Ronnie Govender
“JUST TAKE ME TO JAIL!” Of the reams being written right now after the death of, arguably, the greatest athlete of the 21st century, Muhammad Ali, Michael Powell in the New York Times on the Rumble in the Jungle hits the button:
“I drove back to Purchase College that night and listened to the staccato, round-by-round reports on WINS news radio. When the anchor broke in excitedly to say that Ali had toppled Foreman in the eighth round like an oak tree, I pounded my dashboard and screamed like a banshee loose on the Hutchinson River Parkway.”
There has long been a heated argument about whether boxing should be banned, a demand made especially by many in the medical fraternity. Behind the romance and the glamour, boxing acts out, at its core, man’s primal instinct to kill, or be killed.
Yet, in supreme irony, even in this lurid landscape it provides scope for the artistry of great pugilists such as world champions Sugar Ray Robinson, Sugar Ray Leonard, Jack Johnson, the Cape’s Sonny Thomas and Durban’s Kid Sathamoney.
In the opinion of London boxing trainer Jimmy Wilson, Sathamoney could have been SA’s first world boxing champion had he not been refused a passport in the 1950s when “non-white” fighters were not even allowed to spar with white fighters.
Thus, sparring behind closed doors, Sathamoney, a natural featherweight, decked the Scottish light-heavyweight champion, Bert Gilroy, a fighter five divisions higher, for two solid minutes, a feat unequalled in top-division boxing.
It was like a Toy Pom fighting an Alsatian. Yet, earlier in Sathamoney’s career, a seasoned Cape champion, Sonny Thomas, had kay-oed the brash young fighter. Sathamoney came back in another stirring fight to flatten Thomas. These classicists, predating Ali by several decades, “danced like butterflies and stung like bees”.
On the other hand, great “local” fighters like Wally Thompson, Alex Makhele and Rocky Ramiah were badly affected by taking years of punishment, especially to the head. Thompson was another who had the potential to challenge for the world title.
Sadly, in later years, Thompson was to bear the scars of the years of punishment he had absorbed.
Rocky, whose stirring, toe-to-toe slug-fests with “Tiger” Kelly Franks, and the Transvaal champion, Kid Coco, lifted the Durban City Hall rafters, ended up committing suicide, a victim of paranoia resulting from brain damage.
Yet, for all boxing’s primal instincts, right now, Ali’s demise at 74 dominates national newspapers and TV screens around the world, like few other events in history.
Why?
Perhaps the answer can be found in yet another observation by Michael Powell, on Ali’s refusal to be drafted into the Vietnam war,
“He (Ali) had listened as young white men berated him for resisting the draft. Then, eyes flashing, he came back at them.
“You talking about me about some draft, and all you white boys are breaking your neck to get to Switzerland and Canada and London,” he said, adding, “If I’m going to die, I’ll die now right here, fighting you.”
Seldom has a single human being so stirred the universal conscience of humankind.
His exploits in the ring, spiced by spontaneous, tongue-in-cheek poesy, were almost super-human but even more so were his single-handed crusades against racism and fascism.
He strode immeasurably beyond his role as a magnificent athlete when he threw his Olympic gold medal into the river and declared “I ain’t got no quarrel with them Viet-Cong.
“My conscience won’t let me shoot them. They never called me n*****, they never lynched me. How can I shoot these people. Just take me to jail!”
Found guilty of draft dodging, he had to give up his title as world champion and millions of dollars in assured revenues. Yet again, the true measure of his greatness was stamped on an adoring world when he came back to win the title after a 10-year absence, twice more – a feat unparalleled in the annals of this hurting game.
Go well, Champ!
l Govender is an award winning writer and playwright