How Muhammad Ali Almost Broke Boxing with His Unparalleled Confidence

And you're looking up at me saying, "Ali, don't do it." I'm chopping trees. I've done something special. I don't pay no attention to what they say about me. I told you all that I was the greatest of all time. But my main fight is for freedom and equality. You really can't plan a fight when you're meeting a man you've never met before, right? I'm gonna dance and be pretty. I'm just gonna win on points. Maybe sometimes the will can outdo the skill. You are fighting the greatest fighter of all times. This is the Ali Show.

He's an American former professional boxer. He's widely considered among the greatest heavyweights in the history of the sport. He's one of the most recognized sports figures of the past 100 years. He's Muhammad Ali, and here are his top 10 rules for success.

My thinking is so superior, and my knowledge is so positive, and my logic is so wise until It clashes with their mentality, which is down here and I'm over there. So by me being so high, I can see more and see farther than you. And you're looking up at me saying, "Ali, don't do it!" "Ali, please stop, you might get hurt!" And you're on a job making $60, $70 a week, or whoever this guy is. Never been out of the country. Not known in his own neighborhood. Ali, don't do it. But I'm at such a high level until I don't think like you. I'm not like you. I know they say you're a mean person, but you know why they say that. I mean, it's for the best possible reasons. They have fear and they are wary. It looks dangerous to them. That's right. It's not really that dangerous to me.

Lee is irritated and taunted. He was knocked down squarely with the straight right. Guys, the man slipped.

Great right.

Oh, Billy Walton is stopping No problem.

This will be the biggest upset since Sonny Liston, and I think it is befitting that I go out of boxing just like I came in, defeating a big bad monster that nobody could destroy. A hard punch. I'm the underdog. If he hits me, I'm in trouble like the Sonny Liston fight, but I came back and I shook the world and I got Liston. Now it's 10 years since Sonny Liston. I'm meeting another big, bad, strong monster knockout artist that beats everybody. Sonny Liston knocked out Patterson twice, and I was supposed to fall, but he didn't knock me out because he could hit hard, but he couldn't find nothing to hit. George Foreman knocked out Ken Norton, knocked out Joe Frazier. True, I didn't knock him out, but I'm so fast, I'm so hard hit, I'm so scientific. I'm a total different man from Frazier and Norton. Listen, David, when I meet this man, if you think the world was surprised when Nixon resigned, wait till I whip Foreman's behind. I'm telling you, David, I'm down to 215 pounds right now. I said it when 215. I'm fighting weight already. I usually train 6 weeks for fight. I've trained 4 months for fight. I'm chopping trees. I've done something special. I've wrestled with an alligator. I've tussled with a— I believe you totally. I believe you completely. I have tussled with a whale. I done handcuffed lightning, throw thunder in jail. Now, you know I'm bad. Only last week, I murdered a rock, injured a stone, hospitalized a brick. I'm so mean, I make medicine sick.

Man's in trouble. Listen, George Foreman—

people are afraid of George Foreman. They talk about how hard he hits. The world has been deceived. You listen to me now, I've never told you wrong. The man don't hit hard. He knocked Joe Frazier down 6 times, he got up 6 times. Joe King Romanes, Tokyo, Japan fight, the Puerto Rican champion, knocked him down 3 times, he jumped up 3 times. He knocked Ken Norton down 4 times, he jumped up 4 times. When have you ever saw the man say, "7, 8, 9, 10, count this man out." When I hit Sonny Liston in the second fight, he stayed out for the count of 10. Zora Fuller stayed out for the count of 10. Cleveland Williams stayed out for the count of 10. What few I have knocked out stayed down. Sugar Ray Robinson knocked him out for the count of 30. Joe Louis, Marciano, Jack Dempsey, Jack Johnson, Archie Moore as a child, they knock him out cold. So this man has never knocked nobody out cold. He's a bully. He's slow. He has no skill, no footwork. He's awkward. And I have been giving him a name. I named Floyd Patterson the Rabbit. I named Sonny Liston the Bear. And he shall be known officially as the The Mummy. The Mummy. And why the Mummy? Because he fights. When he's fighting, if you ever watch him in the ring, he drags like that off his opponent. And how's a mummy going to catch me? When you're fighting a mummy, you just keep a step ahead of the mummy. Keep moving. Yeah, just move on the mummy. Nope, mummy, I'm over here.

No, mummy, I'm over here.

Yeah, no, you moving too fast. The mummy don't move that fast. I don't pay no attention to what they say about me. All I do is just do what I have to do and get paid, and that's it. But I don't really pay no attention to the rules of boxing. I don't pay no attention. I defy all the rules. I defy— I've added pages to The book of boxing. I have this game as such a thing now until boxing promoters can no longer afford my shows. I have governments like Iran ready to put up $10 million for me to fight Joe Frazier. I have governments like Cairo, Egypt want to put up $6 million with people like Ron Lyle. I have countries all like, all back throughout Zaire talking to Mobutu. He wants him back again. They'll put up $5 million for a return with Foreman. We talk about $10 million and $6 million and $4 million. This is unbelievable. And they don't expect to get the money back. They put promoting their countries and their ideals. So I've excelled so in this sport of boxing until Madison Square Garden is too small, Yankee Stadium is too small, the Houston Astrodome— the biggest promoters and the wealthiest Americans and Englishmen you can get for promotions cannot just promote me no more, you understand? So I've not only added pages to boxing, but added new sections to the boxing book.

See how well the challenger rolls back from those punches. And there's Foley down! 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9. Foley is up in time. Talk about Foley's courage. The champion has plenty of stuff, there's no question about that. Holy cow! That might end! I don't know if he's gonna make this one. 6, 7, 8. He's not gonna keep— Nope! He gamely tried to get up. And Muhammad Ali has retained his heavyweight championship. Everybody stop talking now! Attention! I told you, all of my critics, I told you all that I was the greatest of all time when I beat Sonny Liston. I told you today I'm still the greatest of all time. Never again defeat me.

Never again say that I'm going to be defeated.

Never again make me the underdog until I'm about 50 years old.

Then you might get me. But I didn't dance. I didn't dance for a reason. I wanted to make him lose all his power. I kept telling him he had no punch, he couldn't hit, he's swinging like a sissy, he's missing. Let me see you box. I hadn't started dancing yet. You can't say my legs are gone. You can't say I was tired because what happened? I didn't dance from the second round on. I stayed on the ropes. When I stay on the ropes, you think I'm doing bad, but I want all boxers to put this in a page of boxing. Staying on the ropes is a beautiful thing with a heavyweight when you make him shoot his best shots and you know he's not hitting you. I would have gave George Foreman 2 rounds of steady punching because after that he was mine.

Ellis is reeling. He looks defenseless on the ropes. The referee may be deciding whether he's going to stop the fight. He is stopping the fight.

I really care nothing about boxing. Boxing is a stepping stone just to introduce me to the audience. Like, if I was still in Louisville, Kentucky and never was a boxer, I might get killed next week in some type of freedom struggle and you never read the news. But now, if I even say the wrong thing, it makes news. So like, boxing is just to introduce me to the struggle. Like, when I speak, I draw people in the States to draw my people to teach them various things which will give them dignity, pride, and self-help, and go for self. I help the ghetto, I help the dope, prostitution problem, the juveniles, and I use I'll use my image to help. I'll do all I can to stop a lot of trouble among our own people fighting and killing each other. So boxing is just going to be another year, but my main fight is for freedom and equality. And this is what I plan to do in boxing. It's good for livelihood, but mainly money don't really mean nothing because I proved that when I gave up the title, not knowing if I'm coming back or not for 4 years, and they let me back on my terms. I didn't deny nothing. I believe I'm still the same everything. So if even today, if my title hadn't been given back to me, if I got such in poverty where I had to go find a job, I would have did that. But I was, I made a good living speaking in colleges because the war got unpopular and so many Black militants were trying to do all they could. And I was naturally right in the middle of all of it and represented it, and that kept me alive. But if I couldn't fight, I would still not be fighting. So number one comes freedom first for my people, equality and This is what I plan to do after I'm through fighting, working with nothing but the people, the little people in the alleys, the wineheads, the downtrodden people, going out among them and helping them with my image.

Oh, that right hand, the overhand right, I think he nailed him. Flynn against the ropes, hanging on, and on the canvas he is down.

You know, I'm sure Henry will tell you, any fighter that knows what's happening, you really can't plan a fight when you're meeting a man you've never met before, right? You just have to get your tools ready. Here's a car stops on the highway, they call the AAA or whatever and say, my car's broke down. What it is, The lady, she don't know it, but when the man comes with all the tools and he come equipped to handle whatever the problem is. Astronaut goes into space and he pretends that something happens to the ship before he take off. He gets out and he works on it. He's not looking for something to happen, but it might happen. So I didn't know, I just had everything ready. Now, after the first round, being here with a top professional, a man so great, had so many knockouts, never been defeated, never been even scratched, I didn't know really how good he was. So I had to come in actually a little nervous and with everything ready. After one round of dancing, I found out that this would tire me out, so I would have to resort to ropes. I figured that out after the first round. So I said, I'm gonna go to these ropes and I'm gonna let this man throw everything he can, let him tire himself out. He might look like he's winning, and if he don't hurt me, I'm gonna stay here. But if he should be as great as they say he is, if he hits as hard as they say he hit, when he hits you and breaks your arm, he knocked out Joe Frazier, I couldn't do it, knocked out Ken Norton. He was a big bad giant before the fight, you remember. Now you remember that, don't you? How bad he was. They don't say that now, but you remember he was a real bad cat the other day, right? Don't forget that. Now, after I found out he didn't have it, I stayed there. But if he had had what I thought he had had or what they said he had, I'd have kept running, hoping I wouldn't get tired.

—ready to go! He's ready to go! Ali comes on! He's out of his feet right now! There's the combination! Ali has his man in trouble! Brecker attempting to hang on pitifully. He's trying to hang on. He's falling on his feet. Ali smokes him! Right hand off the left hook! 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, the referee stops the fight.

And it's really silly when you think about fighting. I look at other fighters fighting, I say, I must be a fool. Here are two men like two roosters. You know them cockfights? They take two roosters and they put them out and they put knives on them and the roosters are fighting each other and they're not even mad, don't know each other, and just to please somebody. And here are two men in the ring fighting each other and they hitting each other and they bleeding and they fighting What they mad about? They're not mad about nothing. Just a bunch of agitating, bloodthirsty people saying, "You can whoop him, he can whoop him, my man can whoop your man. Alright, y'all get in there and fight." You must have no sense to me. And you sitting out there dressed up drinking your beer and they just fighting. And this is serious. The nose is bleeding, the eye's cut, the teeth is out, and the brain, they might have a concussion. Please you, human beings. It's real savage. And I said, I'm not going to be that kind of fighter. I'm going to dance and be pretty. I'm just going to win on points. And if I hurt my man, I'm going to let him go. I'm not going to kill him just because somebody's watching. I did it to Floyd Patterson. I did it to George Chavalo. I did it to Carl Miltonberger. I did it to Henry Cooper. When he started bleeding, I pulled off of him deliberately, blood just pumping and gushing. And he's got a family. He's got children. And I just can't— James Ellis. I can't see myself with a man on the ropes and just to prove how bad I am, and I see I got him, his eyes and his head, he's helpless, and I'm just deliberately hitting him. I don't do that.

It came from nowhere! Ali came through with a left! The crowd screaming! The first knockdown of the fight! He took the advantage already! And now Ali is behaving like the old Ali! One more knockdown in this round, the fight is automatically over! Bonavena is running! If he goes down again, it's over! Ali is the knockout winner at 2 minutes and 3 seconds! —by my unofficial clock of the final round. It began with a left. I'm going up to ring center.

Whether it's a world champion boxer, basketball player, or track star, or horse, even animals, I find out that— this Mark Spitz, for an example, he's a world champion. But what made him the world champion was that he seemed to, at the right time when the pressure's down, at the last few yards, he can get that lead, or he's got enough left to make it. I fought Ken Norton my last fight. The fight was even up until the last round, but I had something that he didn't have, although I'm much older, and that was the last-minute kick. What's that last-minute kick? Is that something— just the stamina, the strength, the more than training, the mental capacity, mental to realize what's involved and how important it is to make it by the do something that's really too tired to do, your mind makes you do it. Mark Spitz, this Olympic track star I was mentioning, he wasn't that much greater than all the people in the world, but sometimes he won by just that much. And a champion is just one who can come out at the last minute and close the show, as they say, the star closes the show. A 14, 15-round fight, and it's even, and usually this champion, you can depend on him to come to it the last few seconds and find some energy somewhere. Is that mental discipline? Is it discipline? Not only that, it's mental and physical. His body's in physical shape to do it, plus mentally too. He's got himself in condition where both fellas may be— sometimes the will can outdo the skill. And sometimes a fella's will is stronger than the man who's actually better physically, and the determination weakens the other man just to see him so determined.

Ali moving in on London. Accusative punches by Muhammad Ali. London goes down.

The referee sends Ali to a neutral corner. Your pre-fight, your pre-fight, uh, buildups, um, when you go to the weigh-in and you have they appear mock-up battles with the other opponent. Are they really? How much is that towards the promotion? Well, I'm not really in the fight there because I wouldn't be paid, but I really do be angry. I have to psych myself up. I put myself on spots. I say it's just the pressure and for the build, for the build-up of the fight. Not really, because the evening of the fight is when that happens and it's really sold out by then. But it actually puts fear in your opponent, like George Foreman. Just before the fight, I'm looking at him and the man's giving his instructions. I said, "Sucker, you are in trouble tonight. You are fighting the greatest fighter of all times. You heard I was the greatest," like you just said, "You heard this, now you see it." I said, "You said I was the greatest, but you're gonna see. I'm fast, sucker. I'm gonna burn you up. You were fighting your idol. When you were a little kid, you heard about me," you know, and he was, he wasn't even fighting He didn't have his first fight until 1969. I've been in exile 2 years after all I've done. He just started fighting. So when I was fighting people like you in the '60s, he was just a little kid in junior high school. I said, you're meeting your master, your idol. He looked at me. Then I went back, first round, I laid in the corners, right? I said, come on, show me something. I talked through the whole fight. I don't know if you all know it. I talked through the whole fight. I said, come on, sucker. I said, show me something. They told me you could hit hard. You're just a sissy. Come on, sucker, show me something. Come on, you can do better than that, George. You want to corner me? Here I am. You waiting to corner me? And he just— and every once in a while I just go— see, the quickest way to a point is a straight line. To hit me, he had to do that. And while he's doing that, I said— I'm tagging him with jabs, right? He'll fight You know, whenever you meet a man coming at you like that, don't worry about it. Don't duck like it's so powerful. Just pop him. Pop. See? See? He's going— I'd have hit him before he got there. He's sticking one in. What else did you say to him? Oh, I grabbed his head sometimes and I said, look at you, look at you. Round 7 and you're tired. You have 8 more rounds to go. Come on, keep punching. I want you to get tired. I said, uh-oh. I said, this is the wrong place to get tired. This is the wrong place to get tired. He's just throwing them. I said, he got a couple of bruises. You notice his face is kind of swollen. I said, look at you. You're the world heavyweight champion. You're the world— Popping's hitting him. You're the world heavyweight champion, and look at me. You can't— Pop, I hit you. Just say, watch out, here come another one. Pop! I said, "Look at that! Look at that!" He threw it in there. I said, "Come on, come on, get him." I'm going back to the rope now. I laid back. I said, "Okay, take your best shot. Take your best shot." He's breathing. I said, "Oh, oh, you finished, boy. You are in trouble." I said, "You don't have but 2 chances, slim and none. You in trouble." I talked to him through the whole fight.

You know the old story, you hit him in the body and the head might follow.

I was told that it's a big honor to be invited to speak at a place like Harvard. I'm trying to be serious, but you want to make me laugh anyway. I understand that out of people such as you all come presidents and governors and mayors and great doctors and physicians and scientists and everything. So I said, well, to get something together to talk to these people, it's got to be pretty heavy. If you had told me I'd be offered a professorship to teach philosophy and poetry at Oxford and speaking at Harvard, man, I never would have believed it. So I'm real humble and I'm thankful to be here. It's such a high seat of learning, and I'm just a boxer where most boxers can't even talk. You couldn't invite Joe Frazier, George Foreman. This is the Ali Show.

In the long and glorious history of Harvard University, no speaker ever received such a tumultuous standing ovation. Very even fight. Ali, a sneaky right hand. Another sneaky right hand. This time he worked over the shoulder. 5, 6, Foreman gets him up with a knee, 8, that's it! The fight is stopped! The Romanov leads! It's a bang! It's not knockout! He knocks him out!

George Foreman keeps cutting Romanov off! Thank you so much for watching. I made this video because Lex Vanden Herik asked me to. So if there's a famous entrepreneur that you want me to profile next, next, leave it in the comments below and I'll see what I can do. I'd also love to know which of Muhammad Ali's top 10 rules meant the most to you. Leave it in the comments and I'll join in the discussion. Thank you so much for watching. Continue to believe and I'll see you soon.

Do you ever get frightened before a fight? Do you ever get nervous before a fight? I'm nervous but not frightened. I'm nervous because I I have a great insight on— I just don't see the audience. Every camera, I see millions of people. Like the Frazier fight was watched by 100 million people, which is 5 times the population of everybody in the United States. Just a picture arena with 1 million people, I imagine you couldn't see them all. And just think about 100 million and 100 million and all those people and everything. That makes me nervous, just the idea of me just I've just been a humble fellow from Kentucky, got lucky in sports, and now here's the house, the fight was piped into a place like Thailand to the government house, and Arabia, and the government officials took time off to watch the fight, and just for two men boxing, attracting so many people of all races and nationalities. In Hawaii, I understand, they stopped, closed all the factories, and the people, they set televisions on every other street corner And people came out watching them fight on the streets and every bar in America, every, every house, even traffic was still during that fight. And Madison Square Garden, 10,000 people couldn't get in, and just over one man. And just imagine all them people watching you. That makes me nervous until, until I get started, and then never nervous at all.

No. How about this villain role? You're getting to be the villain and Liston is getting to be— yeah, first Liston was the villain.

Didn't nobody like Liston.

Liston was a Listen was a thug, Listen was a gangster, Listen was this, Listen was that. Everybody wants to see Listen beat, and now all of a sudden Listen is the favorite. You know, I guess— That's the way I like it. That makes me rumble. Don't we rumble? Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee. Rumble, young man, rumble.

That's what we gonna do, we gonna rumble. Well, I have a poem. Huh? You got one minute? One minute each? The poem goes like this. People say, what's gonna happen? You meet Joe Frazier again. Here's how the fight's gonna sound on the radio for those of you who can't afford to buy the expensive theater seats. And the fight goes like this. Ding! Ali comes out to meet Frazier, but Frazier starts to retreat. If Frazier goes back an inch farther, he'll wind up in the ringside seat. Ali swings with the left, Ali swings with the right. Look at the kid carry the fight. Frazier keeps backing, but there's not enough room. It's a matter of time. There Ali lowers the boom. Now Ali lands to the right, what a beautiful swing, and the punch lifts Frazier clean out of the ring. Frazier's still rising, but the referee wears a frown, for he can't start counting till Frazier comes down. The carrier disappears from view. The crowd is getting frantic. But our radar stations have picked him up. He's somewhere over the Atlantic. Who would have thought when they came to the fight that they would witness the launching of a colored satellite?