Muhammed Ali Talks About Getting His Jaw Broken By Ken Norton - Carson Tonight Show - 05/17/1973

all right you know who's here tonight of course you know who's here tonight we announced it i announced it then you announced it it was a rhetorical question we had it on the board all day i know who's here it was just that kind of a question you know who's here uh deserves no answer on september 10th at the forum in los angeles muhammad ali is fighting a return match with ken norton the first man whoever managed to really really silence him and he did that as you well know by breaking his jaw in that last fight would you welcome our good friend muhammad ali [Music] now champ let me ask you this how's your friend howard gosell by the way he's fine yeah how you feeling you've been feeling pretty good last time i saw you on a show you were talking like this yeah like a ventriloquist i was wired up for about four weeks it was supposed to be about five but i healed off faster than ordinary fella yeah i yes you probably would yeah now you know you like to talk you know you're a loquacious type of fellow and you come on here and you've been with us a dozen times on this show at least how does it feel to have to have a job wired going into the hospital and then they give you a needle take the count uh from ten to one backwards and the time you get to seven you sleep right and when i woke up i couldn't move my teeth and i've got a mirror and all my teeth are warm almost went crazy just the idea i couldn't talk that but it sounded like insulin when you do that i made it i made it pretty good i made it pretty good yeah i know you did does it feel pretty good now yes i have about five more weeks before i can take any punches on it but i understand they usually heal ordinarily harder than they were at first yeah now didn't you didn't you have a problem with a with a with a tooth uh well about three or more breaking or something teeth out and what happened was it made the jaw kind of weak plus my mouth was open and open i was clowning one time two minutes and i got hit trying to talk yeah during the fight are you still talking to the opponent during the fight i thought you gave that up well sometimes i do but i still i said something and this is what happened in the whole fight period it's not being serious and playing and not living according to my religious teachers like i know i should and i only look at this as a spanking and this will make me be more serious train harder and not take people for granted no what didn't you do that you should have done well many many things that i really can't go into and it's not really for nobody but to know it but me no well i didn't want to be personal [Music] you answered just what you want to answer so uh how did you take nourishment all liquid well yes uh this has caused me to be a vegetarian now i don't eat meat no more all i just fish not really yeah i didn't think i could make it well i've met people who were vegetarians in the past and i said no meat how do you do it this is what we might think but all my food was put in blenders like my wife would cook a pot of cabbage and then blend it up and it'll come out like a milkshake and all you do is drink it the same thing cabbage milkshake yeah and you know that type creamy you know same with the corn and the uh eating fish with a little cream in it well you're not a true vegetarian you do eat fish oh yes but no beef or that type of animal so i'm going to see how long i can go but i was surprised i really feel better don't be as tired or nothing no how about your weight does that affect your weight a lot well i'm heavier now i don't know why but i haven't been training and just laying around the house and eating but i have to start training about another week because the second time i'm gonna really be ready norton is gonna gonna have to really watch out yeah because musically speaking if he don't see sharp he's gonna be flat you think that's been inside you for four weeks with your jaws wired shut and you couldn't get that one out what round in the fight uh did this broken jaw two round second round it was a hard thing uh that's incredible and uh that you could even stay in a ring and have somebody hit you in the face with a broken jaw i mean if i didn't knock him out i realized at that point i didn't know if it's broke or not but my whole system was off and it's a bad bad feeling i mean just to move your mouth something's just just broke and moving and missing a punch or throwing a punch you could feel a jar just jumping around and i had to go 10 rounds without getting hit on that jaw again and i was surprised the next day in the hospital watching the reruns that the fight was as close as it was in the 11th round the fight was even and the man who won the 12th round would win it so he came out slugging so for me to win the 12th round i would have to stand up toe to toe knowing i might catch a couple on the broke jaws so my main objective was to retreat and just let it fight in but with 18 000 people in the place and been seen and fought at something countries live and everybody on home television in america and wide world of sports and just quit i couldn't dream of it but i'm lucky and thankful that i didn't really get hurt seriously you know what could have happened if he would have really i mean how bad could that have gone if he would have beautifully conscious every time george used it broke both sides around the same point but for some unusual reason just this side was broken not this one and if i'd got hit with a hard punch from 200 and say fifteen pounder no from a 215 pounder right on the end that was broke he said could mean death probably because it would just completely tear that bone all the way around now that's the first time you've really in your career even as an amateur and at any time that you've really had an injury essentially not just injury this is an injury that that's the worst injury any fighter could have and still be conscious and some of them have been knocked out some have died but to still be conscious and have the pain and to have a broken jaw and ain't no injury no worse you know i saw a repeat of the movie the other night with kirk i think we've talked about this on the show but it still intrigues me because you're in the only sport i know uh a lot of sports writers wonder sometimes where there's really even a sport where two men come out and the express purpose is to injure the other man i mean in football of course the idea is to tackle hard and to knock him down but you your idea is to go out and really batter another man senseless or to knock him unconscious this is why my fights have been criticized because i had jerry quarry in that spot and i called the referee and stopped i wouldn't do it i had james ellis in this spot i had busted mathis i had floyd patterson and i've been criticized for not really knocking him out or hurting him because it's not my purpose my purpose is to win in any way i can but not really to hurt him for life i don't think any fighter wants to do that but there's always that possibility of course when you have to hit a man well i wasn't as heavy as you guys are that you can permanently injure him well i'd rather get hit with those gloves and some of these car drivers i'll see these hockey players they pick them all i'll buy that yeah maybe hockey is another game where the idea is to kill your opponent having having watched some of them football could be rough too does the thought of every creature i saw that the replay of the motion picture by kirk douglas champion where he played the fighter does that thought ever enter your mind and you know what's happened to some fighters when you get into a ring that the possibility always exists that you could you could end in some kind of injury that would end your career or make you uh i'm going to tell you something you might understand you might not agree you might not understand but the worst thing i hate about my career is going to where i have to be like i'm on the college speaking tour now richard fulton a college agent here in new york he's always got some college time to go to and most time i can't build but we just went to auburn alabama auburn university i had to be at the howard coastal roads dinner in los angeles that sunday night i mean sunday night yeah sunday night and the next evening i had to be in auburn alabama so where to fly yeah so i hate airplanes i do it but i just the idea of this big thing going through there at 600 miles an hour through turbulence and rain and just one thing can't happen and yet it's mechanical there's so many wires and switches involved but if one thing happened up there i'm finished i never worry about boxing and the pilot tells me he said how can you be a boxer are you frightened and the planes are shaking i guess it's all relative isn't it so if you i guess if you're fatalistic about it that way i guess you should be because if you're going to fight you can't have that psyche out all the time that i may get hurt well i've been hurt a few times i've fell off motorcycles and i've had car accidents almost got killed but i've never been in a plane that did one thing wrong well so yeah doing one thing we'll uh gonna take a break here uh now it's time to find the answer the question what's a matador we're talking with uh muhammad ali and jack albertson is going to join us later in mardi gras maryland may and the amazing crescent does your your wife ever pressure you to quit every movie i see usually that somewhere along the line the tearful wife comes up and says you gotta quit she don't like sports she don't like sports period but she never worries until the last fight then she worried for some reason she knew my jaw was broke before the doctors at the x-ray hospital your wife knew that y'all was well i don't know what she did but um you just mentioned how many people are coming on i have to start winning my fights because i used to come on laughs you always came on first no you always came out always came on champions always come on everybody come on and muhammad ali yes and have everybody on first cause everybody stays at home waiting to see me and now now why don't you go beat up kresge can beat up chris and you can come on last uh about your wife she never says given up never can i ask you a question now you don't have to answer this because it is a little bit personal but you as a person who is are a celebrity you kind of have to give up a little privacy occasionally and i only ask this question not for shock value but for example and this goes way back in any athletic endeavor or wars they used to say that the romans before they went into battle the women could not be with the roman soldiers before the battle had weakened them i've heard that's true now i'm not as i say i don't want to be personal but uh football players they say we don't want women in training camps uh because it weakens the fire now same with boxers do you have to stay virginal as it is before a fight i i was only answered as a an academic a question i'm not trying to check into your personal life as handsome as you are and as popular as you are johnny carson i imagine you walk down the street in cleveland or washington new york and if somebody see him i mean every day he's in everybody's house who don't know johnny carson i mean do you have much trouble with girls when you go out and you're trying no all right wait a minute wait a minute what kind what kind of answer is that that was pretty much i can phrase it better for mohamed certainly how about you before a show at my age i can't do it before i brush my teeth i mean i lose that much strength i can't get the brush to go you know what i meant does it in any way snap your strength well we have a train i just built a training camp in deer lake pennsylvania about 20 miles out of ready and cost me about some hundred and seventy thousand dollars completed i have a log cabin training quarters big a couple of bunk houses a restaurant and we have horses tables and i built all of this just to get away from my wife ah well then you've the question up on the mountain see so there it is every day up and down the mountain making a joke little joke there the nose joke no you've answered the question no i was an honest question and i didn't mean to really dig into your personal life so you predicting that you're going to win this we have a fence around and wild dogs why ain't nobody come in so you want to stay with us a second or do you have to run or what you can you can stay a while or whatever you'd like to do if you're finished with me i appreciate going because it's stuck to me you got to get into training and you've got to get the sleep and everything don't you not that quick but i have another stop to me yeah all right the about is september the 10th in the the forum in los angeles with ken norton ken norton and uh i promise you the second time will be real different from the first time okay as promised all right take care of yourself thank you [Applause] oh

Channel: Johnny Carson

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Id: ojM50OQn_YQ

Length: 13min 16sec (796 seconds)

Published: Tue Jun 01 2021