Muhammad Ali: A Memoir: My Views of the Greatest by Michael Parkinson

Author:Michael Parkinson [Parkinson, Michael]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Hodder & Stoughton
Published: 2016-11-23T23:00:00+00:00

Edited transcript of interview

MICHAEL: What’s the point of insulting each other, though? I mean you insult everybody before a fight.

ALI: The Garden is sold out. That’s why. I thought you, I thought you had more intelligence. This is a big man in London. Like Johnny Carson, he ain’t no big thing in London, Dick Cavett ain’t nothing in London. So look, in London this is the Johnny Carson. Everybody know him. I was on his show once. How many times did you run that show it was so good?

MICHAEL: Four or five times.

ALI: Four or five times. We were debating on religion, race, drought, boxing, on everything. They ran that show four or five times.

MICHAEL: What happens if you lose?

ALI: What happens if I lose?

DICK: Good question.

ALI: I can’t lose. I’m not worried about losing. I really don’t think about it. I’ve never made preparations for loss. I’m moving like I should move. I’m no longer playing. I’m boxing. This man comes in and anybody can hit him, all his sparring partners are ramming him every day. And there’s nothing to me, no class, no footwork, no speed, when I get those itty-bitty gloves on and be real serious and no playing, no staying in the corner.

FRAZIER: Wonder what they’re going to put on me … What kind of gloves I’m going to have?

ALI: I’ll prove, he can’t stop me. Nobody stops me.

FRAZIER: What kind of gloves am I going to have on? You answer that … What kind of gloves am I going to have on?

ALI: You’ll have the same gloves you have on last time. The same things you had last time.

FRAZIER: You gonna have little gloves? What they gonna put on me? Sledgehammer or something?

ALI: That sounds silly, another crazy question. Everybody knows he’s going to have on gloves like me.

FRAZIER: All right, but why are you making a statement like that?

ALI: What am I going to have on? OK. You going to have on gloves like me. And we always have on the same, let’s just get going now. [Ali & Frazier stand up to fight]

FRAZIER: Any time. Any time.

ALI: Don’t back out. Put your coat down, don’t back out.

DICK: You could hit him accidentally and break a finger or something.

ALI: I could hit him accidentally. What do you think I’m trying to do?

DICK: Why, anything you like.

FRAZIER: He’s trying to hit me.

ALI: Oh, I can’t wait. I can’t wait.

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