Word: muhammad
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...himself put it. He kept a lion and a tiger because they were bad. He had 47 fights and knocked out 42 men. He took the world title by half killing Joe Frazier in 1973 and then lost it the next year in Zaire to Muhammad Ali, who could not have been brought down that night by a tank. "I be alright when the swelling goes down," Foreman wrote in his journal. Then he took his rage to Toronto, where he whipped five fighters in one evening. In 1976 he savaged Joe Frazier again, all but beating his own chest...
Only pro wrestling, as perpetrated by Vince McMahon's World Wrestling Federation, could provide such a uniquely 1980s fusion of chic and sleaze. WrestleMania's guest referee is Muhammad Ali; the guest ring announcer is Battlin' Billy Martin; the guest timekeeper, manipulating a tiny silver bell that might have come from King Farouk's dinner table, is Liberace. Pop Thrush Cyndi Lauper is "managing" Wendi Richter ("150 pounds of twisted steel and sex appeal") as she attempts to regain her W.W.F. championship belt from zaftig Leilani Kai, managed by former longtime (28 years) women's champ, the Fabulous Moolah...
...Ezzard Charles' misfortune was to succeed Joe Louis, Holmes' sorest miscalculation came in following Muhammad Ali, who claimed to be bigger than boxing and was correct. Often graceless in public, Holmes has a gentler streak that comes out in private, for instance, when discussing Ali, whom he served as a sparring partner and studied as a man until Holmes' embarrassing skills & necessitated his firing. "I always sat myself in the back," he says, "and just watched. Today's fighters don't discipline, they don't dedicate. But worst of all, they don't sit themselves in the back...
...pleased. "But I don't think he's coming back, do you? Deep down inside, Cooney really don't impress himself." By this standard, Holmes is fulfilled. "As a boxer, you got to put me up there with all of the top three," he figures, "Marciano, Louis and Muhammad Ali. I just didn't have the charisma. If Ali came in here now (Holmes is speaking in a restaurant), right away he would start shadowboxing with you. But I can't be that way. I'd be afraid of sticking a thumb in your eye." Meanwhile...
...memories. It would be appropriate to say that Martina has played the competition off its feet, except that she is the only powerful woman tennis player who really leaves her feet, a smasher with an underrated delicateness. The Czech defector does not insist that she is the greatest, as Muhammad Ali would say, of all time, though she believes so. "America gave me the opportunity to play the best tennis any woman ever played, which I think I have done the past few years. Excuse me if that sounds like bragging...