Muhammad Ali: the Life of a Legend by Fiaz Rafiq

Author:Fiaz Rafiq
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Birlinn Limited

BOBBY GOODMAN

Bobby Goodman, an inductee of the International Boxing Hall of Fame, was born and raised in the Bronx, a borough of New York City. As a public relations man, he spent a lot of time on the road working with Ali and other top boxing champions. In the 1970s, Don King promoted him to the posts of director of boxing and matchmaker. In 1996, he rejoined Don King Productions where he was the vice president of boxing operations and public relations. Then he became the chief operating officer for Roy Jones Jr. Square Ring Promotions.

Q: Bobby, Muhammad Ali did everything possible to help promote his fights, can you expand on this, please?

Bobby Goodman: At night he used to check in with me in my room. I’d always do a schedule for the next day of interviews, appearances and things we were going to do. And I’d be on camp with him for months on end when he was training up in Deer Lake. Sometimes he didn’t think we were doing enough, so he would come up with things himself. Sometimes he might change an appointment to an earlier time or a later time. But he never turned down interviews, never turned down appearances that made sense. We were once in Houston, Texas, doing a fight with Buster Mathis. Every time he was in the presence of Ali, he would start laughing and smiling because Ali used to crack him up. We just weren’t making the fight believable and just weren’t selling tickets because Buster used to laugh at his idol every day.

It was not the fierce competition we were looking for. And after one day’s workout I said to him, “Muhammad, this is no good, we’re not selling any tickets. People don’t believe there’s any animosity. Buster laughs and smiles every time he sees you.” I said we had to come up with something where we can help sell tickets and his eyes went wide. He said, “I’ve got it! I’ve got it. It’ll make headlines all over the world.” And I said, “What’s that?” I couldn’t wait to get the response out of his mouth. I said, “What’s that, Muhammad? What’s that?” He said, “You can have me kidnapped. You can take me up in the woods and put me in the cabin, and just bring a couple of sparring partners and bring a ring. I can train there and show up a day or two before the fight.” I said, “Yeah, but people won’t see you and they think you’re not going to be fighting. We will never sell tickets because they’d think it’s not happening.” He said, “OK, you’re right. We’ll come up with something else.” It was just a fact he dreamed up something like that to come up with.

Then in the Philippines we were doing great with local media, but we weren’t getting the push all around the world. So I talked to Ali and we spoke to his manager Herbert. Ali said he could say this was going to be his last fight.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.