The Fight

Prizefighters do not, of course, train to kill people at large. To the contrary, prizefighting offers a profession to men who might otherwise commit murder in the street.

It takes bravery to live with beauty or wealth if we think of them as an existence connected to the messages, the curses, and the loyalties of the dead.

“I really don’t believe it,” said Jim Brown. “I really don’t believe it. I thought he was hurt. I thought his body was hurt. He came back. He hit Foreman with everything. And he winked at me.” Did he wink or stick out his tongue?

Suddenly Foreman hit Ali with a straight hard right. Ali held on to Foreman to travel through the shock. After the fight he would say that some of Foreman’s punches went right down to his toes, and this must have been one of them.

So the time had come to see if he could outbox Foreman while lying on the ropes. It had been his option from the beginning and it was the most dangerous option he had. For so long as Foreman had strength, the ropes would prove about as safe as riding a unicycle on a parapet. Still what is genius but balance on the edge of the impossible? Ali introd

To celebrate, he hit Foreman another straight right. Up and down the press rows, one exclamation was leaping, “He’s hitting him with rights.” Ali had not punched with such authority in seven years. Champions do not hit other champions with right-hand leads. Not in the first round. It is the most difficult and dangerous punch. Difficult to deliver a

But Sadler, Moore and Saddler had been teaching him to recover from mistakes. So his voice was quiet again and he added quickly, “I don’t think I’m superior to any previous Champion. It’s something I’ve borrowed, and I’ll have to give it up.” He turned expansive. “I even love to see young cats looking at me and saying, ‘Aaah, I can take him,’ and I

Boxers were liars. Champions were great liars. They had to be. Once you knew what they thought, you could hit them. So their personalities became masterpieces of concealment. There would be limits to what he could learn of Ali and Foreman by the aid of any philosophy. Still, he was grateful for the clue. Humans were not beings but forces. He would

In the next minute, Ali proceeded to hit Foreman with a combination rare as plutonium: a straight right hand followed by a long left hook. Spring-zing! went those punches, bolt to the head, bolt to the head; each time Foreman would rush forward in murderous rage and be caught by the neck and turned. His menace became more impressive each time he wa