Ghosts of Manila - Mark Kram [51]
“I pick on everybody,” he said.
“No you don’t. You didn’t have much to say about George Chuvalo, Jerry Quarry.”
“They behaved themselves,” he said.
“All right, I’ll give you Sonny Liston. He was open season. But Patterson, Ernie Terrell, what did they do for you to go nuts? You’re brutal with Frazier.”
“They called me by my slave name, Clay,” he said. “That’s why I mussed them up so bad.”
“Only after you disrespected them so much.” There was silence. “Maybe you had to show them you were the Muslim superman, the cream of the race, not just another get-along black like the rest.”
“We’re stronger, for sure,” he said. “We let you honkies know where you stand, and the blacks with you.”
“Why’s Frazier so personal to you? Give him a break. He’s just out there earning a buck. Never said he was the greatest anything.”
“I don’t hate Frazier,” he said. “But I don’t like him, either. He’s got an idea he’s my equal.” Did Frazier scare him? “Not fear fear. Only ’cause he ain’t normal. That bothers me. Man takes punches to the head like him can’t be normal. Too stupid to be normal. Look at my face. I’m not stupid. I look normal. I’m way too smart for an animal like him. Nobody wants a champ like him.”
“So why fight him again? For the money?”
“Yeah,” he said. “But mostly ’cause I got to.”
“Herbert?”
“No. Just me, it’s personal,” he said, sliding out of the seat and saying with a smile: “Say your prayers the rest of the way. Listen, ya hear that knock in the engine?” He stayed quiet, eyes open, then said: “Don’t worry. You’re gonna be all right.”
To his credit, the show was always secondary to his personal evolution as a fighter. Without being really tested, pushed to the brink, a champion could never be true or great. He was in the ring with history, measuring himself against Louis, Marciano, and Sugar Ray. What he wanted were masterpieces so effulgent that relativity could not exist. The heavyweight ranks had been barren of such offerings. A champion could consider himself lucky if he ever found one opponent who could make him soar to a new, dramatic level; up to Frazier 1, Ali had been sorely lacking in authentic challenge. Louis had had his Schmeling, Marciano had had Ezzard Charles and Jersey Joe Walcott, Jack Dempsey had had Gene Tunney, and even Patterson was taken to the edge several times by Ingemar Johanssen, all dramatic successes that defined the champion. Louis and Marciano had, too, an added appeal that reinforced their pedigrees. They were extremely vulnerable, risk was palpable. Louis’s weakness was an early-round proneness to a right hand by even journeymen punchers. The open-faced Rocky was always in jeopardy; next to seeing a knockdown, the fight crowd thrills at nothing more than seeing a man get up. Rocky’s face was also irresistible, it was cinematic, meaning it was usually a mess. In many fights, he had to contend with bad cuts. Against Charles, he took the worst cut in ring history, a deep excavation in the middle of his nose, the probable work of a chain saw.
Part of Ali’s problem, aside from his defaming rhetoric and scorn of other fighters, was the lack of appreciation for his style; it hadn’t been seen before. He insolently used his head with micrometer precision to confound and dissemble the other man’s poise and confidence. Getting to it was hard labor, for you had to wade through three kinds of jabs, and if you got to the head it wasn’t there. The three jabs, as quick as light, were the probe, the irritant and point-builder on scorecards, and the trip-hammer straight left, which, seen close up, snapped a head nearly off and sent waves of shock down through the spinal column. Zora Folley had it right: “That big jab goes right to your feet, makes ’em just about cry.” Legs seldom planted, his head in constant orbit, it was a wonder how he could produce such hand speed, such complex and never awkward punching designs. The most striking part of his game was his flawless sense of ring geometry, of time and space; for each space he knew the required move