The title pretty much says it all: CHAMPIONS FOREVER. THESE were the fighters I grew up watching (which is why I consider theirs The Golden Age of Boxing); they inspired me and taught me a great deal. (I started out using a duffel bag weighted with two cinder blocks wrapped in discarded clothes as a punching bag: I busted my hands up pretty good, but I practiced everything I saw professional fighters doing and eventually took to the streets with two pair of boxing gloves to put my theories to the test. Everything I perfected in that empty garage worked against flesh and blood opponents.) Ali was, of course, my idol (along with Bruce Lee and Charlton Heston) and it was HIS style (and that of the great Jersey Joe Walcott) that I emulated. I remember the feeling of AWE I had as a kid for the sheer Power of George Foreman. Before his bout with Ali, EVERYBODY was convinced that Ali was as good as dead. Foreman could literally lift a full grown man (Joe Frazier, for instance) off his feet with a single blow- and he'd hammered both of the men who'd beaten Ali, Frazier and Norton, into defeat in two rounds each. I was pulling for Ali, but it wasn't until I saw the front page of the sports section of the newspaper the next morning that I was able to smile with relief: the black and white photo showed Ali, both hands on the back of Foreman's neck, holding Foreman bent double beneath a bold headline to the effect that ALI WINS BY 8TH ROUND KNOCKOUT. Higher Drama is hard to imagine- although, as Ali himself put it: "Black men scare White Men more than Black Men scare other Black Men." (It wasn't until just a few years ago that I happened across two interviews that revealed something VERY interesting about Ali's bout with Foreman: in one, Wally Youngblood reveals that he went out to spy on Foreman while he was training for the fight and saw Foreman jog a short distance before turning around and returning to his training camp. So certain of a quick knockout was Foreman that he apparently didn't feel the need to put in the roadwork necessary to go more than a few rounds. In another interview, it was revealed that someone watching Foreman train said that he was "training to fight dirty." THAT would partially explain why Ali fought the way HE did, grappling with Foreman and wrestling him around the ring. And, in the seventh round of their epic battle, Foreman CLEARLY thumbed Ali in the right eye: watch the fight and you'll see Ali recoil, wincing, before quickly covering up. This was no aberration: Foreman indeed had a reputation as a dirty fighter- he hit Jose Roman after he was down and even hit Ali throughout their fight with intentional rabbit punches looped to the back of Ali's head; and he used just about every dirty trick in the book against "The Frightful Five," the five men he fought in one night following his loss to Ali, and against Jimmy Young (driving his elbows down on Young's arms to break clinches, something he was still doing when he lost going away to the late Tommy Morrison). To set the record straight: Ali won almost every single round against Norton in both their second and third fights (see YOUTUBE if you doubt it), although he DID lose to Jimmy Young (who isn't profiled in CHAMPIONS FOREVER, although he beat both Ali AND Ken Norton in Title fights and floored George Foreman en route to a relatively easy win- a win that sent Foreman into retirement). Overall, CHAMPIONS FOREVER is a loving tribute to the fighters I consider the cream of the fistic crop. Their deeds will truly live Forever.
