Running with the Champ: My Forty-Year Friendship with Muhammad Ali by Tim Shanahan

Author:Tim Shanahan [Shanahan, Tim]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Published: 2016-05-09T22:00:00+00:00

BY THE BEGINNING OF 1978, there were some significant changes around Muhammad. Ferdie Pacheco was upset enough by Muhammad’s latest medical lab results—particularly the state of Muhammad’s kidneys—that he decided he would no longer be part of the Ali team. Ferdie thought it was important to take a stand and let Muhammad know that he would no longer support Muhammad if he continued to box. Ferdie believed that Muhammad needed to stop boxing in order to prevent long-lasting injury to himself, and I had heard Ferdie say at the last camp that even if Muhammad stopped boxing right now, it would take a year or two for the damage already done to begin to heal. Muhammad played down the loss of this important member of his team, commenting, “I don’t need Pacheco’s help.”

With his thirty-sixth birthday approaching, it did seem like maybe Ferdie was right and that it was time for Muhammad to hang up the boxing gloves. The phenomenal final round of the Shavers fight would mark a great end to a great career. But even though Muhammad had conceded that he “should” retire, he wasn’t quite ready. He was approached with an offer of $3.5 million to fight a young heavyweight named Leon Spinks. Spinks had fought professionally only seven times, but was part of the 1976 Olympic boxing team that also included Sugar Ray Leonard, and, like Leonard, he had brought home a gold medal. Muhammad took great pride in the fact that he himself was an Olympic gold medalist who had beaten every other gold medalist he had faced: Floyd Patterson, Joe Frazier, and George Foreman. Defeating yet another gold medalist—this one young and hungry—would be the perfect cap to his career. After a bit of negotiating, the bout was scheduled for February 15, 1978, at the Hilton Hotel Convention Center in Las Vegas.

For at least a little while longer, Muhammad’s gloves would stay on.

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