Original subtitles

[narrator] More than a half century

after Cassius Marcellus Clay Jr.

burst upon the scene as a gold medal winner

at the 1960 Summer Olympics,

Muhammad Ali remains a magical figure

remembered and loved throughout the world.

Ali brought unprecedented speed and grace to his sport.

His charm and wit changed forever

what we expect a champion to be.

His accomplishments in the ring

were the stuff of legend.

He was the most beautiful fighting machine ever assembled

and arguably the greatest boxer ever.

♪♪

But Ali's life and career

played out as much on the front page

as on the sports page.

He was a beacon of hope

for oppressed people all over the world.

Each time he looked in the mirror

and said "I'm so pretty,"

he was saying "Black is beautiful"

before that sentiment became fashionable.

♪♪

When he refused induction into the United States Army

at the height of the war in Vietnam,

he stood up for the principle

that unless there is a very good reason for killing people,

war is wrong.

♪♪

And there was an aura of pure goodwill about him.

When Muhammad Ali lit the Olympic flame

in Atlanta in 1996,

hundreds of millions of people around the globe watched

and were united in caring for one man.

♪♪

Ali's greatest contribution to humanity

might have been that by his example,

he taught a lot of people how to love.

♪♪

No athlete has ever contributed more

to his country or to the world than Muhammad Ali.

This is his story

as told by some of the men and women

who understood him best.

You know, everybody's got an Ali story.

My first awareness of Muhammad Ali

was watching the second Joe Frazier fight.

I guess when I was about 12 years old,

I made the mistake of betting on him

when he fought the Fight of the Century

against Frazier.

I was 11 years old when I watched Cassius Clay

dance and fight his way

to an Olympic gold medal in Rome.

My first awareness of Muhammad Ali

was at the age of 7.

I was training in the old Resurrection Boxing Club

in East L.A.

And so he's hitting the heavy bag,

and he's moving like there's no tomorrow.

And finally, he senses that we're looking at him,

and he stops everything and calls us over.

"Get over here, everybody.

"Let me give you a life lesson.

"Remember, keep your hands up, use your footwork,

and keep all your money."

I remember vividly being a young boy of...

first of all, of 8 or 9, and just seeing this man

who just looked like poetry in motion.

He almost seemed to kiss people with his punches.

You always heard the name as a kid,

but I wasn't familiar with his career

the way I became familiar with it later.

I remember I watched constantly old fights,

constantly old video, old interviews.

My first recollections of Muhammad Ali

is probably on the playgrounds,

where kids would imitate Muhammad Ali--

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

I had been sent down to cover the fight in Miami Beach

because, as we all knew,

Cassius Clay was going to be knocked out

in the first round against Sonny Liston, the champion.

There was no point wasting the time of a real boxing reporter.

When I met Ali in 1967,

I had a fan's interest in boxing,

but like many people of my generation,

I was drawn to Ali.

I remember reading about this guy named Cassius Clay

who was fighting in a very stacked

light heavyweight division.

When he won the gold medal, I kind of took note,

and everybody said, "This guy is something special."

Here's this guy that emerges from the Olympics,

the 1960 Olympics, with a gold medal

in the light heavyweight division,

and what does he want?

You know, he wants a tomato-red Cadillac, okay?

He wants to become rich.

He wants to be the youngest heavyweight champion ever.

You know, this is what he stands for.

This is what he wants.

You know, I don't think there was a whole lot more than that.

But it's interesting.

On the route to that goal, a life happened, you know?

And it's this life that we're here to talk about today.

[bell dinging]

I had been sent down to cover the fight in Miami Beach.

I went down there with the express instructions

of driving my rental car

back and forth a couple of times

between the arena where the fight was going to be held

and the nearest hospital, because "The New York Times"

didn't want me wasting any deadline time

following Cassius Clay into intensive care.

I did it, and then I went on to 5th Street Gym,

where he worked out.

In the 5th Street Gym, you didn't meet Ali, right?

You met Cassius Clay.

I'm not so sure, again, that he changed,

you know, that dramatically, as much as the world

and its perceptions of him changed dramatically.

There was kind of the rumor that Cassius Clay

was a member of the Lost-Found Nation of Islam

and the fact that Malcolm X was somehow involved.

It wasn't only the Nation of Islam

that they were fearful of in regards to Cassius Clay,

but I think that it was the residue of Jack Johnson,

and, you know, America surely was not ready for it,

and I think that the black youth of America

was ready for Muhammad Ali.

Muhammad Ali represented the Nation of Islam

under the tutelage of Elijah Muhammad,

and Elijah Muhammad taught at a crucial time

in black America

that having ownership

and having dignity and pride

but you have to recognize and love yourself first

before we can love or you love anyone else.

That transition was happening before that Liston fight.

Maybe Ali had some fear within himself

because he wanted the brass ring,

he wanted that belt.

This man, who was principally a boxer,

but also a free spirit who found himself

with the influence-makers of the time.

I climbed up these narrow, twisting stairs

up to the ring, and there were these four little guys

right behind me, you know?

My age, and they were wearing these terrycloth cabana suits,

and they were kind of noisy.

When I got to the top, I asked about, you know,

"Who are those guys?" and they said,

"Some British band."

All five of us were pushed into a dressing room

which was locked,

and, of course, it turned out that it was The Beatles.

I was the fifth Beatle.

[laughing]And they were so angry.

I asked them, you know,

who did they think was going to win?

"Liston's gonna knock out that little wanker."

But here we were for 15 minutes, talking,

and they were cursing and banging,

and then suddenly, the door bursts open.

And for the first time,

the five of us saw Cassius Clay,

and he was the most beautiful creature

any of us had ever seen.

You know, he was big, and he glowed, and he smiled,

and he just kind of leaned into the room, and he said...

"Come on, Beatles, let's make some money."

And so, they followed him out of the dressing room

like kindergarten kids, into the ring.

The Beatles lined up in a row.

Cassius hit the first one.

They all fell down like dominos.

They formed a pyramid to try to hit his chin.

And they capered around the ring like children.

And then, they all disappeared into their separate fates...

The Beatles, Cassius Clay, Malcolm X...

America starting to pull apart over the Vietnamese War.

The Civil Rights movement bubbling up,

along with rock 'n' roll.

I think that's the moment when the '60s truly began.

He did make a huge impact because of the fact

that there were very few people of color

that took a stance.

People wanted to say things,

couldn't say things, and was afraid to say things--

all three above, Ali said it for them.

People drew to him like a magnet.

Radicals, revolutionaries,

the ones they were looking for-- the FBI, the CIA--

they all would take a chance on getting caught

just to talk to this guy.

And he was excited about that.

He was... He didn't think of himself so big

that he would draw these people toward him.

It just would happen, and he would just--

he would get really excited.

For him to be so boisterous and being unapologetic,

I think, for a person of color at that time,

was a huge statement.

From what I understood, it's that he always wanted

to be part of the Nation of Islam,

but because he was a boxer,

they really weren't too ready to accept him.

Well, it was also that if he had publicly revealed,

you know, on a broad scope, the fact that he was following

the teachings of Elijah Muhammad before the fight,

he might never have been allowed to fight Sonny Liston.

Only Malcolm X had this sense,

you are going to win the fight.

Before the fight, they meet in the locker room,

and Malcolm X says, this is the cross and the crescent.

This is-- this is the equivalent to a crusade.

Only he had this forethought, this confidence,

along with Cassius Clay, that Clay was gonna win.

Sonny Liston versus Cassius Clay

is one of those great heavyweight upsets.

So, Cassius shows up in Miami a 7-1 underdog.

Everybody thinks he's going to lose.

He knows Liston's gonna be overconfident,

so Cassius goes in to fight and what he feels is,

I'm going to try to tire him out,

kind of a matador versus a bull,

and he does this, and he does it for a round,

then he starts hitting him with jabs,

and all of a sudden, Clay hits him, boom.

And there was a spurt of blood from Sonny's left cheek,

and Sonny literally pawed at the blood

and looked at it with an incredulous look on his face,

and I remember, at that moment, thinking, we're gonna win.

Probably Liston had had something put on his shoulder

or his glove, and he got it into Clay's eyes.

He goes back to the corner, he says to Angelo,

"I can't see. Cut off the gloves."

And Angelo Dundee says,

"I ain't cuttin' your gloves off, baby.

"This is for the championship.

Go out there and stay away from him."

And Liston is coming after him.

Bundini, who was in his corner, said, "Yardstick him,

just keep him away," but he's taking shots.

But by the middle of the round, his eyes start to clear

and now Clay starts working on him,

starts landing punches.

He's all over Liston.

Liston is cut under both eyes now.

By the end of the sixth round,

Liston has had it.

Cassius is in his corner,

and he realizes the fight's over.

Then he's up, he's running around the ring.

He says, "See? I told you what I was gonna do!

I'm the greatest."

"I must be the greatest."

From the time Cassius Clay was 12 years old,

he was saying that he was the greatest.

As you know, I think that I'm the greatest.

I'm the greatest.

I tell the people that I'm the greatest.

I don't think he believed it then.

I don't think he believed it at the Olympics.

I don't think he believed it

early in his professional career.

When he beat Sonny Liston, I think the idea

started to take hold in his mind

that maybe he was the greatest.

Athletes were supposed to be reserved,

complimentary to their opponents,

and not belittle anybody.

I don't care how small the ring is.

I'll fight the chump in a telephone booth.

"Not only am I a better boxer, I'm better looking."

I can't be beat. I had 180 amateur fights,

22 professional fights, and I'm pretty as a girl.

[laughter]

"I do everything better than anybody else. Why?

Because I am the greatest."

Well, this is a title change in sports.

Most fighters, you know, "I do my talking in the ring."

But, of course, he was instant copy.

He turned the sporting scene in 1964

from black and white to Technicolor.

Every athlete out there

that you see celebrating

all came from Muhammad Ali.

You know, Ali brought a lot to boxing.

I mean, he brought big money to boxing,

he brought, mm... trash talk to boxing.

I'm not training too hard for this bum.

They call it trash talking.

They call it getting in a guy's head.

I predict that tonight somebody will die

at ringside from shock.

It had a lot to do with Muhammad Ali.

Being a New Yorker, you know,

we say what's on our mind all the time.

Ali wasn't a New Yorker, but he certainly said

what was on his mind, whether you liked it or not.

I asked him myself, I said, "Why you do that?"

He said, "You know what? Let me tell you something.

"I went to a wrestling match in over Kentucky,

"and this guy, Gorgeous George,

"pretty white boy, blonde hair,

"comb his hair, said he was pretty.

"Two blondes on his arm.

"And they hated him so bad,

"they couldn't wait to fill up the arena

to see this guy get hurt."

He said, "That's what I'm talking about."

He said, "And that's what I'm gonna do.

What I'm doing for boxing."

Suddenly, this Louisville Lip,

"Hey, Beatles, let's get together and make some money."

Three days later, he's coming into the convention center

for an interview the day afterwards,

and he's somber,

and he's kind of this Malcolm X.

"I don't have to be who you want me to be.

I'm free to be who I want to be."

And the question I've always wondered was,

was he really free to be who he wanted to be?

Or was he carried along in the currents of history?

You have important figures like Ali

that sets the path for you to give you the encouragement

to say, "You know what? I can do it differently."

Controversy will always sell tickets.

When we talk about boxing, it's good guys versus bad guys.

Now, we have a guy who's obnoxiously conceited,

belongs to a hateful organization,

many people feel.

You got your guy in the black hat, okay?

Now, we can put that white hat

on whoever you want to put a white hat on,

and people are gonna go to the fight,

watch the fight on TV,

hoping that Muhammad Ali gets knocked out.

When we look around at what's happening in the world today,

and particularly in this country,

there's a sort of scary quality that

the center isn't holding,

and, you know, there's a fear

that you have all these crazy people out there with guns.

There's a fear of terrorism,

that rational order might not prevail,

and a lot of people had that fear in the '60s.

It was a fear from the left. You have all these kids,

of whom we might have been among them, with long hair.

There's the anti-war movement.

And here's Muhammad Ali,

who's talking about white people being devils

and separation of the races.

I think of the great Yeats poem,

"The best lack all conviction

while the worst are full of passionate intensity."

And there was this sense of passionate intensity.

We see it with Ali.

We saw it with the cadre that surrounded Ali.

We see this today.

That, to me, is a harbinger for what is to come.

In February 1966, the country's pulling apart,

and that morning, there's a terrific debate

in the Senate over the Vietnam War.

Senators who were against the war

are being called, by a general, traitors.

And you could really feel the country polarizing.

And so, here's Muhammad Ali, just sitting on the lawn

of this rented house in Miami.

I sat in a lawn chair next to him,

and we drank sweet tea,

and then the cook came out from the cottage

and whispered in his ear, and he excused himself.

He had a phone call, and he came back and told me

that, uh, it was a call from the Associated Press,

that he had just been reclassified 1-A.

And his first reaction...

"Why me?

"There are all these poor boys

"in my draft board.

"Draft them.

"After embarrassing me

"and saying I'm too dumb,

now they say I'm smart enough?"

I mean, he was very angry.

And as he was ranting,

the symbols of disaster approached.

The TV trucks and the radio reporters

and print guys,

"Sports Illustrated,"

and members of the Nation of Islam

to protect him from everybody else

and also to tell him that, if he got drafted,

he was gonna be sent to the front lines immediately.

Yeah, right.

And some cracker sergeant's gonna drop a hand grenade

down his pants and blow him to pieces.

And he rants, and, you know,

cameras and microphones are thrust in his face.

"So, do you know where Vietnam is?"

"Yeah, well, I know where Vietnam is."

He didn't know where Vietnam was.

I didn't know where Vietnam was.

"How do you feel about the Viet Cong?"

"I don't know about..."

"How do you feel about fighting in the army?"

"How do you feel about going and killing people?"

"How do you feel about getting killed?"

And this went on hour after hour after hour,

and now it's late in the afternoon,

and maybe, you know, the last radio reporter shows up,

sticks the mic out and asks for the 200th time,

"So, how do you feel about the Vietnam War?

How do you feel about the Viet Cong?"

And he said,

"Oh, man, I ain't got nothing against them Viet Cong."

And then the world stopped.

So he called me on the phone,

and he said, "What's this bout the war?

How come you all done go to war?"

And I said, "Well, brother,

"let me tell you something.

"You was once a slave.

"A long time ago.

"If you sign your name...

"on that military paper,

"you're gonna be a new slave of the white man

"for the rest of your life.

"They can promise you anything,

"but that doesn't mean they're gonna keep their promises.

"We can defend ourselves,

"but we're just going over to take.

This is a wrongful war."

"Yeah?" I said, "Just say hell no,

"you ain't gonna go, and be serious.

And you'll be the greatest and most famous person ever."

[Randy Roberts] When Ali refused induction

into the army, probably all of the establishment in America

and much of America went, you know, crazy.

"This is not what Joe Louis did."

You know, "Joe Louis in World War II

didn't wait to be drafted. Joe Louis enlisted."

The most recognizable athlete in the world,

now he is saying, "No.

"I'm not going to go into that war.

"I ain't got nothing against them Viet Cong.

"This war has nothing to do with me.

"They haven't hurt me.

"They didn't rape my ancestors.

"They didn't enslave me.

"They didn't burn crosses on my yard.

"If there's a war to be fought,

"if I'm fighting for my people,

"I'll fight in that war,

but I'm not gonna fight in this war."

Take a small fire and go throw some gasoline on it,

and it sets America ablaze.

When you look at Ali

and what he stood for, boldly and proudly,

you must say to yourself,

he wasn't just a fighter, he wasn't just the greatest.

He was bigger than that.

When it's across the board, socially,

and it goes everywhere, that makes you bigger,

and Ali went everywhere with his stance on the war.

Whether you believed in it or you didn't believe in it,

it impacted everybody.

It made you think, wow, this guy believes in this

so strongly, he's willing to give up his career.

Now, suddenly, his stand becomes one of principle.

He doesn't want to go, but he's saying,

"Well, Elijah Muhammad had gone to prison

"instead of entering into World War II,

so this is what I'm going to do as a Muslim."

As the war becomes more unpopular,

he becomes more popular.

I mean, there's this direct relationship between the two.

[reporter] Anti-war demonstrators protest U.S. involvement

in the Vietnam War in mass marches,

rallies, and demonstrations.

I almost feel like he doesn't change.

America kind of catches up to him at a certain point.

Now, he becomes the hero,

really the patron saint of the 1960s.

Well, you know, I went to college campuses

when he was speaking.

This is how he made his money mostly,

during the three years of his exile.

He had been heavyweight champion of the world,

when that really mattered.

Here were all these little white boys

and their girlfriends who kind of adored the idea

that this epitome of American masculinity

was doing the same thing that they were,

so they weren't, you know, such unpatriotic cowards.

And then, of course, he would always spoil it,

and he would start making nasty comments

about marijuana use and interracial dating.

I told him, just be yourself.

I told him, just go ahead and make the speeches.

When he started getting around a lot of the Muslim brothers,

he started doing all this Islamic dogma and all that,

I said, no, don't do that.

You don't do that, you sound stupid.

Just say what you feel about people.

One time...

he made a speech, it was wonderful.

Everybody clapped.

I gave out the buttons.

And-- and in the clearing,

in the darkness,

there was a heckler.

Said, "Go home, you draft-dodging nigger!"

And he said, "Ladies and gentlemen,

"I was a little boy,

"and I used to throw rocks at this donkey.

"And my grandma said, 'Cassius, don't throw rocks

"'at that donkey, 'cause one day

"'that donkey's gonna die,

and he's gonna come back and haunt you.'"

He said, "Ladies and gentlemen,

I believe that ass is in here tonight."

You can say to a person, "Start talking about Ali.

What did you think about Ali?"

You know, within about 15 seconds,

you'll know everything about that person's--

their political beliefs. Wow.

I mean, you know, he's that litmus test.

How could this man be so great?

How could he be so dynamic and charismatic,

and yet some people were saying, "I hate Muhammad Ali"?

I didn't agree with all of his principles

when he was a younger man.

What I did agree with and respected

was that he had these convictions,

and he stood by them.

[Khalilah Ali] We was in Philadelphia,

and we had a phone call...

from Jesse Hill...

about he had his license back to fight.

It was the most epic moment of Ali and I's life.

When Ali came back to boxing in 1970,

he was unquestionably a diminished boxer.

But he was also no longer a member of the Black Muslims.

He was practicing a more traditional form of Islam.

And I think that, for two reasons

American society perceived him differently.

They had pretty much caught up with him

in being against the Vietnam War.

They appreciated the fact

that he hadn't gone into the Army,

that he had sacrificed

millions upon millions of dollars for his principle.

They took the heavyweight title away from him, but he--

he didn't stop believing in-- in what he was capable of.

He didn't stop believing in the fact that he could come back

and win it again, he didn't stop believing in the fact

that, you know, he stood for something,

and he wasn't gonna give it up-- give up what he stood for,

no matter what the price would be.

The two great moral crusades of the 1960s

were the Civil Rights Movement and the anti-war movement.

And Ali was smack in the center of both of those,

and it was remarkable, really.

The New York Yankees weren't in the middle of that.

No.The Boston Celtics weren't in the middle of that.

Ali was at the vortex of virtually everything

that was going on then.

It seems like an almost biological groping

for the spotlight.

Maybe that's why Eldridge Cleaver said what he said.

Eldridge Cleaver said boxing is the two-fisted testing ground

of masculinity in America,

and a heavyweight champion, as a symbol,

is the real Mr. America.

That's what being the heavyweight champion

of the world meant.

You were the real Mr. America.

In a nation that prides toughness,

in a world that prides toughness,

you were the toughest S.O.B. in the world.

[bell dinging]

It was the first time you had two undefeated heavyweights,

each one with a legitimate claim

to being heavyweight champion of the world.

In many ways, the first Frazier fight

was the return of the king.

He was the heavyweight champion.

He had not lost his title in the ring.

It had been taken away by politicians, paper pushers.

The fight was announced, and the day it was announced,

I sent in a check to Madison Square Garden.

You mailed it in in those days.

I was ringside.Oh, wow.

Uh, and I was on a telephone,

uh, alerting the desk as to what was happening

so that they could replay the additions

that were going on.

So, I became, uh,

the Times building's,

uh, play-by-play announcer for the fight.

I thought that I was just reporting,

you know, what I saw.

But I think I was reporting what I felt

because the hundreds of people in the building

who-- I was patched in all over--

who heard my blow-by-blow account

all thought Ali won big.

[laughter]

I-- I left the paper for the first time

soon after that, because I felt kind of emotionally corrupted

that I cared so much about him

that I wasn't seeing straight anymore.

In the 15th round, Joe knocked Ali down

with that horrific left hook.

[Robert Lipsyte] Terrible fight, in terms of brutality and violence

to the two of them, and in a sense,

America's heart

went out even further to Ali

as a man of principle because he had bled for us.

He had made this, you know, flesh sacrifice.

[Khalilah Ali] He was hurt, he was hurt for a long time.

It was on his conscience 24/7.

And people would come around,

and... they asked him about the fight.

He'd say, "I wasn't myself, I wasn't myself."

You know, he deserved it.

"I didn't train right--" he blamed himself.

And he said he too ugly.

"He's too ugly, I can't let him be the champion."

I said, "Why do you call somebody ugly, man?

Why would you do that?"

Say, yeah, he's too ugly to be heavyweight champion.

I think a lot of people felt after that fight

that he would be around for a while as an opponent,

somebody that contenders would have to fight

on their way to the championship,

but that, you know, his championship days were over.

And then...

[bell ringing]

...the so-called Rumble in the Jungle

was a mythologized fight.

Return of the black hero

to his birthplace, to Africa.

Long before barbecue grills,

George Foreman was

this kind of forbidding, unbeatable thug

in this Sonny Liston mode.

So, it's ten years later,

and he's doing it all over again.

Everyone that was watching was screaming,

"Get off the ropes! Get off the ropes!

He's gonna lose! He's gonna lose!"

And I just wanted Muhammad to win so badly.

When you get punched in the face...

the world looks like a different place.

When you get punched in the face,

it tests who you are as a person.

And I didn't understand what he was doing.

And then, all of a sudden,

when George kinda puttered out,

and Muhammad just started going,

you had to hear...

[imitating roar of the crowd]

It was exhilarating!

I guess that's when you first realize

the heart that he had.

He-- he just had this indomitable will.

Muhammad Ali was, I think to a great extent,

rehabilitated in the world.

But... the damage,

the terrible damage had, uh, had already begun.

Even when he won to Foreman,

he constantly talked about Joe Frazier all the time.

"That shouldn't've happened, that shouldn't have--

I should have never let that happen."

And-- and he-- I think it's a haunting thing.

It haunted him.

Because he couldn't get it out of his head.

[bell ringing]

For me to have the-- the beautiful image

that I wanna have of him,

I have to forget about how he took apart Joe Frazier,

and how it affected and impacted Joe Frazier,

with him being so mean towards him.

Joe Frazier's so ugly, his face should be donated

to the Bureau of Wildlife.

I saw some of the damage that he did to Frazier,

not just physically with his fists, but emotionally.

Where he was actually changing Frazier,

a guy that...

didn't have anything mean to say about anyone.

But all of a sudden, he started becoming a little mean.

The way he treated Joe Frazier,

I don't believe Joe Frazier ever, to his grave, got over it.

Joe Frazier! Joe Frazier!

I saw the Thrilla in Manila in a theater,

and... I'm not so proud to say it, but we snuck in.

[laughs]

That's crazy ghetto, but it's true.

I was it when I went back to school

and said I saw the fight, what-- nobody believed me.

"No, you didn't, no, you didn't, no, you didn't."

"Yes, I did! Go ask so-and-so, yes, I did!"

In that movie theater, it was everything.

It was men, it was women, it was young, it was old,

it was white, it was black, it was Spanish, it was Asian.

It was everything,

and that's what's the coolest thing about boxing.

It brings a world inside to that arena.

Ali, one of the most mystifying aspects to him

is some of the things that he did

and some of the things he said were just absolutely repellent.

But, yet, love for him seemed unconditional.

You know, people that would be upset by what he said

still loved him and respected him

because he symbolized what they believed

or he symbolized something valuable to them.

He was the greatest flawed hero.

In every great fighter's life,

there's always a Larry Holmes fight,

because you can't tell the great ones

when to stop.

[bell ringing]

Ali-Holmes was an atrocity

from beginning to end.Yeah.

The Nevada Commission made a show of saying,

"We want Muhammad to be checked out

medically, before the fight."

When I was writing "Muhammad Ali: His Life and Times,"

I had medical waivers from Ali,

and I got a copy of the full Mayo Clinic Report on Ali,

which was sent to the Nevada Commission.

Among the things the report said is that,

when Ali tries to touch

the tip of his finger to his nose,

there's a slight degree of missing.

Now, if you can't touch the tip of your finger to your nose,

you shouldn't be in the ring with Larry Holmes.

It was gut-wrenching to watch,

because this was not competitive,

this was simply the ongoing humiliation

of a great fighter at the moment in his career

when you knew that he was going to get humiliated.

You start to really believe that

you can summon this out of you

if you just really, really believe in it,

because your self-belief is what got you there

in the first place. So, you feel like, no,

if I just really believe in it enough

and put the work behind it, I can do it.

Obviously, it's not the case.

Nature is nature, we all get old.

And, as I was standing and watching this,

I felt a-- a poke in my ribs,

uh, a shorter person

getting my attention standing next to me,

and I turned, and it was Mick Jagger.

And I-- I knew Mick a little bit at the time,

uh, and he said to me,

"Lamps, do you know what we're watching?"

And I said, "No, Mick, what are we watching?"

And he said, "It's the end of our youth."

And... within that sentence

is a statement

on what Ali meant to my generation.

[children laughing]

[man] Two... one...

[second man] And lock!

[indistinct voice]

[man] Two... one...

[booming]

I don't know that anybody in my life

has paid his dues

the way Muhammad Ali has.

And I think America really responds to that.

One, by standing up for his principles,

whatever we think his principles are or weren't.

Uh, he lost almost four years

and millions of dollars, not only in prize fight money

but in endorsement money.

I think that America really responds,

you know, to people who...

put their money where their mouth is.

In my mind, Ali is the most significant athlete

in the history of sports.

He fuses the world of sports

and the world of politics.

We'll never go back to those halcyon days

of the 1950s with boys playing baseball

on green fields and not having an opinion about anything.

He brings politics into sports,

he brings sports into politics.

He wasn't just an athlete, he becomes a celebrity,

a person that people listen to.

You know, Malcolm said, you know, "Someday,

"Cassius is gonna be, like, a senator,

"or a congressman, or a president, diplomat.

People are gonna listen to what he says."

Well, they did listen to what he said.

Dick Gregory called Ali the baby of the universe...

in trying to explain why we all love him

and why we all wanna embrace him.

But I think also, as that baby,

there was a kind of innocence and naiveté

in which he felt that

nobody really wished him any harm.

I personally think most of his decisions

were reactive decisions.

No athlete is going to dream,

"I'm going into sports and making it a platform

for-- for political statements."

You go into sports to be the best,

to make a lot of money, to become famous.

But then real life intervenes.

And, you know, that happens to all of us.

But all of us aren't Muhammad Ali.

Everybody has their own take on Ali.

The one common thread

when you talk to people about Ali

is that Ali was special.

Remember the fighter who knocked him down

by stepping on his foot?

Chuck Wepner. Chuck Wepner.

Okay, so this is now a, um...

an event at Gracie Mansion,

the mayor's residence in New York.

So Chuck Wepner is invited.

And Chuck Wepner is standing far away from Ali,

just kind of looking at him.

And I pass by, and I said, you know,

"Hey, come on, let's go over,

let's just say hello to the champ."

And he says, "No, I'm not sure he'll remember me.

"But if he does remember me,

"he probably doesn't like me.

"Uh, and I-- I really don't wanna do that.

I think I'm gonna leave now."

And he started to walk away

to leave the party.

And in the distance,

Ali spotted him, ran over,

and stepped on his foot.

Yes, yes, yes, yeah.

So, I mean, how do you have that kind of,

call it emotional intelligence?

What it is.

How do you know when somebody is

needy in some way?

Yeah, there was another moment I remember

from that-- that event, actually.

The mayor brought Ali inside Gracie Mansion

because there were some political donors there

that he wanted Ali to meet.

And Ali came into the mansion,

and he started to go towards the kitchen.

And the mayor said, "Wait, Muhammad,

"come with me over here,

there's some important people here."

And Ali pointed to the kitchen and said,

"There's important people in there too."

And he went in and hugged everybody

who was working in the kitchen.

We did that healing tour at one point,

where we went to high schools across the country,

talking to students about bigotry and prejudice

and tolerance and understanding.

And we were walking down the aisle,

and I was standing next to Artie Curry,

who was with HBO at the time, a wonderful person.

And Ali was walking ahead of us, and I said to Artie,

"Ali's gonna hug the girl in the yellow dress there."

And Artie said, "You're crazy." I said, "No, watch."

Sure enough, they get to the girl in the yellow dress.

Ali hugs her and kisses her.

Uh, we walk a little further,

I said, "Now he's gonna hug the woman in the green sweater."

"What? What are you talking about?"

He hugs the woman in the green sweater.

And we got up onto the stage, and Artie said to me,

"How did you know that?"

And I said, "Because he chose

"the least attractive women he saw,

and he wanted to give them hugs."

You know, the pretty girls get kissed all their lives.

Now these girls can tell people,

"I was hugged by Muhammad Ali."

Ali came through my gym doors at the Wildcard Boxing Club

and asked me if he could work out.

I said, "Yeah, sure."

As soon as he started hitting the heavy bag,

the tremors went away, and I says, "Look at that."

I said he's just like me, because once I get in the ring

and I started catching on the mitts,

I stop shaking, and all the tremors go away.

He stayed in the gym for about four hours.

He told his jokes, he did magic.

He did levitation.

He showed us pictures of him getting arrested.

And I asked him if I could have his autograph.

He said, "What did you call me? Did you call me a nigger?"

I said, no, I didn't call you...

And he's just, like, laughing at me.

One thing I always found interesting

was that anytime you tried to give him a compliment

in any way, he would kind of brush it off,

"No, no, I'm just a nigger trying to get bigger."

And it was kind of shocking coming from him,

and it was, of course, something I've never

been able to get into "The New York Times."

I remember being with him at a fundraising event

for Muhammad Ali's Museum of Tolerance.

And he got up to speak

to all these rich white guys about tolerance,

and he started with one of his jokes,

which was,

"So, there's a Mexican and a Puerto Rican

"and a black guy sitting in the back of a car.

Who's driving?"

Dead silence.

And he said, "The police."

And everybody laughed.

I-- I went and talked to them afterwards.

I said, you know, you thought that was funny

for the Museum of Tolerance?

And they said, "Yeah, that was wonderful."

It just shows that he's not bigoted at all.

He has a tremendous open heart and loves everybody.

And, at that point, I came to realize

that he had been

totally emotionally rehabilitated

in American society,

One of Ali's childhood icons was Chubby Checker.

While I was working on the book,

Ali, when he was in New York, would frequently come

to my apartment for dinner.

And I had told Muhammad, "We have a special treat

for you at dinnertime."

And, I don't know, Muhammad might have thought

it was bread pudding or something like that.

And around 6:00, the doorbell rang,

and I said to Muhammad, "There's your treat."

So, Muhammad went to the door, opened it up,

and he started jumping up and down like a little kid.

"It's Chubby Checker! It's Chubby Checker!"

And what I remember most about that evening--

and it was a wonderful evening,

we put on old Chubby Checker records,

and we were singing together, and Chubby was showing Muhammad

how to do the twist, and Muhammad was twisting.

But what-- what I remember most, is at one point,

Muhammad looked at Chubby and said,

"Did you drive all the way from Philadelphia

just to see me?"

And Chubby said, "Yes."

And Muhammad said, "I can't believe it.

I'm honored."

And I realized that all his life,

Muhammad Ali had Chubby Checker on a pedestal,

and it never occurred to him

that Chubby Checker might feel the same way about him.

I always believed in my heart and soul

that one day I will meet...

the greatest of all times, Muhammad Ali.

I'm invited to this party by a certain athlete.

That certain athlete's wife comes over to me

and says that I must leave.

And the group of people that I was sitting with

turned on me.

And everyone is closing in on me,

and I got paranoid,

and I felt extremely threatened,

And this one particular person,

who is a celebrity, who will remain nameless,

she went as so far to get close to my face...

and tell me, "Nobody wants you here,

so you better leave."

Brooklyn jumped out of me.

Bushwick came in full force,

and I turned to the woman,

and I said, "If you don't get the eff away from me,

"I'm gonna punch you in your effing face.

I'm gonna punch you in your big effing fat titty."

It's horrible, it's embarrassing.

Everyone went... [gasping]

And then I feel a big hand on my shoulder,

and I'm thinking it's security.

And I turn to say,

"Get the eff off of me!"

And it was Muhammad Ali.

In an instant,

I was that seven-year-old girl

that dreamed one day I was going to meet the champ.

And I cried like a little baby.

The tears just started flooding down my eyes,

my mascara was down in streaks.

And Lonnie was with him, and she says,

"That's all right, that's all right."

And she's like, "You don't have to go anywhere."

Here's the champ and the champ's wife

saying I don't have to go anywhere,

and everyone started to back off.

I was extremely embarrassed.

This was not how I envisioned

that I was going to meet the champ!

And I couldn't get over it.

And Muhammad was pulling me in close,

and he gets very, very close to my ear,

and he whispers in my ear, and he says...

[whispering] "If I was younger..."

And I burst out laughing,

and then I started crying all over again,

and I was getting all hysterical again.

And I'm saying, "I didn't wanna meet you like this.

"I don't wanna meet you like this,

this is not happening."

And he just went...

And I calmed down.

He saw me at my worst and put his hand on my shoulder

and pulled me in and told me...

"I got your back, it's okay,

"don't worry about it, nobody's gonna hurt you,

'cause I'm the champ, and I'm here."

You know, he's a-- he's a powerful man.

He's a powerful man because, you know... who does that?

Ali was the greatest, um...

here, you have a fighter who not only possessed speed

but had tremendous power as a heavyweight.

He commanded the room when he walked into it,

no matter where he was.

He commanded the arena when he fought

as soon as he stepped into the ring.

And I think there's a-- there's a magnetizing,

polarizing image

about a person like that.

Everyone that you ever talked to

who's had anything to do with Muhammad Ali,

and that includes, you know,

people who've met him in a hotel lobby,

or at fights, or boxing fans, or non-boxing fans,

he always had time for people.

Well, you know what, he was one of the nicest guys

I ever met in my life.

And he was very important to everybody

because... he took a sport

at the time when it was probably at one of its lowest

and brought it back to the highest.

Being born in the '60s

and understanding

how Ali was...

our voice in the '60s,

to me, I can say

that I'm glad my mother had me in the '60s.

You know, he's the first big guy that showed

that kind of speed, that kind of fluidity.

That kind of style.

He was the first guy that did things wrong

and made it right.

He remains, um,

one of the most inspiring

and exciting figures I've ever witnessed in my life.

I think that this was

somebody who had really...

closed the book on the great story.

You know, from the brash kid Cassius Clay,

who talked his way into the championship,

to the revolutionary Muhammad Ali

to the wounded, exiled warrior,

and then finally to the prodigal son.

He never, ever, ever stopped being a man of the people,

the people's champion.

And as all great fighters will tell you,

when the belts have gone,

and the ringing in your ears is gone,

as long as people remember you as the people's champion,

you'll always be up there.