MANSFIELD: Reflections on “The Greatest of ALL TIME!”

It may be pure coincidence that the decline of boxing — a once wildly popular sport in America as well as around the world — began to occur at approximately the same time as Muhammad Ali’s health began to decline. Quite simply put, at least to my way of thinking, after Ali, no one could ever emerge to challenge his supremacy in terms of boxing ability or his stature and impact on so many aspects of American and world culture.

But since “the manly art of self-defense” — the controlled violence of decimating an opponent in a one-on-one contest — is so ingrained in the human psyche, in spite of the decline of boxing, another form of “fighting” has gradually taking its place: “mixed martial arts,” more commonly known as “cage fighting,” is now drawing the huge crowds and pay-per-view television audiences that traditional boxing once did.

However, for boxing purists (like myself), this new sport is akin to bitch fighting, where kicking, arm twisting and wrestling around on the mat has taken the place of a sport that had gentlemanly rules that were set forth by the Marquess of Queensberry over 150 years ago. In a sense, the demise of the one form of decorous combat and the ascendancy of the other (which has been compared, quite accurately, to human cock fighting) is indicative of the direction in which society is heading. Think Donald Trump.

But I digress.

Ali’s appearance on the world stage and his ascendancy was perfectly timed. He came along at the exact moment in history when his race truly needed a hero like him. His quicksilver fists and lightning-fast feet differentiated from Dr. King’s message of peace and love quite nicely.

Black boxers — beginning with the flamboyant Jack Johnson, and continuing on with the likes of the magnificent duo of Joe Louis and Sugar Ray Robinson — were the pride of the race at a time when we were being told we had nothing to be proud of. They gave our race much needed hope when hope was in very short supply.

With their fists — and in no uncertain terms — they said to a white-dominated world that, since the introduction of slavery had made every effort to keep black people down by violence, “You can rape our women in the dark behind our backs and dare us to protest, you can cheat us of our honest labor to our faces and dare us to complain, you can curse and revile us in your press without challenge, and you can lynch us when every other means of control fails. But in a one-on-one fair fight, with a fair referee in the ring, we will still prevail. We will kick your ass, for we too, above all else, are men.”

While Stokely Carmichael, the Trinidadian-born revolutionary activist, was inventing the clinched fist Black Power salute, Ali was using his fists — and later his words and deeds — to change America in profound ways. Although he was only my senior by one year, the lessons he reinforced in me were the same ones I learned at my father’s knee — and they were as old as time: Pride, dignity, and yes, loudmouthed brashness when that was what was called for. Indeed, Ali — along with my father — made me into a 5’7” giant of a man. And he did the same for many, many others.

As a young man I, innately, was a pacifist (something my father and I disagreed on, quite vociferously at times) but I couldn’t give real voice to my beliefs until I heard Ali state as he refused to be inducted into the military, “I ain’t got no quarrel with the Vietcong. Ain’t no Vietcong ever called me nigger.’” With those words I won my first (and perhaps my only) “debate” with my father.

And everyone needs to keep in mind that military officials — in an effort to persuade Ali to take that fateful step forward and join up — promised the boxer that he would not become cannon fodder. His “job” would be to travel around the world putting on boxing exhibitions at Army bases. Nonetheless, Ali on principle still refused to violate his religious convictions, and was willing to risk going to prison for them. He put everything on the line for his beliefs.

He willingly suffered the opprobrium of much of the American public and press, lost three of his prime boxing years via banishment from the sport he dearly loved and was for a time flat broke, but nonetheless emerged out the other end of his ordeal once again still a champion in the ring, and eventually a champion to a larger segment of the public, both here at home and, indeed, around the world. His became the most recognized — and revered — visage on the planet, and deservedly so.

This gets personal. Champ, the moment you made me the most proud of you was when, during a match, you clutched an opponent to your chest, and over his shoulder and out of his eyesight, frantically motioned to the referee to step in and stop the contest — you didn’t want to hit your adversary again; it wasn’t necessary, the man was already whipped. In more than 60-plus years of watching what has been called the “sweet science,” I never saw another boxer have such compassion and concern for an opponent in the ring. Never.

Thank you, Muhammad Ali, for being our hero, our brave black knight in the shining armor of boxing trunks, our true warrior who attempted to knock down the walls of prejudice, bigotry and hatred in the world with the same efficacy with which you knocked down opponents in the ring. We loved you for what you did for us, and for whom and what you were. And, unstintingly, you loved us — all of us, no matter our color or nationality — right back.

In the end, you were right all along: You truly were, and forever will be “The Greatest of ALL TIME!”

From Cool Cleveland correspondent Mansfield B. Frazier mansfieldfATgmail.com. Frazier’s From Behind The Wall: Commentary on Crime, Punishment, Race and the Underclass by a Prison Inmate is available again in hardback. Snag your copy and have it signed by the author by visiting http://NeighborhoodSolutionsInc.com.

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