BoxRec

`MUHAMMAD AND LARRY': BOXING KING CASTS HIS SHADOW, EVEN AT TIME OF DEFEAT
By MIKE HALE


The 38-year-old Muhammad Ali looms before the lens, speaking to it as if it were one of the children who came to his training camp every day to sit rapt in his presence. ``Take the film and take exactly what I'm saying,'' he tells the camera in soft, singsong tones. ``If I get whupped, play it back. Because I'll be a fool.''
He did get whupped, and 29 years later ESPN is finally playing it back. ``Muhammad and Larry,'' a documentary being shown on Tuesday night in the channel's ``30 for 30'' series, is a potent combination. It's a sad and frustrating account of Ali's pummeling at the hands of Larry Holmes in October 1980, the loss that effectively ended his career. But it's also a freshly opened time capsule, an exciting look at scenes filmed during preparations for the fight that have not been shown outside of a few festivals.
Albert and David Maysles (of ``Grey Gardens'' fame) were commissioned to document the Ali-Holmes bout, Ali's ill-advised attempt to emerge from retirement and claim the heavyweight title for the fourth time. Blending into the carnival scene, they filmed at both fighters' Pennsylvania training camps and then followed Holmes to his Easton, Pa., home.
In the aftermath of Ali's disturbing and embarrassing loss, no one wanted the short film they put together. Now Albert Maysles, the surviving brother, and Bradley Kaplan have combined the original footage with current interviews _ of Holmes and his wife, Diane; members of Ali's camp; and a group of boxing writers, but not of Ali himself _ and assembled a new, hour-long version of ``Muhammad and Larry.''
The Ali-Holmes story has taken shape over the years as a combination of mystery and Shakespearean tragedy, its key points agreed upon: the punishment Ali took from his younger sparring partners; the Mayo Clinic exam in which he had trouble touching his finger to his nose; the misguided prescription of thyroid medicine by a Nation of Islam doctor. These are all covered in the new interviews, often by the writers who codified them, including Thomas Hauser and Bert Sugar. The fight itself is shown briefly, with the wrenching scene of the trainer Angelo Dundee stepping in front of Ali and yelling at the referee, ``No, the game's over.''
But all you need to see is Ali lumbering through his workouts, stopping and starting as he tries to find his rhythm on the speed bag, to know that the fight should not have taken place. In front of the adoring crowds who came to watch him spar, he paws at the 22-year-old contender Tim Witherspoon, who in turn lands blow after blow on Ali's body.
Meanwhile Holmes, who was in the midst of a seven-year run as champion, snaps jabs and breathes easily before handfuls of fans. He's genial but matter of fact as he discusses getting into the ring with Ali, whom he had served as a sparring partner earlier in his career. The beating he would give his former boss would be cited later as a factor in Ali's development of Parkinson's disease, but listen to Holmes speaking several months before the fight:
``He just got slower and older, and it takes a little longer for him to get around now. I noticed that. He don't think as quick anymore.''
Albert Maysles has spoken of the affection he felt for both fighters, and he gives both their due. The tragedy was Ali's, born not of foolishness but of pride and a stubborn belief in himself. Overall, though, the film belongs to Holmes, the hardworking, everyday guy who happened to have a genius for hitting people. The bitterness he has long been said to feel at being overshadowed by Ali looks more like clarity.
``Ali was a great guy,'' he says today. ``But when it comes down to Ali doing his thing, he wanted to be here and you down there. As long as you stay down there, and he's up there, you're the greatest thing in the world to him.''
The best sports films tend to be about loss, even when they portray winners, and the initial documentaries in the ``30 for 30'' project _ commemorating three decades of ESPN _ have all been both entertaining and bittersweet, examining Wayne Gretzky's departure from Canada, the Colts' midnight flight from Baltimore (Barry Levinson's touching ``The Band That Wouldn't Die'') and the death of the US Football League. ``Muhammad and Larry'' maintains the series' excellent record so far. Things won't be getting cheerier: Next, on Nov. 3, is Kirk Fraser's ``Without Bias,'' about the death of the basketball star Len Bias.

Adamj1987 wrote:sounds good is there anyway i can watch in in the Uk do you know?

oliverfennell wrote:

Adamj1987 wrote:sounds good is there anyway i can watch in in the Uk do you know?

Don't know, but you get a version of ESPN there now, don't you? So it might be on at a later date.

oliverfennell wrote:

Adamj1987 wrote:sounds good is there anyway i can watch in in the Uk do you know?

Don't know, but you get a version of ESPN there now, don't you? So it might be on at a later date.

ThatOne wrote:

oliverfennell wrote:

Adamj1987 wrote:sounds good is there anyway i can watch in in the Uk do you know?

Don't know, but you get a version of ESPN there now, don't you? So it might be on at a later date.

I couldn't believe how bad Ali looked- doing roardwork, sparring, hitting the speedbag, even talking. I can't believe his handlers took the fight but $8,000,000.00 is a lot of money. Plus in his biography whenever he needed money he would fight.

And Tim Witherspoon, his young sparring partner looked like he weighed 170 pounds.

A total fiasco ala Cammacho-Leonard. Neither Leonard or Ali could even fight back.

tzyuforever wrote:What a depressing watch this was.

granberry wrote:

tzyuforever wrote:What a depressing watch this was.

Depressing is the word.

Ali should not have been paid for the "fight."

He threw 5 punches in ten rounds.

And then quit in his corner (unlike the great champs in the history of boxing)

and still collected his million dollars.

What a fraud.

turn2stone wrote:

granberry wrote:

tzyuforever wrote:What a depressing watch this was.

Depressing is the word.

Ali should not have been paid for the "fight."

He threw 5 punches in ten rounds.

And then quit in his corner (unlike the great champs in the history of boxing)

and still collected his million dollars.

What a fraud.

do you really think ali was looking for an easy way out, that he was attempting to pull one over on the public. that's what fraud is. i find that line of thinking hard to buy. i find it easier to believe that going into the fight Ali was deluded with grandeur and sincerely believed he could turn back time. that it would somehow just "happen" because of who he was.

Robinson wrote:Yet he got in the ring, went through training camp, sparred publically
and campaigned as he does prior.
Parkinsons or not, he was still in shape.

It is with 20/20 hindsight that the thyroid medication explanation has
been sought, and yes the Parkinsons was and is very real no doubt.

Weaver is a nasty match up for Ali, though I doubt he would have
gotten the stoppage. Though perhaps it would have played out in
some ways like his Berbick fight, where he was more competitive,
though never the winner.

The wrong guy in the sense that he met some one who was at or
near there best, had the style to give him a run for him when he
was where he was as a great.

I am not hating on Ali, Granberry style.

Robinson wrote:Plenty of fighters are in shape with brain damage and
illnesses.

In shape, does not mean he was ready to fight for a
title. No doubt the parkinson hindered his reflexes (which
was evident, etc).

Why was the bout sanctioned at all, is the real question..

When was Ali diagnosed with the illness ? 1984 ?

Robinson wrote:If we are going to use hindsight to 'diagnose' Ali with his
symptons that would suggest he had Parkinsons, we could
go back to 1976 or 77, where he was displaying some of
symptons of parkinson.