I have lived in Alaska since 1982 but I grew up in Minnesota with exposure to its rich boxing history. My dad, Jim O'Hara, was in the boxing business.
Back in 1980 Larry Holmes vs. Scott LeDoux was booked for July 7 at the Metropolitan Sports Center, which was in Bloomington, Minnesota, the same venue where LeDoux had fought Ken Norton to a 10-round draw a year earlier.
Don King was the promoter, and Muhammad Ali was there, providing ballyhoo for the event as well as for a possible future contest with Holmes.
Ali was 38 years old and would indeed have two more paydays: Larry Holmes (October 1980) and Trevor Berbick (December 1981).
LeDoux was the real deal, a contender during arguably the greatest era of the heavyweight division, including when Muhammad Ali was leading the discussion.
On July 6, 1980, the day of the weigh-in for the Holmes-LeDoux match, things were going well, just the usual hiccups, like finding an 18-foot ring to replace the 17-foot-4-inch squared circle that had been set up. Holmes' management insisted upon the larger ring as Holmes, the scientific boxer, wanted more room for his footwork. Muhammad Ali was there. My father, Jim O'Hara, had brought my brother Jeff, age 15, and Ali was gracious in showing him card tricks.
The weigh-in was at the Registry Hotel, which was near the MET Center. Later that evening, my father was approached by someone from Holmes' camp. They spoke privately, and my father learned that the main event might be off and that he was needed upstairs in Holmes' suite. My father told Jeff to follow him.
When they arrived at Holmes' room, there were bodyguards outside the door. When they entered the large suite, only three other men were present: Larry Holmes, Don King and Muhammad Ali.
Sleight of hand, kind heart
Ali would fight Holmes three months later but he wasn't going to interfere tonight. He offered to show Jeff more card tricks across the room at a coffee table, which he did for the next 30 minutes. He also threw some magic tricks into the mix.
Larry Holmes, Don King and Jim remained standing on the other side of the room. They never sat down. If Holmes was walking in Ali's shadow in public, he certainly wasn't in private. Carrying his infant child, Holmes insisted that his view of the contract terms be followed. Don King argued his view of the deal. Jim served as mediator.
Holmes and King were able to work out their differences. The next day, LeDoux got a crack at the title.
Holmes won by TKO in the seventh, and after LeDoux, Holmes' next title defense was against Muhammad Ali himself. In October 1980, Holmes was awarded a technical knockout against Ali in the 10th round in Las Vegas.
At 38, Ali was no longer the greatest in the ring, but he was still great, as demonstrated by the kindness he'd shown my brother Jeff back in Minnesota.
THE FIGHTER
Ali is ranked No. 7 on the Bert Sugar list of the top 100 fighters of all time, after Sugar Ray Robinson, Henry Armstrong, Willie Pep, Joe Louis, Harry Greb and Benny Leonard ("Boxing's Greatest Fighters" by Bert Randolph Sugar).
Years later, Muhammad Ali was asked to name his picks for the list of the top 10 heavyweight champs of all time. His list appeared in "The Ultimate Book of Boxing Lists" by Bert Randolph Sugar and Teddy Atlas. He didn't name himself, offering that the editors could insert him wherever they wanted. Here's Ali's list in chronological order with some of his comments:
Jack Johnson: "Scientific boxer."
Jack Dempsey: "He hit hard."
Gene Tunney: "Accurate left jab and right cross."
Joe Louis: "Knockout punching."
Ezzard Charles: "Scientific boxer."
Jersey Joe Walcott: "He would come in, then move out."
Rocky Marciano: "Could take a punch and just keep coming."
Joe Frazier: "Just kept coming, moving forward, no matter how hard you hit him."
George Foreman: "Knockout puncher."
Larry Holmes: "Hard hitter."
Bert Sugar ranked Sugar Ray Robinson the greatest pound-for-pound boxer in history. My father said the same. What about the heavies? Within the top 10 boxers of all time, Bert Sugar listed four heavyweights. He booked Joe Louis at No. 4, Muhammad Ali at No. 7, Jack Dempsey at No. 9 and Jack Johnson at No. 10.
They say Ali always wanted to be a big Sugar Ray Robinson. My father considered Ali the greatest heavyweight of all time, indeed the greatest overall fighter behind only Robinson.
THE MAN
Ali had started boxing at age 12, eventually becoming known in some quarters as the "fifth Beatle" because no one had ever seen anything like him. He became a star in 1964, the same year the Beatles became stars. If he'd been snubbed by big shots when he was a no-name kid, Ali wasn't about to do the same to my brother Jeff. Ali treated Jeff the way Ali would've wanted to be treated.
"And I remember," Ali said later as part of an authorized biography, "how bad I felt one time when I met Sugar Ray Robinson and asked for his autograph, and he told me, 'I'm busy, kid.' " ("Muhammad Ali: His Life and Times," by Thomas Hauser)
David Remnick, in his book "King of the World: Muhammad Ali and the Rise of an American Hero," wrote of this recollection by Edwin Pope of the Miami Herald about how Ali loved to entertain. In 1965, Pope traveled with Ali from Miami to Chicopee Falls, Massachusetts, where Ali was to train for his rematch with Sonny Liston. Said Pope:
"I have to admit that before that bus ride I didn't understand Ali even though I'd been around him quite a bit in Miami. He seemed hostile and strange to me. But on that bus I got a sense of how complicated and how sweet he could be and how funny he was, always funny."
If Ali the showman didn't necessarily believe his own pre-fight bravado, he was full of surprises in the ring and eventually made just about everyone smile, if not laugh.
More than an entertainer, Ali had heart in and out of the ring. Hauser's biography includes a story about a 12-year-old dying of leukemia who wanted to meet Ali. Although the kid's father didn't care for Ali, he got his son released from the hospital, whereupon they drove unannounced and uninvited to Ali's training camp in Deer Lake, Pennsylvania. The dad found he could drive right into the place; there were no guards, and the dad explained the situation to the first person he saw. Ali then spent the whole afternoon with the boy. The father later said:
"Mister, I never liked Ali. I've hated him ever since I knew about him. I was always hoping someone would beat him, and beat him badly. But I'll never forget what he did for my son. He's a good man, and I'm sorry for the way I felt about him."
THE Legacy
When asked about his legacy, Ali said in part, "I'll tell you how I'd like to be remembered: as a black man who won the heavyweight title and who was humorous and who treated everyone right."
In 1980, before the Holmes-LeDoux fight in Minnesota, Muhammad Ali had shown Jeff O'Hara some magic tricks in addition to card tricks. Six years earlier in Zaire, Africa, Ali had invented "rope-a-dope" and reclaimed the heavyweight championship of the world from George Foreman.
You'll never guess what Ali was doing just three hours after that victory. As Hauser wrote, Ali was sitting on the steps of his cottage, totally into showing a magic trick to a group of children. He was showing them a rope cut in two and then the same rope magically whole again. Newsweek magazine's Pete Bonventre, the sole journalist to come across the scene, recalled, "All I could think was, I don't care what anyone says, they'll never be anyone like him again."
Steve O'Hara is an Anchorage attorney and author of "60yearsofboxing.org," a history of boxing in his home state of Minnesota. Copyright © Steven T. O'Hara.