Muhammad Ali "I Was a Little Too Good For My Time" | The Dick Cavett Show

my next guest is uh involved in one of the most confusing i guess title bouts in the history of boxing it's uh seems to be taking place outside the ring entirely um but there is one thing i i know and he is certainly one of the great athletes of all time his name is muhammad ali and here he is [Applause] good to see you again thank you i see you know that i wrote for you once you don't that doesn't ring a bell you wrote for me i wrote for you yes i once wrote a couple of poems for you uh when you appeared on the jerry lewis show remember appearing on the jerry lewis show vehicle yes oh yeah yeah i did how'd you like them no i wrote a couple of poems and you did them you you did a a staged poetry reading kind of thing it was really very very good do you ever uh do a poem anymore no no no that was mainly for promoting yeah uh some of the bouts but i have no need to write them now i'm sorry i didn't i have no need to write them now this was just to promote the bouts yeah right can you explain this uh about the fraser thing uh were you ever really going to fight him or are you or well at the time i was boxing uh joe frazier was a contender but now that i've retired he is the legal champion i recognize him as the champ because i'm no longer active so he talked a little about i said i recognize frasier as the champion because i'm no longer active yeah and uh so if i was still boxing off my title uh haven't been taken the way it was i would say that joe frazier would have possibly been a contender but we never did meet never will never will is that can you say that flatly i mean you just there's no chance you'll ever fight again that's right yeah see it seems a shame because uh it's like a great talent is being wasted do you feel it that way sir do you feel that you're a waste that you're wasting a great talent no i'm not i don't think there's no nostalgia for the ring i'm just glad to be able to uh to be blessed the almighty god to come out of the thing unmarked and unscratched and well invested and still with a good mind you know well you're not entirely unmarked i have no marksman you've got a little not from boxing though what it right here oh yeah you can see stitches i had an accident when i was a child it wasn't i ran into a wall on a bicycle ran into a wall and intentionally or no did you get amnesia from it i still break you up don't they [Applause] let me ask you this may sound like a very dumb question but did you like fighting yes i did at the time i started i was 12 years old and i started in louisville kentucky as an amateur boxing in the golden glove and i went on to win the national golden glove title 59-60 the national aau and 59-6 in the world olympic gold medal yeah and uh i wasn't too educated and i didn't work like i should have in high school and i would like to say here on the show to all the youth they should really equip themselves educationally because i'm just one who i was blessed to have the title of boxing you know so the rest of them can't do this and it's kind of rough out here without the proper education yeah uh you know i had uh sugar ray on the show the other night and he told a really sort of hair-raising story about a time when he i didn't know the story that one night before a fight he had a vision that he was going to kill that he punched the man and that he died and he sought a lot of advice and did not want to go into the fight and everyone told him to go ahead and this happens to every boxer and in fact he did hit the man and he went down and he did die uh did you ever have any kind of premonitions about a fight like that or any fears of that kind no i always had a good feeling that i would win but i never thought about killing no one as a matter of fact i had floyd patterson in a critical condition ernie tyrell and george chavalo and henry cooper of england yeah and i deliberately lightened up because the box people are so phony and hypocritical like if if fellas comes out with a brain caution or something then you have all type people saying they should make some kind of precautions to uh safety precautions make the gloves big or put head guards on and then if you have a fellow where you can give him brain brain concussion where he can't defend himself and you're constantly pounding him in his skull his brains and if you lighten up uh because you're merciful to this fellow then they'll say the fight was fixed or you carried him so i think the best safety precaution that could be used if a fighter is great enough if he is good enough if he sees got the fella beat he's winning and just just to please a few blood thirsty people and for a few dollars going on to hurt the man just to make them hollow oh boy he's good i think if they could just lighten up a little if he's really that good and he's got to fight he's winning on points i think that'll be the best safety precaution and i did this and i tell it i was actually saying that i where i could actually predict the rounds that if the fella looked too hurt i lightened up on it but i think this is one reason mainly i'm not fighting today i was a little too good for my time [Music] isn't that a coincidence that's why i'm not fighting today too [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] you

Channel: The Dick Cavett Show

Views: 106,640

Keywords: The Dick Cavett Show, Talk Show, Musician, Celebrities, Dick Cavett, United States, Chat Show, Interview, muhammad ali, muhammad ali joe frazier, muhammad ali vietnam, muhammad ali retirement, muhammad ali dick cavett, muhammad ali interview

Id: pR3XxV5aL68

Length: 6min 49sec (409 seconds)

Published: Mon Sep 21 2020