{"id":119085,"date":"2017-11-28T13:38:45","date_gmt":"2017-11-28T21:38:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/?p=119085"},"modified":"2017-11-28T13:41:26","modified_gmt":"2017-11-28T21:41:26","slug":"ali-a-life","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/?p=119085","title":{"rendered":"‘Ali: A Life’"},"content":{"rendered":"

From the New York Times Book Review<\/a>: <\/p>\n

As early as 1970 Ali\u2019s physician Ferdie Pacheco (the \u201cFight Doctor\u201d) began numbing Ali\u2019s fists before fights with cortisone and an anesthetic called Xylazine. \u201cAli\u2019s hands were so shot he couldn\u2019t hit a pillow,\u201d Ali\u2019s business manager said. It was suspected by his handlers that Ali had incurred \u201clasting brain damage after the Frazier fight in 1971,\u201d but his final fight, a shameful debacle in which he could scarcely defend himself against the much younger Trevor Berbick, was in 1981…<\/p>\n

Asked why he\u2019d continued to work with Ali despite his diminishing skills, Ferdie Pacheco replied angrily: \u201cYou\u2019re in the corner to keep them fighting \u2026 not to tell them not to fight. If you didn\u2019t tell them to fight, you were fired immediately.\u201d Ali\u2019s famous \u201crope-a-dope\u201d strategy, which allowed him to win the Rumble in the Jungle against the younger, stronger George Foreman by absorbing as many powerful blows as Foreman could throw, was in the short run a triumph; in the long run, a medical disaster. The later years of Ali\u2019s decline are depicted in chapters in Eig\u2019s biography with such ominous titles as \u201c\u2018They May Not Let Me Quit,\u2019\u201d \u201cStaggered,\u201d \u201cOld,\u201d \u201cThe Last Hurrah\u201d and \u201cToo Many Punches\u201d that take us 18 years beyond the brightly lit terrain of Remnick\u2019s biography into a hellish twilight of irreversible neurological damage…<\/p>\n

“Some writers said that Ali had \u2018transcended\u2019 race. It was an attempt to whitewash his legacy, and it was dead wrong. Race was the theme of Ali\u2019s life.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Ali was illiterate and had an IQ of about 78.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

From the New York Times Book Review: As early as 1970 Ali\u2019s physician Ferdie Pacheco (the \u201cFight Doctor\u201d) began numbing Ali\u2019s fists before fights with cortisone and an anesthetic called Xylazine. \u201cAli\u2019s hands were so shot he couldn\u2019t hit a … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3806],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-119085","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-boxing"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t