Adam Hill, our man on the Left Coast, returns with another dispatch from his desk at Cal Poly:
Ali was champ again and they wanted to give him a safe fight. It was March 1975. Five months earlier, he had demolished George Foreman in Zaire. Foreman had been thought to be invincible, a monster. Joe Frazier and Ken Norton had both been knocked out in the second round by Foreman. But Ali rope-a-doped big George, letting him punch himself out. Near the close of the eighth round Ali attacked. Foreman crumpled. He sprawled on the canvas as if shot. The fighter he had been, the one that had entered the ring, would never be seen again. And all doubts about Ali had been erased.
Chuck Wepner had been scheduled to fight Foreman next, but when Foreman lost, the match was made with Ali. Nobody expected much. Wepner, who was once known as the Bayonne Brawler, was now known as the Bayonne Bleeder. “A cutting glance can make that guy bleed,” it was said. Wepner was a catcher. He blocked punches with his face. He was a plodding, unskilled fighter. But he rarely went down. Even hemorrhaging he kept coming. It was like watching a zombie movie.
I was not yet nine at the time of this fight. My father called boxing prize-fighting. He had all these boozy stories, and occasionally would take me into the city to see welterweights at the Felt Forum. Heavyweight championships had by then begun to be shown only on closed circuit, so we went to a local hockey rink to watch it. They covered the ice with wooden planking, put down rows of metal folding chairs, and hung a large projection screen. Admission was four dollars a head. They sold popcorn, hotdogs, and cans of Schaefer beer. This was in Jersey, so we were supposed to root for Wepner, the home-state hope. But we didn’t. We couldn’t. Ali was a god.
Ali was beautiful to see. Everyone knows this. The most charismatic athlete in our history. Funny, mean, handsome, a devout Muslim who was also a womanizer. Even though he was 32, and eleven years had passed since the night he knocked out Sonny Liston, no one expected Wepner to last beyond the middle rounds. No way he was going the distance.
Wepner was 30, but he looked about 50. Balding with a bad mustache and a face lumpy with scar tissue, he was a pug. When he wasn’t boxing, he worked as a security guard and liquor salesman. Yet he had managed to climb the ranks. And though his fight with Ali would inspire the movie “Rocky,” Wepner was not plucked from obscurity. He was known, if not admired. He was tough, but not very good. In almost every fight, he got mashed up bad.
In the early rounds, Ali danced, rope-a-doped, and complained to the ref about Wepner’s constant rabbit-punching. At times furious, Ali would hold Wepner’s head down with one arm and deliver a series of blows to the top of Wepner’s head. The champ yelled at the ref while he did this. It was funny and brutal; Wepner was a punching bag.
By the middle of the fight, Wepner’s brow had swelled from the beating. By the end of the fight his head would look like one of those models of Neanderthal man we see in natural history museums. But he kept coming. In the hockey rink where I watched, everyone stood the whole fight, shouting in full voices. We couldn’t hear the commentators, which included Redd Foxx and James Brown. But every now and then you could glimpse Steve McQueen sitting ringside in a red windbreaker, smoking a cigarette.
At the opening of round nine, Ali connected with a series of sharp blows to the face, and Wepner’s blood splattered. A drop of it got on the camera lens, and for the rest of that round, you saw that drop of Wepner’s blood on the lens and you had to think it a bad omen for him. But half-way through that round, Wepner landed a right to Ali’s chin, and the champ went down, falling into the ropes. He got up fast, and outraged, went on the attack, an attack that would last another 6 rounds.
In those final rounds, Wepner was beyond sluggish. He looked like he was doing imitation of a lurching drunk. Surely he’d have to fall over. And when he did he might not be able to get up again. But he didn’t fall until there were only 19 seconds left in the fight, when a combination from Ali sent him reeling and down and done. When the ref waved his arms that it was over; it was an act of belated mercy.
Wepner, of course would never get another shot. Nobody with a ranking wanted to fight a guy you had to brain to beat. A couple of years later, the studio financing Stallone’s film gave him a choice: a flat fee of $70,000 or 1 percent of the gross profits. He took the sure money, a decision that to date has cost him more than 8 million dollars.
Posted by derek on July 9, 2005 4:43 PMI was pretty into boxing as a kid, I loved Aaron Pryor and Marvin Hagler the most. Pryor would start each round by sprinting out of his corner across the ring at his guy, a constant ball of energy. Hagler was an assassin with a punishing, pinpoint jab.
I lost interest pretty quickly after the Boom Boom Mancini-Duk Koo KIm fight, similarly to the Ali-Wepner fight Adam describes above, Kim hung tough as a huge underdog. the announcers kept saying how proud his home country would be of him, he held his own all fight until finally being stopped in the 14th. then he went into a coma and died five days later. it was tough for me to summon up the same enthusiasm after that.
Posted by: jon abbey at July 9, 2005 9:22 PMwepner stepped on ali's foot when he hit ali that is what put ali down.
Posted by: alex at July 10, 2005 6:34 PMno, he certainly tagged him. i'm not sure how stepping on his foot could send him sprawling backwards through the ropes. watch the tape and see.
Seeing Ali today, what he's been reduced to is really the greatest tragedy in all of sports.
Posted by: Adam Hill at July 10, 2005 8:36 PMWhat's the point of this garbage? I thought this site was about music, or at least art. I'm aghast and embarassed to be associated with a website with this kind of content. I find boxing to be blatantly and unequivocally unethical, disgusting, and offensive, and I believe it should've been outlawed decades ago. Just think how absurd it is to permit boxing but outlaw all those mortal battles between dogs, chickens, etc, which is certainly objectionable to me as well, but at least falls under the umbrella of cultural relativity in its current expanse. Boxing is an abomination that conflicts with the entire basis of human culture in its current state. Of course I don't believe in any kind of cultural absolutes and I can imagine cultures in previous millenia where it would be perfectly ethical, but boxing violates the very foundations of human civilization as we know it now. To me boxing is even more unethical and repulsive than Bush-style war-as-sport culture, which can at least be filibustered into the lala-land of philosophical plausibility. Boxing cannot be justified. A debate couldn't last five minutes. It's a crime grandfathered into modern society. Anybody who condones it is an accomplice to assault, battery, and slow murder. For me, participating in a community of aesthetically like-minded people and immersing myself in harmless, sustainable, uplifting art culture is a way to live a life unpolluted and unstunted by the absurdities and horrors that persist in human culture. To be exposed to something this disturbing in this context makes me feel violated by my self-identified cultural community. This gives me a sinking feeling in my stomach like when I hear a fellow avant-garde art aficionado express homophobia or divisive theism. I'm not imposing my views on anyone here, but I do feel it's worth speaking up and expressing them clearly.
As much as I'm grossed out by this, Adam, I should at least give you credit for the tight prose.
Posted by: Michael Anton Parker at July 15, 2005 9:57 AMI guess not everyone possesses your high moral sensibility, Mike. I feel rightfully chastened by you.
What was I thinking? And what have you ever done to me that I would 'violate' you in such brute fashion?
And, wow, good point about boxing being worse than war; I had never considered that.
And hey, could I run by you all the things I find or have in the past found entertaining, so you can decide for me if it meets your grandiose notions of high culture and life affirming civilization?
me thinks your ego is dangerously inflated. me thinks you're a lil silly-billy.
Posted by: Adam Hill at July 15, 2005 12:10 PMoh, and the comparison of my piece to "homophobia or divisim theism' is also a thoughtful and well-reasoned analogy.
and how you ever made it through the 'tight prose' while thrashing about in a paroxysm of moral outrage, is, well, heroic.
Posted by: Adam Hill at July 15, 2005 12:25 PM[Adam] oh, and the comparison of my piece to "homophobia or divisim theism' is also a thoughtful and well-reasoned analogy.
[Mike] No, it wasn't a thoughtful and well-reasoned analogy. It was a report of my honest emotional experience.
Allow me to repeat: "I'm not imposing my views on anyone here, but I do feel it's worth speaking up and expressing them clearly."
It has nothing to do with ego. It's how I feel and it simply my opinion. I well understand the cultural context you're operating in.
I admire boxers; they're among the few athletes (NFL players, too, though football bores me comatose) who run genuine risks for their glories. I like bullfights, too, for much the same reason. (Are you able to listen to James Finn's Plaza De Toros without weeping for the brutality it exalts, Michael?) Seriously, no one puts a gun to any boxer's head to get them into the ring, so what's the problem? Decry the corruption that surrounds the sport, by all means, but boxing itself is one of the purest of human athletic endeavors.
Posted by: Phil at July 15, 2005 12:58 PMMike: "It has nothing to do with ego. It's how I feel and it simply my opinion. I well understand the cultural context you're operating in."
You know, maybe if your response wasn't so ludicrously over the top and moronically condescending, there might have been a worthwhile discussion.
So take my 'cultural context,' fold it five ways and shove it.
I don't think a discussion of boxing could be worthwhile and it's about the last thing I'd care to engage in.
If my response seems ludicrously over-the-top and moronic to you, bear in mind that's precisely how I feel about the sport you're endorsing.
that's right, you're only interested in pontificating and sneering condescension.
i guess you think your pieces of 'text art' (ain't that what you call your gabby pieces, mike?) filled with their gushing hyperbole, ponderous nonsense, and grad school rhetoric have made you a culture hero.
please petition Derek to take down my barbaric piece (of non text-art) so that your delicate sensibility can be fully restored. i'd hate to see you go on being violated.
Posted by: Adam Hill at July 15, 2005 1:43 PMNo, just 'text' would be a better term. 'gabby text' has a nice ring to it though.
Posted by: Michael Anton Parker at July 15, 2005 1:58 PMWepner tagged Ali in the ribs, not the chin. He still knocked down one of the fastest ring dancers who ever lived, but if Wepner had connected with the chin then the fight may very well of gone differently. Wepner would still have lost probably, but... the point is Wepner hit him legitimately. There was no foot stomp. Ali got cute, thought Wepner was a tomato can without any legs, and played him for the crowd - until Wepner hit him.
This is a nice story. A lot of people, a lot of victims of a culture that views people as commodities and resources, identified with the New Jersey palooka who stood up against the media darling; I think this story captures that. Now, of course, in retrospect, we can see that Ali fought a cleaner fight and lived a cleaner life than Wepner did, and some of the borrowed polish is off that magnificent underdog, the Bayonne Brawler. I liked hearing about this fight again; there's something in our hearts, something that can't be talked out of existence by clever and useless philosophies, something verified by the long and bloody history of 'property-less' H-G societies, something that surges with glee at the prospect of a good fight. I am not necessarily happy to see that's the way things are, but I CAN see it.
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