the champ's head.

SHERIDAN: Left hand, light left
taken on the chin of Ali.

That wild left hand
is not scoring.

Foreman setting him up
against the ropes.

What a vicious,
fast combination by Ali.

Ali definitely showing
some hand speed in this fight.

There's the chant "Ali, bomaye."
That means "Ali, kill him."

The rope-a-dope is a... trap that
Muhammad employed

to ensnarl George Foreman.

Muhammad lays against the ropes,
invites George Foreman

to "pound away, bruh.
Not gonna hit my head,

and if you do,
like, I can take it."

And if you're moving around
in the middle of the ring,

guess what.

You're using up
your energy for your legs.

So it's smarter to
lay against the ropes.

SHERIDAN: Look at him whispering
in the ear of Foreman.

Why he continues to taunt him.

Ali super confident.

MAN: Angelo is screaming,
"get off the ropes!

Stay off the ropes.
Stay off the ropes!"

And after one of the rounds,
he came and he sat down,

and he said, "shut the f up."

He knew exactly
what he was doing.

SHERIDAN: The left hand
scores again.

Foreman looking for
the opportunity.

Looks, has a tremendous
look of determination.

Staggered! Foreman staggered...

NARRATOR: Ali landed six
straight shots to Foreman's head

early in the fourth round,
then settled into the ropes

and counterpunched as the champ
tried to pummel his body.

SHERIDAN: Ali picks it up
a little bit.

About 40 seconds left
in round number five.

Good crisp left,
a combination by Ali

lands on the head of Foreman.

Foreman with that right hook.
Ali's starting...

NARRATOR: With 30 seconds
remaining in round five,

Ali staggered Foreman
with a sharp right hand,

followed by a flurry of
short punches to his head.

MICHAEL BENTT: And the shots
that land... Ali lands on him,

beautiful shots, man.

They're not textbook shots.

They're shots that only
Muhammad Ali can throw,

angle-wise.

(bell clangs)

NARRATOR: By the sixth round,
Foreman had slowed,

his face puffy and bruised.

TODD BOYD: Ali is using
his mind as well as his fist.

How do you beat this guy?

SHERIDAN: Foreman, there's no
escaping any of those punches,

and you don't need me
to tell you that.

BOYD: Well,
you let him punch himself out.

SHERIDAN: Foreman definitely
showing some fatigue

in the waning seconds
in round seven.

BOYD: And once he gets tired,
Ali flips the switch.

(bell clangs)

SHERIDAN: Here we go. The bell
sounds, round number eight.

Foreman looking to deliver
the real heavy blows.

Now he's pouncing there.

Almost falls out of the ring!

Thirty seconds left
in round eight.

Ali, a sneaky right hand.

Another
sneaky right hand.

This time, he's working
over the shoulder of Foreman.

It's a combination!

(cheering and applause)

SHERIDAN: 3, 4, 5...

NINA SIMONE: ♫ it's a new dawn,
it's a new day ♫

♫ it's a new life
for me, yeah... ♫

DAVID FROST:
Muhammad Ali has done it!

The great man
has done it!

This is the most joyous
scene ever seen

in the history of boxing!

This is an incredible scene.
The place is going wild...

NARRATOR: More than seven years
after he was exiled from boxing

and stripped of his crown,
Muhammad Ali was

once again the heavyweight
champion of the world.

BOYD: It's an amazing thing
to watch.

And this guy
who told us back in 1964

that he shook up the world,

this is 10 years later,
he's gone through exile,

he's, you know,
had his title... everything.

He's come back.

The comeback's been good,
but it's not been great.

Now he's fighting somebody
he's not supposed

to be able to beat, and he beats
him in this dramatic fashion

in this symbolic location.

It's the full circle
of his career as a boxer.

Now he's back on top.

FROST: Congratulations.

ALI: Am I the greatest
of all time?

FROST: Muhammad, you told
me in Deer Lake you were

the greatest of all time,
and I think...

Ali is the one who gets
to be made whole.

He has to be made whole.

The reason why we love him
is because he's the one

who actually got it all back.

If he doesn't win that fight,

if he doesn't come
all the way back,

he gets broken
like everybody else.

He got to be beautiful.
He got to be full flower.

He got to use the full talent,
so you could see all the gifts.

And that's why
we love him so much.

NARRATOR: People everywhere
cheered

Ali's unexpected triumph.

"It's a victory of all the
oppressed in the third world,"

wrote a Senegalese journalist.

"The whole of Africa has
united itself

"behind Muhammad Ali...

The beloved one
on our continent."

MOSLEY: I think that
what it did for America,

it made Africa real for
a lot of people where it wasn't.

This is a place, and in this
place, a great thing happened.

NARRATOR: Back in Louisville,
Ali joined Joe Martin

and Fred stoner...
His first trainers...

And an overflow crowd at
riverfront Plaza

as the city celebrated
Muhammad Ali day

and renamed a downtown street
in his honor.

In Chicago, mayor Richard Daley,

who, in 1966, had rescinded
Ali's boxing license,

awarded him the city's
medal of merit.

President Gerald Ford seeking,
he said,

to "heal the wounds of
racial division,

Vietnam, and Watergate,"

invited the boxer
to the oval office.

Muhammad Ali, Ford said, "was
a man of principle."

Muhammad Ali was the most
important man in the world.

Everybody knew him. Everybody.

You know? It was a greatness
that nobody had.

And there were no doors
closed to him.

(sound of crowd cheering)

NARRATOR: In the fall of 1974,
Ali and Belinda sold their home

in New Jersey
and bought a tudor mansion on

Chicago's south side,

down the street from the home
of the ailing Elijah Muhammad.

Ali had also purchased
a condominium in Chicago

for Veronica,
whom he had secretly married

in a small islamic ceremony
before they left Zaire.

Belinda, who would soon change
her first name to Khalilah,

knew nothing about it.

And Veronica still believed
that Ali

intended to divorce his wife.

PORCHE: I was not savvy
and not experienced.

All I knew is I loved him...

And I thought that's the most
important thing,

and that's what all the songs
of that era said.

(laughs)
So, that was

my education
about relationships.

♫ ♫

NARRATOR: On February 25, 1975,

Ali was at Deer Lake
when word came

that Elijah Muhammad had died.

Ali immediately
returned to Chicago.

Though he was still
officially suspended

from the nation of Islam,

he had continued to visit
Elijah Muhammad regularly

and praise him publicly,

and remained among
the sect's largest donors.

The leader's family and closest
advisors closed ranks

around Wallace Muhammad,
Herbert's younger brother,

as Elijah's successor.

After embracing
traditional Islam years earlier,

Wallace had frequently rebelled
against his father's teachings

and had been cast out
of the sect

for challenging Elijah's claim

that he was
the messenger of Allah.

But he had recently
been reinstated.

Brother heavyweight champion
Muhammad Ali.

(applause)

NARRATOR: A day later, Ali
swore his allegiance to Wallace.

ALI: Brother Wallace is
now in the position

of the honorable
Elijah Muhammad.

And when we look at him,
you are looking at

the honorable Elijah Muhammad.

(cheering and applause)

PORCHE: Muhammad did not
hesitate to go with Wallace.

He, actually, in his heart,
followed

the teachings of
Wallace Muhammad more closely

than those of Elijah Muhammad
anyway

because he loved all people.

I think Wallace Muhammad
was teaching the things

that Malcolm X had gone over
to Saudi Arabia

and discovered on his own.

NARRATOR:
Over the next 18 months,

Wallace steered the organization
toward

a more mainstream
interpretation of Islam.

He disbanded the fruit of Islam,
the organization's enforcers,

declared that devils
could not be identified

by physical attributes,
effectively opening membership

to white people,
and he changed the group's name

to the world community
of Islam in the west.

Wallace had a much
more open idea of Islam,

much more in
accord with orthodox Islam.

That enabled Muhammad Ali

to open his embrace
to more people.

And it allowed him
to be more universal

in his expression of Islam.

And it was a very
good thing for him.

♫ ♫

NARRATOR: In the spring of 1975,

Ali earned millions of dollars
fighting and defeating

lower-ranked contenders;

Chuck Wepner, Ron Lyle,

and Joe Bugner.

Both Veronica
and Belinda... now Khalilah...

Often traveled with him.

At first, the press identified
Veronica

as the family's babysitter
or Khalilah's cousin,

but rumors began to circulate.

A "harem atmosphere prevailed"
around Ali, wrote one reporter,

who noted that Khalilah
had begun introducing Veronica

as "Ali's other wife."

Khalilah had grown to accept
her husband's cheating,

at times even facilitating
his liaisons,

and she occasionally
befriended her rivals.

Ali had fathered children
with at least two other women

during their marriage,
but through it all,

Khalilah stayed with him.

KHALILAH ALI: I had to be
his wife,

and then I had to be
his friend, too.

When he had a problem
with a paternity suit

or some chick just trying
to milk him for money,

he had to come to me
and tell me about it.

"And they said this is my kid."

I had to not be a wife
and be his friend and says,

"let me look at the kid.
I'll see if it's yours."

NARRATOR: When it became
clear that Ali's relationship

with Veronica had developed
into something more,

Khalilah agreed to put up
with her presence

if it meant avoiding a divorce.

It gets very complicated.

One of the factors was that
his manager, Herbert Muhammad,

did not want him to divorce her
because she was a Muslim.

DON KING:
That's enough. That's enough...

NARRATOR: On July 1, 1975,
Ali announced his next fight.

A tie-breaking third showdown

with his old Nemesis
Joe Frazier.

The fight would be held in
October in the Philippines

and would come to be known
as "the Thrilla in Manila."

By this point, you would have
thought that they

had earned each other's respect.

Neither one really had nearly
as much to prove anymore.

Ali was whole again.
Frazier was on the downside.

That there would've been
some moment there

where you could have said
finally, "respect."

No, no, no respect.

That this is, this chapter is
not finished,

that this battle
is not finished.

NARRATOR: Ferdinand Marcos,

the corrupt and authoritarian
dictator of the Philippines,

hoped to improve his reputation

and put his country in the
spotlight by hosting the bout,

just as Mobutu had in Zaire.

REPORTER: Mr. President,
what do you think

this sort of fight will do
for the Philippines?

MARCOS: Well, it does
publicize the Philippines,

including the fact that
the government is stable

and that we have
peace and order.

NARRATOR: When Marcos
and his wife Imelda invited

the fighters to
the presidential palace,

Ali brought Veronica,
not Khalilah.

ALI: That's all you're
gonna see me do

to Joe Frazier's head
all night.

I'm gonna stop
all these people

talking about Joe Frazier.

They still think
Joe Frazier can whup me.

I'm gonna show 'em. You see
how he's bouncing, hmm?

See his head?

NARRATOR: Ali insulted
Frazier's intelligence,

claimed he smelled bad,

and snuck into one of Frazier's
training sessions

to harass him from the catwalk
above the ring.

MAN: By my measure, the two
worst episodes of Ali's life

were his casting aside
of Malcolm X

and his treatment of Frazier
going into the third fight,

the Thrilla in Manila.

ALI: Gotta hold the gorilla.
(laughter)

Gotta capture the gorilla.

DAVE KINDRED: Third fight, they
both were kind of over the hill.

It was going to be a war,
and Ali knew that.

He knew that the time
was running out on him.

So, it was a cruel, insensitive,
vile episode,

and Frazier never forgave him.

NARRATOR: Frazier hoped to
surprise Ali with a new weapon.

He had been working
on his right cross.

"Whatever happens," Frazier
told his trainer, Eddie Futch,

"don't stop the fight.

"I'm gonna eat this half-breed's
heart right out of his chest.

This is the end of him or me."

Ali skipped roadwork
and sparring sessions.

"I'm already in perfect shape,"
he claimed.

"I'll be so much superior,
I'll knock him out."

RING ANNOUNCER:
Ladies and gentlemen,

the government and people of
the republic of the Philippines,

in cooperation with Don King
productions, incorporated,

proudly present
the Thrilla in Manila.

(cheering and applause)

MOSLEY: What you have here
is two extraordinary hearts.

It's not styles. It's hearts.

RING ANNOUNCER:
Introducing the challenger

and former heavyweight champion
of the world, Joe Frazier.

(cheering and applause)
Frazier!

MOSLEY: Frazier says,
"I'm gonna win."

And everything, his whole heart,
his whole soul,

everything is him winning.

RING ANNOUNCER:
In the red corner,

weighing 224 1/2 pounds...
(crowd boos)

The heavyweight champion
of the world, Muhammad Ali.

(cheering and applause)
Ali!

So Joe is not intimidated,
and Ali's never intimidated.

In the ring they go.

(bell clangs)

HOWARD COSELL: The action

begins.

Ali scoring quickly
with a couple of lefts.

The two most familiar
fighters in the world

meeting for the third time.

I think Ali will find Frazier
a different customer

in terms of any rope-a-dope
tactics.

By definition,
George Foreman was a slugger.

Joe Frazier,
he knows about pacing himself,

when to, like, you know,
step back and take a breath,

when not to punch,

when to tie up because when
you're tied up with someone,

not only is he resting,
but you're resting.

(bell clangs)

COSELL: Round two
just getting underway.

Oh! A good right lead
snapped Frazier's head back.

Again, that right lead.

A key to the fight thus far.

Ali is now scoring
against Joe Frazier.

IZENBERG: By three rounds,

it looks like Joe's gonna get
knocked down.

COSELL: We've got
less than 30 seconds left,

and Ali is cleaning up
on Frazier's head here

in the late going.

IZENBERG:
Suddenly, fourth round,

Frazier hits Ali
with a right hand.

Ali says to him, "old man,
you ain't got no right hand.

You ain't got
no right hand."

But it slowed Ali down because
he had to change his strategy.

Now, all of a sudden,
Frazier's winning the fight.

♫ ♫

COSELL: Frazier always on top of
Ali, trying to get through,

always the aggressor.

Good left hook by Joe Frazier.

Quickly, Ali covers up...

NARRATOR: In the sixth,

Frazier landed two vicious
left hooks, staggering Ali.

COSELL: Oh, another good left
by Joe Frazier.

Quickly, Joe changes
the nature of this fight...

NARRATOR: "Get off the ropes,"
Dundee shouted at Ali.

COSELL: Joe is all over him
this round,

and those blows hurt.

Good left to the midsection,
a right to the chest,

another left hook
to the right jaw of Ali.

NARRATOR: Early in the seventh,
Ali whispered in Frazier's ear,

"Old Joe Frazier, they told me
you were washed up."

"They lied, pretty boy,"
responded Frazier.

COSELL: Ali on his toes still,

trying to create a moving target
for Frazier.

Oh, good blows by Ali.

A couple of quick flicking
lefts, followed by a right.

Good left hook there by Frazier.

Less than a minute to go
in this, the tenth round,

and Ali seems a weary fighter.

At this point in a fight,
the key questions become

stamina and strength.

Good right there by Ali.

Joe takes too many
to the head as he did there.

That's why his eyes are
so susceptible to damage.

NARRATOR: Though both men
were exhausted,

in the 12th, Ali took charge,

nearly closing
Frazier's left eye

and drawing a trickle of blood
from his mouth.

(bell clangs)

BOYD: Frazier was blind
in one eye already.

Ali closed the other eye
during the fight.

But Frazier wants to go.

The guy wants to
get in the ring and fight blind.

In the other corner, Ali
is exhausted. He can't stand up.

♫ ♫

(bell clangs)

COSELL: The bell for round 13.

Joe Frazier's left eye is
a mess. No other way to put it.

It's been another grueling,
bruising struggle

between the two...

IZENBERG: It was so brutal,
brutal.

COSELL: Each man giving
everything,

in some ways reminiscent
of the classic first fight

in march of '71.

There's Ali actually...

The mouthpiece went
from the right lead.

The mouthpiece
went. You saw it fly out.

Ali is now really
giving it to Frazier.

Frazier's in trouble.

Joe coming back to
the midsection, but Ali covered.

♫ ♫

Less than a minute left
in the 13th round

with Ali punishing Frazier.

Already the mouthpiece is gone.
He has staggered Frazier.

(bell clangs)

IZENBERG: Frazier, his legs
are like wet spaghetti.

Ali doesn't look too good
either.

That's how much these guys
left in the round.

By the time they get to
the 14th round, I say,

"I wish this thing would end.
Why don't they send them home?

Tell 'em it's a draw.
You both are great. Go home."

I can't watch it anymore.

COSELL: Ali is giving it
to him again,

and Joe can't answer back.

The swings are wild.

Ali in total command.

Look at that,
left and then the right...

NARRATOR: In the last minute of
the 14th round,

Ali unleashed a flurry of blows

to Frazier's already
swollen and bloodied face.

Somehow, Frazier
stayed on his feet.

BENTT: Muhammad hit him
with, I think, like,

it was two or three shots
at the close of the round.

And those two or three shots
disoriented Joe.

(bell clangs)

The bell rings, and the referee
has to steer him

back to his corner.

And he's damaged,
but he doesn't want to quit.

"Nah, nah, don't... don't...
Don't stop it. Don't stop it."

Muhammad, he's out of it.

He said that that fight was
the closest thing to death.

He's near death.

COSELL: Eddie Futch
leaning over his fighter.

Look at Frazier's eyes.

NARRATOR: Eddie Futch had seen
four fighters die in the ring.

He refused to let
his boxer continue.

"Joe," he said. "It's over."

KINDRED: Frazier didn't want
to quit. Futch made him quit.

One of the great moments
in boxing history, actually.

COSELL: Futch doesn't want
the fighter to go on,

telling the referee.

Joe Frazier is in
his corner, on the stool.

Look at Ali getting
ready to go out.

Now he realizes Frazier
will not come out.

Muhammad Ali is

still the heavyweight champion
of the world.

KINDRED: It asked
everything of them,

and they gave everything,
you know.

And you don't see that
happen very often in any...

In anything, any game,
any life, you know.

And there it's naked.

There you couldn't miss it.

NARRATOR: As Ali's corner
crowded around him to celebrate,

he collapsed onto the canvas.

KINDRED: They turned each other
into monsters, you know.

And that's boxing
at its cruelest, you know,

but that's what the game is,
you know.

It's a naked assault
on the brain, you know.

It's a cruel game.

And they were at their
best cruelest that night.

IZENBERG: They didn't fight
for the wbc championship.

They didn't fight
for the wba championship.

They didn't fight for
the championship of the planet.

They stood toe-to-toe
on a melting ice floe

and fought for
the championship of each other.

And for each of them, the other
guy was ahab's white whale.

♫ ♫

NARRATOR:
Frazier was too battered

to attend the reception at the
presidential palace that night.

Ali would urinate blood
for weeks.

"We went to Manila as
champions," Ali said later,

"and we came back as old men."

BENTT: That was like, you know,
a bare knuckles match, man,

at like the bar down the street.

What Muhammad Ali
and Joe Frazier expressed was

majestic, man.

It was violent and conflicting
and at times, like, you know,

quite moving.

That's their gift to us.

♫ ♫

I'm giving you a few minutes,
and then I'm leaving.

REPORTER: What have you got
to say about Joe Frazier now?

He's great.

He's greater than
I thought he was.

When I say great, his style
is the style that

only he can be
successful with.

I think he fought
a good fight.

BOYD: Watching the interviews
after the Thrilla in Manila,

it's apparent already.

He's talking
differently, slower.

Something's off.

It's hard, because,
slowly, we're going to see

a different human being,

and we're going to watch
this man deteriorate in public,

one of the most
heartbreaking things ever.

♫ ♫

NARRATOR: By the spring of 1976,
he and Khalilah were separated

and each living
in their own apartments.

"There isn't any marriage,"
she told one reporter.

"It's past me now."

KHALILAH ALI: I decided i'm
gonna have to divorce the guy.

I've beared a lot of
embarrassing situations.

I blame myself, and, you know,

I just didn't care either
after a while,

and it hurt me, too.

RASHEDA ALI:
My dad and my mom divorced

when we were very young.
We were, like, five.

Most of my growing up, I
lived with my grandparents,

my mom's parents.

And I didn't have the privilege

of having my dad with me
after the divorce, obviously.

It was a painful time for us.

And, you know, we missed him.

NARRATOR: Veronica
was pregnant now.

They were spending time
at an 80-acre farm

in Berrien Springs, Michigan,

that Ali had purchased
the previous fall.

PORCHE: We were in love.

And I knew how much he loved me.
He knew I loved him.

He knew I was loyal
to him only, nobody else.

And I know he
appreciated that a lot.

And, you know,
we were always together.

I wanted to have kids.

So Hana was very welcome,
you know.

NARRATOR: Ali's mother Odessa,

tired of her husband's
drinking and carousing,

had separated
from Cassius Clay senior,

and moved into another house
in Louisville,

bought for her by her son.

Ali had told Wallace Muhammad
he was finished with boxing,

but he needed the huge
paydays to meet

his ever-increasing expenses.

(bell clangs)

NARRATOR: He fought five times
in 15 months.

Jean-Pierre Coopman,

Jimmy Young,

Richard Dunn,

Ken Norton for a third time,

Alfredo Evangelista.

Though he won
each time, the 35-year-old Ali

was clearly in decline,

slogging through round
after punishing round,

unable to avoid punches that he
had once dodged with ease.

After a brutal 15-round victory

over Earnie Shavers
in September of 1977,

some of his associates
had seen enough.

Teddy Brenner, Madison square
garden's promoter,

told Herbert Muhammad
that the garden

would not offer Ali
another fight.

"I wish he calls it a day
before he

falls off the tightrope,"
said Brenner.

Lab tests by the New York
state athletic commission

revealed that Ali's kidneys
were significantly damaged

and could fail if exposed
to more punishment.

"He should quit and quit now,"
said Ferdie Pacheco,

who, after 15 years
as Ali's ringside doctor,

decided to move on.

His father told him, "quit,
son, before you get hurt."

MAN: He starts asking people,
"do you think I sound different?

Do you think my words
are slurring?"

You know, "do I seem
different to you?

Do you think I'm brain damaged?"

He's asking reporters
this question,

and it's heartbreaking,

and his father and his mother
are telling him, you know,

"you don't sound the same.
You don't sound right.

Why can't you speak right?"

And he keeps boxing,
as he believes like,

as he's always believed,
that you know,

everything's gonna be all right.

NARRATOR: Angelo Dundee
called it Ali's decision.

"Only when the man comes to me
and asks do I tell him

what's in my heart,"
said the trainer.

PORCHE: Everybody wanted him
to retire that cared about him.

But there was always that fight

that somebody would call him
about,

and usually it was Herbert.

I think of everyone,
Muhammad respected

Herbert Muhammad's opinion
the most.

Herbert grew to have a certain
lifestyle because of Muhammad.

I think he was influential
in him continuing to fight,

because it meant more money
for him.

(indistinct conversations)

NARRATOR: The promoter Bob arum
had already identified

the champ's next opponent,
a 24-year-old ex-marine

named Leon Spinks, who had won
gold as a light heavyweight

at the 1976 Olympics.

The 15-round match
was set for February 1978.

Victor solano, an amateur boxer

who had befriended Ali

after a sparring session
in Los Angeles,

tried to help Muhammad prepare.

VICTOR SOLANO: He only trained
for about two weeks

for that fight,

and he goes, "oh, this guy's
just an amateur.

"He's just an amateur,
and I fought Joe Frazier.

"I fought George Foreman.
I fought all these guys.

This guy's only had six fights."

So he would run
maybe a few blocks,

get back in the limousine,
go back to sleep.

(bell clangs)

NARRATOR: Spinks took Ali
completely by surprise.

ANNOUNCER:
Spinks comes flying out here

and goes right after
this great champion,

absolutely showing
no respect at all.

Spinks did a lot of damage
to him, a lot of damage.

ANNOUNCER: Ali should be
punching with both hands,

but instead it's Spinks
who comes back,

and he's throwing everything
he's got in both punches.

Ali is covering up.
He's keeping him in his corner.

He will not let him out.
Ali's got to go toe-to-toe...

SOLANO: He thought,
"well... I've done it before,

"I'll do it again.

"The last round
I'm going to come out,

and I'm going to give it
all I got."

ANNOUNCER: Spinks is
in the corner,

and Ali's got him
where he wants him.

And Spinks comes back
with a counter, another counter,

another, another.

And there's Spinks
backing up the champion...

But there was nothing left.
There... there was nothing.

ANNOUNCER:
It's eight seconds away...

He's just hammered Ali.
Ali looks like he's in trouble.

He's leaning against the ropes.

Two seconds. It's one,
and at the bell...

RING ANNOUNCER: Judge
Harold buck scores 144-141.

The new...
FIGHT ANNOUNCER: There it is!

Leon Spinks has pulled it off.

NARRATOR: After
only seven professional wins,

Leon Spinks was heavyweight
champion of the world.

ANNOUNCER: Beating maybe the
greatest fighter of all time...

ARUM: Ali said to me,
"Bob, you got to do me a favor.

You got to make the rematch."

And I said, "Ali, I'll make the
rematch only on one condition.

Win or lose,
it's the end, you'll retire."

"I promise you,"
and he agreed to retire.

ALI: But now I got beat.
I'm all washed up.

"TIME" MAGAZINE:
"The greatest' is gone."

"He's washed up. He's old."

Now I got something to
get up and prove,

to set a record that you
know won't... never be broken

in the next hundred,
two hundred years.

I mean, to win the title
back for the third time...

SOLANO: And he got humble,
and then that's when he said,

"you know, I'm going to get up

"and run with the moon
and the stars.

"I'm going to go back
and chop trees,

and go back to the beginning
to what made me great."

♫ ♫

(cheering)

RING ANNOUNCER:
Presenting the challenger

of tonight's bout...

The former two-time
great champion

from Louisville, Kentucky,
in white trunks,

weighing in at 221...

Muhammad Ali, the greatest.

MOSLEY: Well, I think

his bravest fight was

the second one with Spinks.

You know?

He goes there,
he's too old to be boxing.

He shouldn't be boxing anymore.

But he said,
"but this guy beat me, ok."

And he planned
the perfect fight.

(bell clangs)

ANNOUNCER: Round one.

The champion Spinks coming

right out against

a moving and dancing
Muhammad Ali...

ANNOUNCER 2: Ali is
luring him into these traps.

ANNOUNCER 1: Look at Ali dance.
He's a thing of beauty.

A little shuffle in the neutral
corner by the former champion.

The champion is... the former
champion still moving,

still frustrating
the champion, Leon Spinks.

Oh! A great right hand by Ali.

ANNOUNCER 2: A terrific
right hand to Spinks,

and he grimaced.

ANNOUNCER 1: Coming in, he got
another right hand in his face.

Another right hand.

And with the final 10 seconds
in round 4...

And just watching it
was, like, amazing.

(bell clangs)

ANNOUNCER 1: Ok, they're out
in the middle for round eight.

ANNOUNCER 2: And he opened it
with two good hooks

right off of Spinks' jaw.

ANNOUNCER 1: Oh! A great left
hook, and Spinks may be hurt.

NARRATOR: Over 15 rounds,
Ali completely out-boxed Spinks.

ANNOUNCER 2: It's all Ali.
It's all Ali.

Announcer 1:1:30
remaining in this fight.

And now here in New Orleans,

at the age of 36 years old,
he is showing a young man

what boxing is all about.

He is showing a young
Leon Spinks what it's like to be

in with the real Muhammad Ali.

That is about it, folks.

(bell clangs)
It's all over.

RING ANNOUNCER: The new
champion, Muhammad Ali...

NARRATOR: Muhammad Ali had won
the heavyweight championship

for the third time,
something no one in history

had ever done before.

"Thank god it's over," said Ali.

SOLANO: I noticed
a couple of times,

there was like a little shake
on the thumb.

A little bit, even at that time.

I noticed sometimes maybe
after... hitting the speed bag,

there was a little bit of
a tremble, a little slightly,

but you couldn't see...
You had to see it, you know,

but you knew something
was already wrong.

HANA ALI: My mom used to say
that she saw signs

as early as the Spinks fights.

And if you really look back,
a lot of people thought

that my father was just mature.

He was speaking more slowly.
He's older now.

I said, "but he was
not really that old."

He just didn't feel the same.
He thought it was age.

And because he was
so extraordinarily quick

with his movements
and his speed and his speech,

that when he sort of
slowed down,

people just assumed it
was just age.

♫ ♫

NARRATOR: In January of 1979,
Ali and Veronica,

now legally married,

bought a mansion
in the hancock park section

of Los Angeles.

In addition to two-year-old
Hana, they had

a second daughter, Laila,
who had just turned one.

In June, Ali officially retired,
quietly relinquishing his title

in a letter to
the world boxing association.

He went on a farewell tour...

Hash browns? Ore ida?
(muffled speech)

NARRATOR: Endorsed
scores of products...

ALI: Motorcraft parts,
they have the stuff.

Motorcraft is tested tough.

NARRATOR: Acted
in film and on television...

I'm just a simple man...

NARRATOR: And fought in
seemingly harmless

exhibition matches
around the world.

♫ ♫

NARRATOR: But he grew bored.

On February 15, 1980,
he told a reporter

from the associated press
that he had been approached

by promoters
and was increasingly sure

he would return to the ring
after all.

Now 38 years old,
his hair graying,

and, according to some reports,
weighing almost 270 pounds,

Ali hadn't had a real fight
in 17 months.

Almost no one believed
it was a good idea.

"I don't want to see him fight
anymore," said Odessa Clay.

But soon, Don King phoned
Herbert and Ali with an offer.

The promoter now managed

a former sparring partner
of Ali's,

who had recently captured
the heavyweight title.

"If you're going to come back,"
king told them,

"you can only fight
Larry Holmes."

SINGER: ♫ uh! ♫

♫ ♫

NARRATOR: He was 30 years old

and undefeated
in 35 professional fights.

He was my friend.

When Ali came to my fights
to see me in the ring boxing,

he's sitting there at ringside,

man, you know how much I...

"Man. Yeah, Ali, he's watching
me fight!"

Man, you know what I mean?

I mean, I was like
a little kid in the playground.

Muhammad Ali has seen
the bright side,

and now he's on the dark side.

I'm the light side now.

REPORTER: What do you
think you'll do with him?

Beat Muhammad Ali,
of course,

but I will feel sad

about beating Muhammad Ali

because Muhammad is
a legend in his own time.

Now his time has passed.
It's my time now.

He shouldn't have never
fought me.

But to get that $10 million,

that $10 million

will make you want to fight
Holmes and everybody else.

And that's what he did.

And that's how I got
in to fight Ali.

NARRATOR: The boxers agreed
to face each other in Las Vegas

in the fall of 1980.

"Some of our mosques are
in trouble,

and some of our schools
are closing," explained Ali.

"I would return to keep
them open."

When Ali fought Larry Holmes,
he said,

"I taught him
everything he knows.

I didn't teach
him everything I know."

ALI: I taught him
how to train.

He come to me
ragged and hungry.

Gave him a job as
a sparring partner.

Took him out of Easton,
Pennsylvania,

a little peanut-head,
nothing, no money, bum.

Taught him how to dance.

Showed him how to... you see him
imitating me... showed him

how to dance in the ring.

He tries to imitate me,
but he gets tired and clumsy.

He can't dance.

Listen, tried to teach
him how to talk.

He can't talk.
Don't ask him no questions.

REPORTER: Why are
you doing this?

Do you need
the money?

Who don't need money?

Muhammad Ali never should've
fought Larry Holmes;

Larry Holmes never
should've fought Muhammad Ali.

That's the business.

And that's also Ali's
constant look

for one more chance
to get on stage.

NARRATOR: In July,
doctors at the Mayo clinic

gave Ali a rigorous
physical exam.

Though they detected
difficulty with his speech,

memory, and coordination,

they took his word that he was
just "tired,"

and cleared him to fight.

♫ ♫

(applause)

NARRATOR: Ali dyed his hair
black and shed 30 pounds.

He began to look more
like his old self.

But when he instructed
his sparring partners

to pepper his head with punches,
they found it too easy.

Angelo Dundee began secretly
cutting the rounds short

to spare his fighter.

Three weeks before the match,

Herbert Muhammad's personal
physician gave Ali medication

to correct what he said was
a thyroid imbalance.

The pills accelerated
his metabolism,

which caused rapid weight loss,

and left him feeling weak
and tired.

Days before the bout,

Ali collapsed while
on an early morning run

and was treated for dehydration.

A sparring partner worried
that Ali was unfit to fight,

but Herbert Muhammad insisted
that it was too late to cancel.

COSELL: There he is,
the returning hero,

maybe not this time
the conquering hero,

Muhammad Ali...

NARRATOR: On October 2, 1980,
a crowd of nearly 25,000

paid a record-breaking
$6 million

to fill a temporary arena
built alongside Caesars Palace.

COSELL: But here comes
Larry Holmes,

the wbc heavyweight champion...

HOLMES: What I felt that I had
to do is

take control right off the bat,

make him respect me
in a different setting

than he did while I
was in the gym.

So therefore, my strategy
was to get to him,

push him around.

I'm gonna handle him.

(bell clangs)

COSELL: The bell for round one.

♫ ♫

Holmes really would like to
make minced meat of him early

if he can.

25 seconds into round one.

With Ali, you must constantly
look for strategy,

trying to outsmart the opponent.

KINDRED: And I thought,
"ok, it's another magic trick

he's going to show us."

And so, you kept thinking...
You... me... kept thinking,

"all right. He's done nothing
first round.

"He's done nothing
the second round.

Any minute now, he's going
to be Muhammad Ali again."

♫ ♫

COSELL:
Ali posturing and talking,

but not punching,
not at the moment.

♫ ♫

Seems to me, there is
a swelling to Ali's face.

So far, it is
utterly no contest.

KINDRED: Third round, you know,

then it became clear that he
was not going to do anything.

COSELL: Oh, a good left
and a right that sent Ali

back against the ropes...

KINDRED: And then it was
really sad.

Then it was like watching
a train wreck,

like a friend
get run over by a truck.

COSELL: Ali gets wearily
to his feet

as we prepare for round nine.
(bell clangs)

♫ ♫

Oh, a good, sharp left jab
by Holmes.

There is a flow of blood
under the left eye.

Ali covering, and yet
two of the lefts got in.

HOLMES: And I could do pretty
much what I wanted to do.

But as the rounds end,

I said to Ali, "don't
keep takin' these punches.

Don't take no more shots."

He cussed me out.

He called me names
and everything else.

He called me every name
in the book

that I'd never heard him
say, you know?

COSELL: Oh, that right hurt Ali!

HOLMES: And I said, "ok,
take this. Bang, bang, bang."

COSELL: Oh, he's ready to go.
This must be stopped.

It is a sad way to end.

KINDRED: You start thinking,
you know,

"I don't want to watch this.

"I don't want to
see this anymore.

"I've seen all the magic.

The magic is gone now,"
you know.

And so that was probably
as emotional a night

as I've ever spent
as a sportswriter

because I cared about him.

I liked him. You know,
if he lost, that was one thing,

but don't get killed in there.

That's what it looked like.

(bell clangs)

NARRATOR: Ali slumped
on his stool after the tenth,

a round in which he attempted
just four feeble punches.

MAN: Ok, it's over...

NARRATOR: From his seat,
Herbert Muhammad signaled

to Angelo Dundee
to stop the fight.

Holmes had dominated
every round,

landing 340 punches to Ali's 42.

When you fight a friend...
To me, a brother...

Then you do what you have to do.

You can't get happiness.

I told him, I said, "I love you,
and I really respect you."

I was going to meet my wife,
and I was crying.

And everybody said,
"why you crying?"

I said,
"because I love this guy."

The guy was my man."

And, see,

that part made me get... my eyes
get watered there.

I still cry a little bit,

'cause
the man had so much to offer.

REPORTER: Ali said he checked
into the hospital

because he hadn't felt well
before last week's fight,

and he wanted
to know what was wrong.

ALI: I wasn't myself
the night I fought Holmes.

I couldn't get away
from punches.

My timing was off...

NARRATOR: Doctors determined

that he had overdosed
on thyroid pills,

but found no evidence
of an underlying affliction.

"He appears to be
in excellent health,"

reported one of his examiners.

Not everyone agreed.

"In two or three years, we'll
see what the Holmes fight

did to his kidneys and brain,"

said his former fight doctor
Ferdie Pacheco.

"He was a damaged fighter
before the fight,

and now he's going to be
damaged even more."

Herbert Muhammad
blamed Ali's vanity,

alleging that the boxer had been
too concerned with looking good.

"I don't think he should fight
again," said Herbert,

"but if he insists, I'll tell
him 'I'll be with you.'"

Don King claimed he would advise
Ali against another bout,

but also said he
would promote one if asked.

"I shall return," declared Ali.

MAN: I'm only saying just
back it up a little bit.

Would you back it up a little
bit, please?

NARRATOR: True to his word,
the following year,

he faced 27-year-old
Trevor Berbick

in Nassau, in The Bahamas.

Ali had advertised the bout

as the first in a series of
fights

to regain the heavyweight crown.

ALI: I've got a chance
to go down

as the greatest athlete,
not boxer, in history.

I can make so many people wrong.

So many of the writers
will have to eat crow.

I have so many people to beat,
not just Berbick.

So I don't have no extra time
to clown for you.

NARRATOR: Almost 40 years old,
he weighed 236 pounds,

nearly 20 more
than when he fought Holmes.

And in the days before
the fight,

he had struggled to complete
his morning runs.

ANNOUNCER: Berbick's all over

Ali on the ropes.

Two of those right hands...

RASHEDA ALI: It was

a horrible fight.

We were just cringing
in the stands, just,

"daddy, please, just throw
the towel in."

We didn't want to
watch him anymore.

ANNOUNCER: Ali was really hurt
that time. He's wincing.

RASHEDA ALI: It was very hard
to watch.

NARRATOR: Though Ali lasted
all ten rounds,

the decision was unanimous.

ANNOUNCER: Berbick's landing
some good punches

while Ali tries to hold on.

(bell clanging)
ANNOUNCER: There it is.

Trevor Berbick
is the unanimous decision...

NARRATOR: Rasheda joined Ali
in his dressing room

after the fight.

"I wanted him to lose,"
her sister maryum said later.

"If he won, he'd keep fighting,

and I didn't want
him to fight anymore."

REPORTER:
How do you feel now?

Do you think
it's time now,

that you should give some
serious thought to this?

I felt more like retiring
a minute after the fight.

Probably next week,
I'll be trying again.

I think I'll quit.
Father time caught me.

You think
father time caught you?

You think maybe next week,
you'll think about it,

but now you're...

I think
father time wins.

♫ ♫

NARRATOR: His career was over.

Muhammad Ali had captured
the gold medal

at the Rome Olympics in 1960.

He had won 56 professional
fights, lost just five

to Joe Frazier, Ken Norton,
Leon Spinks, Larry Holmes,

and Trevor Berbick,

and had won the heavyweight
championship three times.

His fights had earned him
more than $50 million,

more than all the previous
heavyweight champions combined.

Billions of fans across
the world had watched him

fight in person, in
movie houses, and on television.

And he had absorbed
tens of thousands of punches

to his body and head.

He should have quit,

should have quit after beating
Foreman in Zaire.

That's when the movie ends.

It can't get better
than this, you know.

But the attention is a drug,
too, you know.

The adrenaline is a drug, too,
you know.

The celebrity is a drug, too.

He couldn't resist that.

♫ ♫

NARRATOR: In November of 1982,
Muhammad Ali returned to the gym

to train for a 3-week
exhibition tour

with stops in Saudi Arabia,
India, and Pakistan.

The profits would go towards
the construction

of a new mosque in Chicago.

"My life is just starting at
40," he said.

"I'm doing this for
the moslemic religion."

Since retiring from boxing,
Ali's condition had worsened.

Overweight and often fatigued,
he spoke softly and hesitantly,

and shuffled when he walked.

HANA ALI: I probably was
five years old, and I remember

just him stumbling when he
walked or losing his balance,

or this glaze in his eye.

I remember once he was pulled
over by a police officer,

and they wanted...
They thought he was drunk,

and my father didn't drink.

And he couldn't walk the line.

And they realized,
"oh, he's not drunk.

"This is, you know,
Muhammad Ali, and, you know,

something wasn't right."

But he had Parkinson's,
and no one knew.

NARRATOR:
The cornermen and confidants,

facilitators and hangers-on

who had traveled the globe
with Ali, readying him

for each fight and reveling
in his adventures,

had largely moved on.

Bundini Brown,
who suffered from diabetes

and was drinking excessively,

now lived in a shabby motel
in Los Angeles.

When Bundini was paralyzed
in a fall,

Ali visited his friend at
good samaritan hospital.

SOLANO: Muhammad and I entered,
and we walked in,

and Muhammad,
I knew he wanted to cry,

but then he just
grabbed his lips,

"hey, drew, what are you doing?

"You're going to be
so happy and everything.

No more sickness, no more...
No more trials," he goes.

Then he went, "hey, drew."

He went, "float like
a butterfly, sting like a bee.

Rumble, young man, rumble, ha!"

And then drew started shaking
and started crying even more,

and then he bent down,
and he kissed him,

and Muhammad just held his hand,
and Muhammad was...

Finally, tears came down
his eyes,

and then we left.

NARRATOR: Days later,
Brown was dead.

He was 59 years old.

♫ ♫

In September of 1984, Ali
checked himself into New York's

Columbia-Presbyterian
medical center.

After days of tests,
doctors said

he had Parkinson's syndrome.

RASHEDA ALI: When my dad was
first diagnosed

with Parkinson's, he was
shocked like anybody would be.

"There's no cure?
What do you mean?"

And my dad loved the camera.

He loved talking.
He loved clowning around.

He loved being Muhammad Ali.

But when Parkinson's robbed him,
or tried to Rob him,

of his speech and his way
that he would communicate

with people, he was taken aback.

NARRATOR: At the house
on fremont place,

friends, celebrities,
and fans continued to drop by,

but Ali and Veronica
were growing apart.

He had been cheating
on her for years.

PORCHE: It was very, very,
very painful,

especially in the beginning.

I thought I'd die.

And after a while,
I became numb.

NARRATOR: Two years earlier,
while on a trip to Louisville,

Ali had invited Lonnie Williams
to join him for lunch.

♫ ♫

The two had first met
in the early 1960s,

when Lonnie was
in the first grade.

LONNIE: We moved in not knowing
who lived across the street.

Now, actually Muhammad didn't
live there, just his parents.

And it was shortly after
we moved in

that we first met him,

and we realized, you know,
that, "oh, you know,

there's somebody famous
across the street here."

NARRATOR: Their mothers
had become close,

and, over the years,

Ali had seen Lonnie
when visiting Louisville.

Now Lonnie was
troubled by Ali's clumsy gait

and mumbled speech.

Soon, she relocated
to Los Angeles.

Before long,
Ali was seeing Lonnie regularly.

In 1985, Veronica told
Muhammad she wanted a divorce.

PORCHE: It wasn't
as if I was angry with him.

I just couldn't take it anymore.

We were very civil and friendly.

He was hoping that
I would change my mind.

But I think he would
have been just as nice

even if he had accepted it
already.

That's just the way he was.

NARRATOR: On November 19, 1986,

Muhammad Ali married
Lonnie Williams

before a handful of friends
and family in Louisville.

Seeking quiet, the newlyweds
moved to Ali's farm in Michigan.

For decades, Ali had shared
his income freely with family,

friends, and strangers,

and had gotten involved

in countless
dubious business ventures.

Lonnie brought order
to Ali's finances.

EIG: She not only
took care of him

and she not only, you know,
loved him

and started a new family
with him,

she became, really,
the C.E.O. of Ali, inc.,

and got rid of a lot of
the people

who'd been leeching money,

got rid of a lot of
the bad businesses

that he'd been a part of,

and, started to find ways
that they could make money

in his post-boxing career.

♫ ♫

NARRATOR: His devotion to Islam

increasingly shaped
his daily routine.

He prayed five times each day
facing mecca,

called friends to discuss the
differences between religions,

and distributed autographed
pamphlets that he hoped

would help correct common
misperceptions about his faith.

♫ ♫

When he traveled
in the Muslim world,

massive crowds greeted him
as "Muhammad Ali Clay"

to distinguish their hero from
thousands of faithful muslims

also named Muhammad Ali.

During a goodwill visit
to Pakistan in 1987,

Muhammad and Lonnie visited
schools, hospitals, and mosques.

They delivered canned milk
to an Afghan refugee camp

along the border

and encouraged
guerrilla fighters there

in their long struggle to evict
the occupying Soviet army

from Afghanistan.

HANA ALI: He needed love
like he needed air to breathe.

So the people did probably
more for him

than he did for them,
if not at least equal, you know?

So he was so grateful
for the love they gave,

he was so grateful for that.

NARRATOR:
In 1989, he was on the road

more than at home, visiting
england, Senegal, Switzerland,

and Saudi Arabia.

In April, he and Lonnie
made a pilgrimage to mecca

during the holy month
of ramadan.

Ali had visited mecca
before, in 1972,

but now admitted that he

hadn't fully appreciated
its significance

and acknowledged that his
commitment to his religion

had long been imperfect.

"I fit my religion to
do whatever I wanted.

"I did things that were wrong,
and chased women all the time.

Everything I do now
I do to please Allah."

One of my father's favorite
sayings was,

"rivers, lakes, and streams
all have different names,

"but they all contain water.

"So do religions have
different names,

but they all contain truth."

He always taught me that
there's only one true religion,

and that's the religion of
the heart, he would say.

"And as long as you do right
and you treat people right,

"I believe you'll go to heaven

no matter what you call
your religion."

NARRATOR: As his
symptoms progressed...

His speech more slurred,
his tremors more obvious,

his once expressive face
now frozen...

Ali spoke of his Parkinson's
as a trial from god

and a punishment for his sins,

but also as a blessing
that kept him humble.

BRYANT GUMBEL:
Muhammad, good morning.

ALI: Thanks. Good morning.

GUMBEL: How you been?

ALI: Tired, traveling...

NARRATOR: He had once
loved to admire

his own reflection
and crow about his good looks.

But when he saw a recording
of himself on the "today show,"

Ali recoiled.

"That man looked like
he's dying," he said.

NARRATOR: In 1996,
Ali traveled to Cuba

on a humanitarian mission,
visiting children's wards

and delivering medical supplies.

Ali and his companions
attended a reception

with Fidel Castro.

♫ ♫

NARRATOR: Unable to speak,

Ali entertained
the Cuban president

and his guests,
performing magic tricks.

Afterwards, believing that
it went against Islam

to deceive people, he revealed
the secret to each trick.

(castro speaking spanish)

(laughter)

EIG: He'd been forgotten
to some extent.

I think people
don't appreciate that,

in the late eighties,
early nineties,

Ali didn't have enough attention
to make him happy.

He'd go out and do events
for $1,000, $2,000.

He'd sit all day
signing autographs

at a trade show,
and he wouldn't leave

when his time was up until
everybody got their autographs

because he wanted to make
people happy

and he wanted the attention.

NARRATOR: In 1996,
the olympic committee,

planning the summer games
in Atlanta, asked Muhammad Ali

to light the torch
at the opening ceremonies.

At first, Ali declined.

He didn't want to be seen
shaking

and stumbling on that stage.

But his friend Howard bingham
convinced him.

"This is the thing where
the world is saying, 'thank you

for all that you've done over
your life, '" bingham told him.

"There will be
3 billion people watching."

♫ ♫

♫ Beethoven's
"Ode to Joy" playing ♫

NARRATOR:
The plans were kept secret.

ANNOUNCER:
Do you recognize her?

Janet Evans.

ANNOUNCER 2: Considered the
greatest female distance swimmer

of all time.

And it was
planned very brilliantly.

I mean, people really thought
the swimmer Janet Evans was

going to be the person who
was going to light that torch,

but instead out of
nowhere comes Muhammad Ali.

♫ ♫

(cheering and applause)

♫ Naomi Shelton &
the Gospel Queens playing ♫

♫ "I'll Take
The Long Road" ♫

BOYD: You hadn't really seen him
in a while.

You knew he was sick,
and when you would see him,

he was clearly showing
the effects of the illness,

but he hadn't been seen
that much,

and then here he is in this big,
prominent moment.

And he's holding that torch,
and he's shaking.

And, I, man,
I'm about to cry now.

It was hard to watch because you

don't want to see your guy
like that.

You don't want to see that,
but you... you saw it.

KINDRED: He was defenseless now.

He can't hurt us anymore,
you know.

He can't make us mad anymore,
because now he's...

The game that we asked him to
play to entertain us

has left him looking like this.

And now we feel some sympathy,
if not guilt.

We see him shaking,
trembling up there.

The most beautiful, moving...

The most beautiful athlete
in motion you've ever seen,

and now he can't hold
the torch, you know.

So, we feel guilt,
and we feel sympathy.

We want to hug him.
We want to embrace him.

We want to ask his
forgiveness, you know.

For every reason that we
disliked him,

now we love him, you know,
because he was right.

(cheering and applause)

♫ ♫

MAN: It was striking to see
this evolution

not in Ali, but in us.

It just struck me so amazingly
to watch Ali,

like, lighting this torch,

people weeping.

It's amazing, and you...
And you cast back

not so many years before,

and some huge amount of
the country thought

this guy was the antichrist,

or they chose to hate him,

or they made him a foil

to the other guy
that they liked better.

And it's entirely possible
that human beings

are capable of
learning something.

♫ ♫

NARRATOR: The outpouring of love
caught Ali by surprise.

"Parkinson's robs you of
confidence,"

Lonnie told a reporter.

"Now he knows the public
will love him and accept him

no matter what he has."

♫ Naomi Shelton & The Queens
"Yes, I Will" ♫

EIG: Ali, late in life,
talked about

this tallying angel,
he called it,

that there was an angel up there
who counted all the good things

you did in life and all
the bad things you did in life,

and if you had more bad things
than good things,

you were going to hell,

and he had a very vivid
impression of what hell meant.

And he acknowledged that
he had a lot of negative marks,

that the tallying angel was
not going to be happy

with the way he had treated
women, in particular.

♫ ♫

NARRATOR: 30 years after
Ali first faced Joe Frazier,

a reporter asked him about
their long-running feud.

"I called him a lot of names

that I shouldn't
have called him," Ali admitted.

"I apologize for that.
I like Joe Frazier.

Me and him was a good show."

Frazier never forgave Ali.

Later, he expressed sorrow
at having abandoned Malcolm X.

"Turning my back on Malcolm
was one of the mistakes

that I regret most in my life,"
he wrote.

"I wish I'd been able to tell
Malcolm I was sorry,

that he was right about
so many things."

RASHEDA ALI: Daddy evolved.
He became better.

And daddy said that,
"I'm bigger than boxing."

That meant boxing was this much.

♫ ♫

His evolution
into the person he is today

is way bigger
than him just boxing.

And I think he knew that,

and he carried it with him...

His love.

♫ ♫

And he gave it
to every single person he met.

And I think that's beautiful.

♫ ♫

NARRATOR: As the 20th century
came to an end,

"newsweek," "time,"
and "sports illustrated"

all named him
athlete of the century.

In the days after the terrorist
attacks of September 11, 2001,

American muslims were
the victims of hate crimes

simply because of their faith.

"I am a Muslim. I am
an American," Ali responded.

"If the culprits are Muslim,

"they have twisted the teachings
of Islam.

"Whoever performed
the terrorist attacks

"does not represent Islam.

God is not behind assassins."

MAN: What I hope is that
Muhammad Ali will be

a constant reminder to America

of just how thoroughly American

a believing, practicing,
sincerely committed Muslim

can be.

Whatever one's background is,
Ali belongs to America,

all of us.

And I think that
he belongs to all of us,

because he affected all of us.

And I hope that that's part of
the legacy that he will leave,

that America won't forget Ali
as this American Muslim

with equal emphasis
on American-Muslim.

NARRATOR: On November 9, 2005,

President George W. Bush
presented Ali

with the presidential medal
of freedom,

the highest civilian honor
in the United States.

That same year,
the Muhammad Ali center,

a museum dedicated to his life
and legacy,

opened in Louisville.

BRYANT: Muhammad Ali was
an activist

who fought to reach us
a certain way

and to move America
in a certain way

and move
individuals in a certain way.

"I'm going to take this path.
I believe that I'm right.

And even if I'm not right,
I'm still me."

And to be able to follow that
and to know that there was

going to be an enormous
price to pay for that

and to have that
be generational,

to have that live on beyond you
is extremely valuable.

Everything that he did
couldn't be undone.

♫ ♫

♫ ♫

RASHEDA ALI: As my dad's
condition progressed,

it became more difficult
to just walk and to eat

and to just do...
Just the little things.

You know, getting up out of bed,

getting... you know, walking from
one place to another, you know?

The stooped posture, you know.
That's the leaning over.

It wasn't so easy at the end

because of the Parkinson's,
but he still enjoyed his life.

And I never, never heard daddy
complain, not one time.

But on the days when
he sound good, oh...

The sun came out.

NARRATOR: On June 2, 2016,

Muhammad Ali checked into
a Scottsdale, Arizona, hospital

with a respiratory infection.

Ali's children and grandchildren
traveled from around the country

to be at his bedside.

At 8:30 p.M. On June 3rd,

doctors disconnected him
from the ventilator

that was helping him breathe.

♫ ♫

As his respiration
gently slowed,

an imam sang the Muslim call
TO PRAYER:

"There is no god but Allah,

and Muhammad is his messenger."

Soon, he was gone.

Muhammad Ali was 74 years old.

BENTT: I got a text from
this friend.

The text said,
"Muhammad's gone."

"Muhammad's gone. Damn."

Like (bleep), man.

Yup. "Muhammad's gone. Damn."

I didn't know him.

I met him twice,
but he was family.

♫ ♫

RAHAMAN ALI: Everything
my brother said he would do

as a child, he did it in life.

He said he was going to be
a great man,

going to be a boxer, be a poet,

be kind and good to people,
be rich.

All those things he
did before he died.

So he died a rich, happy man.

♫ ♫

SOLANO: I love my dad,

but Muhammad taught me
a lot of stuff

that my dad didn't teach me.

He taught me how to have
courage,

and he taught me how to, um...

♫ ♫

Face adversity.

I... I miss him.

It's just so hard to explain.

It's just like
part of your heart's just broken

even to this day, you know.

It's just like
you can still hear his voice,

you can still hear him singing,
laughing, joking,

sad, happy, you know.

But, um, we go on.

♫ ♫

♫ ♫

HANA ALI: He used to have
this dream

that he talked about
and wrote about,

how he was running down Broadway
when he was a teenager,

and he said he dreamt this dream
all the time,

and all of the sudden,
people were in the streets,

and they were chanting his name
and waving at him,

and he looked at them,
and he'd wave back,

and he would just
take off flying.

♫ ♫

HANA ALI: It was so funny

because as I was in the car
following the casket

to his final resting place,
and there were all the people

in the streets, and they had
the signs up,

and there was not
a gap for miles we drove.

It was just amazing because
the streets and the Bridges,

and it was just lined
with thick crowds of people

chanting his name.

And, I thought, "oh, my god.
This was his dream."

NARRATOR: The funeral procession
wound through Louisville,

past the Muhammad Ali center,

along Muhammad Ali boulevard,

past his childhood home
on grand Avenue,

where the hearse was almost
swallowed up by the crowd,

and then, finally,
to cave hill cemetery.

His headstone was engraved
with a line he liked to quote;

"Service to others is
the rent you pay

for your room in heaven."

"If the measure of greatness
is to gladden the heart

"of every human being on
the face of the earth,

then he truly was the greatest,"
wrote Bob Dylan.

"In every way he was
the bravest,

the kindest,
and the most excellent of men."

♫ ♫

WOLE SOYINKA: Oh, Ali, Ali.

Black tarantula whose
antics hypnotize the foe.

Butterfly side slipping
death from rocket probes.

Bee whose sting, unsheathed,

picks the teeth of
the raging hippopotamus.

Warrior who said,
"I will not fight,"

yet proved a prophet's call
to arms against a war.

Cassius Marcellus, warrior,

Muhammad prophet,

flesh is Clay,
all, all too brittle mould.

The bout is over.

Frayed and split
and autographed.

The gloves are hung up in
the hall of fame... still loaded,

even from that first
Blaze of gold and glory.

Awed multitudes will gaze,

new questers
feast on these mementos,

and from their shell-shocked
remnants reinvoke the spell.

But the sorcerer is gone,

the lion withdrawn to
a lair of time and space

inaccessible as
the sacred lining of a crown

when kings were kings,
and lords of rhyme and pace.

The enchantment is over,
but the spell remains.

♫ ♫

["I shall be released"
by Nina Simone begins]

♫ ♫

♫ ♫

NINA SIMONE: ♫ they say
everything can be replaced ♫

♫ ♫

♫ they say every distance
is not near ♫

♫ ♫

♫ so I remember every face ♫

♫ ♫

♫ of every man
who put me here ♫

WOMEN: ♫ oh... ♫

♫ I see my light ♫

♫ come shining ♫

♫ ♫

♫ from the west
down to the e-e-east ♫

♫ any day now ♫

♫ any day now ♫

♫ I shall be released ♫

♫ ♫

♫ they say every man
needs protection ♫

♫ ♫

♫ they say every man must fall ♫

♫ From the west
down to the e-e-east ♫

♫ any day now ♫

♫ any day now ♫

♫ I shall be released ♫

♫ I shall be released ♫

(crowd chanting
"ali! ali! ali! ali...")