GEORGE, ALI AND ME

Blog number 2 **** 22 May 2009

Years ago I saw a documentary on Muhammad Ali and it was all about that famous fight of his with George Foreman in Zaire. In that also famous knockout, what I saw was George getting up on one knee, looking at the referee, and at the count of eight, the ref signaled that it was all over.

"What?" I go.

I thought maybe George's eyes were glazed or something - the ref could see it, but I couldn't. After all, nobody said anything about it over the years - not the sportscasters, not the columnists, not the talking heads of TV, nobody. Must been glassy eyes that did it.

George wrote an autobiography called, "By George," and in it he describes that fight. Lots of funny things went on with his manager and his cornerman and not funny HaHa things either. George says he wasn't hurt by the punch, could have got up immediately and was in fact glad it had happened because it would make Ali tend to "go in for the kill," and do George's kind of fight, him being the much heavier puncher. George says that he wanted to get up, but his cornerman kept telling him to stay down. If I remember what I read right, George was puzzled by these instructions, but obeyed anyhow. I think George got robbed by trickery and unethical actions. I find it hard to believe that Ali was a party to this, and I hope he wasn't, but I don't think he won that fight on the fair.