BOXING : Ali Brought Changes for Better to Sport

Happy birthday, Champ.

Friday is your 50th birthday and there is no bigger or more important story in boxing than that. The game was irrevocably changed for the better on Oct. 29, 1960, the day you first boxed professionally, and has never been the same since Sept. 15, 1978, the night you beat Leon Spinks to win the heavyweight title for the record third time. Better off forgotten are the disastrous comeback fights against Larry Holmes and Trevor Berbick, which may have marred your health but could never besmirch your record.

Friday, a lot of writers around the country will take potshots at you and especially at boxing for the woeful condition you are in today. But you and I and a handful of others know the truth: Boxing made Cassius Clay-Muhammad Ali, and Cassius Clay-Muhammad Ali re-made boxing. You have told me and many others that if you were to do it all over again, you would do it the same way.

And why not? Yours is a tough legacy to improve upon. And let’s not forget, great accomplishments exact a great toll. No one, it seems, weeps for old football players who hobble on gimpy knees, or scarred, one-eyed hockey players, or crippled jockeys. But show them a boxer with a slur in his speech and a hitch in his walk and they all find a soapbox to climb on. It’s all about classism and racism and beating up on the little guy and has nothing to do with real concern for boxers.

What must you be thinking as you look out at the sport you left behind more than 10 years ago?

Are you proud of the heavyweight champion, Evander Holyfield, and his refusal to stand up against the World Boxing Council, which is threatening to strip him of its title if he signs to fight anyone but the indicted Mike Tyson? Holyfield’s handlers say being an undisputed champion is important to Holyfield, so they will sign for no fight until they know exactly what WBC President Jose Sulaiman is going to do.

Perhaps they should be reminded that more than 25 years ago, you refused to kowtow, even to the U.S. government. Refusing to be inducted into the service in 1967 cost you your title and your ability to earn a living for nearly four years, yet when you returned to boxing in 1970 a good portion of the world still considered you the heavyweight champion of the world.

But then, when you’re a real champ you know it and so do the people. You don’t need a tin-can belt, or even three, to prove it.

Are you disappointed by Tyson, your heir apparent in terms of fan appeal who instead has become more of a hapless stumblebum? You must cringe when you hear Tyson, soon to be tried on rape charges, described as “a black role model” and a victim of a white-motivated witch hunt. If anyone was both of those things, it was you. And you never resorted to the kind of behavior that Tyson and Don King indulge in almost daily. Today, you are revered by people of all races without ever compromising your ideals. Will Tyson ever be able to say the same?

Are you embarrassed to see that two of your contemporaries, Holmes and Foreman, are still around, using boxing as a sideshow for their greedy buffoonery? You knocked Foreman out 18 years and 40 pounds ago, and here he is, the most popular fighter, if not sports figure, in America. As for Holmes, your former sparring partner, he refuses to learn from his own example. He was the one who dealt you your only career knockout. He said it would never happen to him. And yet, he came back to be starched by Tyson in 1988 and still he fights on, at 42, preparing to face Ray Mercer next month. Do you pity him or fear for him? Probably both. Considering the man that you are, you probably root for him as well.

When you turn your gaze away from the ring, how must you feel about the state of sports in general, when bench-riding infielders are paid nearly as much a season as you made for that brutal first fight against Joe Frazier? Or when these same mediocrities demand $20 and up to sign an autograph at abominations known as “card shows,” without ever looking up or acknowledging the person they are signing for?

I don’t know how you feel about that, but I do know how you handle it, because I’ve seen it. At last year’s Boxing Writers dinner, you were the guest of honor. You were at the end of the first week of a tour to promote the fine oral biography of you written by Tom Hauser, and you were tired. But you sat patiently and signed for every single person who came up to you, and it is safe to say that all 450 people in attendance came by at least once.

While another prominent heavyweight with a good-guy reputation turned down a smattering of autograph requests, you personalized every signature and posed for photos with everyone who asked. You refused to let me cut the flow off for a few minutes so you could eat your dinner uninterrupted. And when it came time for you to speak, you dazzled everyone with your wit and touched them with your humility. You were The Greatest in the ring and that night you were still The Greatest.

Happy 50th, Champ. Compared to you, the rest are just club fighters.

Furthermore ... Here’s how low boxing’s appeal has gone: of HBO’s 10 fights in 1991, the highest rated, by far, was Foreman-Jimmy Ellis. No. 3 was a replay of Foreman-Holyfield, just behind a replay of Holyfield-Bert Cooper. HBO’s best live fight, Pernell Whitaker-Jorge Paez, came in eighth. ... HBO’s “Night of the Young Heavyweights,” declared dead last week, has been resuscitated for Feb. 1 with Riddick Bowe-Jose Ribalta, Michael Moorer-Mike “The Giant” White and Lennox Lewis-Derrick Williams. Better they should rename it, too, to “Night of the Living Dead” ... HBO has Meldrick Taylor-Glenwood Brown and Whitaker-Harold Brazier from the Philadelphia Civic Center Saturday night at 10 (EST).

Sources say Darrin Van Horn was looking for a last-minute way out of his fight with Iran Barkley last Friday; hence his 4 a.m. visit to St. Luke’s-Roosevelt Hospital for a hand X-ray the morning of the fight....The Barkley-Thomas Hearns rematch is now heading for Caesars Palace on March 20.

ABC very busy in February, with fights on three weekends: James Toney-Dave Tiberi Feb. 8, Michael Carbajal-Marcos (not Ferdie) Pacheco Feb. 15 and Terry Norris-Carl Daniels Feb. 22. ... Tommy Morrison starts comeback from KO loss to Mercer Feb. 16. No opponent has been named.