Sunday, June 17, 2007

Visiting the Muhammed Ali Center

The Oracle visited the Muhammad Ali Center in Louisville, Kentucky yesterday. The museum's exhibits idealized Mr. Ali's life outside the ring to an extent that defied credulity, but that is not unexpected, as no one builds a museum as a monument to someone for the purpose of being objective. The information and film related to Mr. Ali's boxing career was interesting.

I had not realized until watching several clips of Mr. Ali's career what a brilliant boxer he was back in the '60's. I saw Mr. Ali fight on television in the '70's, when he was still good enough to regain and defend the heavyweight championship in the golden age of boxing against great fighters such as Joe Frazier, Ken Norton, and George Foreman. Mr. Ali was still quick in those years, and to the extent that he had lost quickness, he made up for it by fighting smartly, as when he let Mr. Foreman wear himself out throwing ineffective punches in the famous "rope-a-dope" bout. However, in the 60's, Mr. Ali was so quick for his size that he simply ran circles around the best fighters in the world. Watching Mr. Ali feint and move fearlessly while keeping his hands near waist level (not bothering to keep them up to defend himself) is just a sight to behold. Watching much of the first fight against Sonny Liston, my son and I were astounded at the way that Mr. Ali simply leaned back or feinted to one side or the other to avoid hard jabs throughout the fight.

I enjoyed the visit, in spite of the above mentioned idealization of Mr. Ali, and even though I have not watched a boxing match in years. The sport has lost much of its lustre because of corrupt promoters, and, in any event, I for the most part gave up boxing at about the same time that Howard Cosell did in the 1980's, and for much the same reason.

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