Chapter 4
Standing Against the Storm
In February 1966, Ali learned he had been reclassified as 1-A for the draft despite failing the army's mental test twice before. "Why me?" he asked reporter Bob Lipsyte. "How did they do this to me-the heavyweight champion of the world?" Ali's anger grew as reporters pressed him about Vietnam. Finally, exasperated, he blurted, "I ain't got nothing against them Viet Cong."
Ali appealed his reclassification as a conscientious objector. Judge Lawrence Grauman, after hearing testimony, surprisingly concluded Ali was "sincere in objecting, on religious grounds, to participation in war in any form." However, the Justice Department overruled this finding, and on April 28, 1967, Ali refused induction into the U.S. Army. Within hours, boxing commissions stripped him of his title and license to fight.
During this crisis, Cosell emerged as Ali's most prominent defender in mainstream media. While not endorsing Ali's stance on Vietnam, Cosell vigorously defended his legal right to religious exemption and due process. "What the New York commission did to Ali was improper," Cosell declared. "They took away his license before he was convicted of anything."
This defense came at considerable personal risk to Cosell. He received hate mail calling him "a nigger-loving Jew bastard" and death threats that required police protection. Yet he persisted, recognizing that Ali's case represented fundamental American principles beyond boxing.
In his exile, Ali maintained his uncompromising stance on racial separation while his legal battles continued. By 1969, as national antiwar sentiment grew, many Americans believed the government's case against Ali was motivated by political, racial, and personal bias.
With his boxing career suspended, Ali's fame dimmed. He appeared on "What's My Line?" for $450, faced hotel bill humiliations, and scraped together money from a documentary and a "computer" fight with Rocky Marciano. He even became a Broadway star in the musical "Buck White," which closed after just four days despite positive reviews praising his "innate dignity."
Finally, in October 1970, after 43 months away from boxing, Ali returned to the ring in Atlanta, Georgia. The comeback fight against Jerry Quarry became a cultural phenomenon, drawing celebrities and the Black elite. Civil rights leader Jesse Jackson framed the fight as "Love-it-or-leave-it vs. Love-it-and-change-it." Ali won in three rounds, setting the stage for his eventual shot at regaining the heavyweight title.
Chapter 5
The Fight of the Century and Monday Night Revolution
By 1971, both Ali and Cosell had reached new heights in their respective careers. Ali had fought his way back to title contention, while Cosell had become the controversial star of ABC's revolutionary "Monday Night Football."
Their relationship was more partnership than friendship. "Cosell was not our friend," said Ali's camp manager Gene Kilroy. "We were never in his house, he was never in ours. He just used Muhammad." Both men were narcissists who served each other's purposes while remaining psychologically distant.
On the crucial issues in Ali's life, Cosell maintained a strategic silence. In his four memoirs, he never took a position on Ali's Vietnam War opposition, never addressed whether the government targeted Ali for induction to silence him, and never judged the Nation of Islam's ideology. Cosell portrayed himself as standing with Ali while actually only defending Ali's right to hold controversial positions-a clever distinction that kept him from alienating either ABC executives or Ali himself.
The "Fight of the Century" between Ali and Joe Frazier on March 8, 1971, became the most anticipated sporting event in history. Both fighters were undefeated, with Ali seeking to reclaim the title taken from him outside the ring, and Frazier defending the championship he had earned during Ali's absence.
Ali wore red velvet trunks with white stripes and red tassels on his shoes. Early rounds saw him taunting Frazier: "Don't you know I'm God?" But Frazier, following Eddie Futch's strategy, hammered Ali's body when he retreated to the ropes. In the fifteenth round, a devastating Frazier hook sent Ali crashing down. Though Ali quickly rose, Frazier won by unanimous decision, dealing Ali his first professional defeat.
The morning after, Ali showed remarkable grace: "I've never thought about losing, but now that it's happened, the only thing is to do it right. That's my obligation to all the people who believe in me." When someone called him "Champ," Ali corrected them: "Don't call me the champ. Joe's the champ now."
Meanwhile, Cosell's career was soaring. Monday Night Football had become a national phenomenon, with critic Ron Powers suggesting the show succeeded by offering "a benevolent vision of the possible" against the backdrop of assassination, racial turmoil, and the Vietnam War. Of twenty-two new shows in 1970, Monday Night Football ranked third in ratings. On a typical Monday night, 31 percent of all televisions were tuned to MNF.
Chapter 6
The Rumble, The Thrilla, and Television Immortality
Ali's legal battles continued as his draft-refusal case reached the Supreme Court. After initially voting to affirm his conviction, Justice John M. Harlan changed his mind, influenced by his clerk who saw parallels between Ali's case and a previous ruling involving a Jehovah's Witness. The Court eventually overturned Ali's conviction on a technicality. When told the news while buying orange juice in Chicago, Ali simply said, "They only did what they thought was right at the time. I did what I thought was right. That was all."
Ali fought ten times in twenty-three months after losing to Frazier, but suffered a setback when Ken Norton broke his jaw in March 1973. Six months later, Ali narrowly beat Norton in a rematch. In January 1974, Ali defeated Frazier in their second fight, earning another shot at the heavyweight championship against George Foreman, who had demolished both Frazier and Norton.
At 32, Ali faced the 25-year-old undefeated champion who had won his last 24 fights by knockout. While most predicted doom for Ali, he remained confident: "George Foreman is relying on one thing-power. But I'm relying on speed, footwork, taking a punch, and experience."
The "Rumble in the Jungle" in Zaire became one of boxing's most legendary fights. Against all expectations, Ali employed his "rope-a-dope" strategy, leaning against the ropes and allowing Foreman to punch himself into exhaustion. In the eighth round, Ali knocked out the exhausted champion, becoming only the second man to regain the heavyweight title.
Cosell's call of the knockout became iconic: "Down goes Foreman! Down goes Foreman!" The fight cemented both men's legendary status-Ali as perhaps the greatest boxer ever, and Cosell as the voice of boxing's golden age.
Their final great moment together came during the "Thrilla in Manila," Ali's brutal third fight with Joe Frazier in 1975. After fourteen punishing rounds, Frazier's trainer Eddie Futch stopped the fight, saying, "Sit down, son. It's all over. No one will forget what you did here today." Ali, barely able to stand himself, called it "the closest thing to dying."
Cosell's commentary captured the fight's savage beauty and terrible cost. Years later, he would cite this bout as the beginning of Ali's physical decline, noting, "Too many blows to the head... had transformed him into somebody I no longer knew."
Chapter 7
The Long Goodbye
By the late 1970s, both men began their slow decline from the pinnacle. Ali lost his title to Leon Spinks in 1978, though he regained it seven months later to become the first three-time heavyweight champion. Despite his claim that he would "never want to go out a loser," nine months after defeating Spinks, he announced his retirement on Cosell's show.
The farewell proved temporary. Fifteen months later, they reunited in Las Vegas when Ali came out of retirement to fight Larry Holmes. When Cosell questioned why he had broken his promise to retire on top, Ali simply explained that "a man can change his mind." What remained unspoken was Ali's desire to reclaim the spotlight and collect an eight-million-dollar payday.
The Holmes fight proved catastrophic for Ali. In the tenth round, with Ali a "swollen mess of purple bruises," Angelo Dundee finally stopped the fight. The beating was severe-Holmes landed 320 punches, with 125 in just the final two rounds. Eleven years later, a biographer uncovered Ali's pre-fight Mayo Clinic neurological report, which revealed "mild ataxic dysarthria" and coordination issues that should have prevented him from fighting anyone.
Cosell, though present in Las Vegas, spoke with Ali only by telephone afterward. His hand trembling against the receiver, he concluded his commentary in lifeless tones: "Legends die hard. But if this fight proved anything, it proved that, like all of us, Muhammad Ali is mortal."
Despite everything, Ali fought once more fourteen months later against Trevor Berbick-a sad spectacle held on a baseball field with a cowbell for a ring bell. This time, Cosell had nothing to do with an Ali fight. The next morning, Ali delivered a graceful valedictory: "I didn't show, and now I know." With a smile, he announced: "I shall return...to Los Angeles."
For Cosell, boxing died November 26, 1982, when he witnessed Larry Holmes's brutal beating of Randall "Tex" Cobb. After fifteen rounds where Cobb landed barely three punches, Cosell refused to interview anyone, declaring on air, "I will not dignify this fight with any interviews." He told the author he would never work another professional fight, citing the fundamental brutality he'd witnessed.
Chapter 8
The Long Shadow of Greatness
As Ali's health deteriorated from what was eventually diagnosed as Parkinson's syndrome, Cosell's career also began its final chapter. By 1988, Cosell was back where he started thirty-five years before-doing radio only, now broadcasting from his apartment, still irascible as ever.
Emmy Cosell, Howard's wife of forty-six years and his emotional anchor, died of a heart attack on November 18, 1990. A week later, Cosell returned to the ABC Radio microphone, his voice heavy with sorrow: "This is the most difficult broadcast I have ever had to do in my whole life. A man's grief should be a private thing, but sometimes there has to be public notice taken." Emmy's death devastated Cosell. "Eighty-five percent of him died right there," said his grandson Justin.
In early 1992, a weakened Cosell recorded a birthday message for Ali's 50th birthday celebration. Though his once-distinctive voice carried only faint echoes of its former power, his message was deeply emotional: "You are exactly who you said you are. You never wavered. You are free to be who you want to be. I love you. Happy birthday." Cosell died on April 23, 1995, at age seventy-seven.
Ali's vulnerability to manipulation increased as his condition worsened. His wife Lonnie began taking control of his affairs, commissioning Thomas Hauser to write an authorized biography that became a bestseller in 1991. During a book promotion, Ali visited his old Deer Lake training camp with journalists. Despite his condition, he maintained his wit and declared, "Muhammad Ali's just getting started. The world's waiting for me."
Chapter 9
The Final Round: From Villain to Saint
When asked to light the Olympic flame at the 1996 Atlanta Games, Ali initially refused, saying "Parkinson's." He didn't want to be seen trembling. Only when his trusted friend Howard Bingham emphasized the magnitude-"three billion people watching"-did Ali agree.
NBC Sports president Dick Ebersol had championed Ali against resistance from the Atlanta Committee chairman, who considered Ali a draft-dodger. When the moment came, Ali appeared as a spectral figure in white, trembling as he held the torch. The stadium erupted in a roar as he struggled to light the apparatus. For those watching, it was both heartbreaking and transcendent-Ali's resurrection in Martin Luther King Jr.'s city. Later, President Clinton told Ali, "When I saw it was you, I cried."
In his weakened state, Ali became beloved, transformed in public perception from controversial figure to saint. Scholar Gerald Early worried Ali might become "overesteemed," his complexity diminished. The sanitized saint-like Ali of later years contrasted sharply with the dangerous, challenging figure of the 1960s who demanded rights when doing so required courage.
After Atlanta, Ali became a commercial commodity-the GOAT (Greatest Of All Time) brand-appearing with politicians and corporations, his radical history often erased. As writer Mark Kram noted, this revision ignored uncomfortable truths: Ali had supported racial separation, treated women poorly, and avoided Vietnam on religious grounds, not principled opposition to war.
Even his humanitarian work was sometimes compromised. With Canadian businessman Yank Barry, Ali promised to feed a half-million Liberian refugees but delivered to only 477 people. Ali simply walked away from such associations-Gene Kilroy noted there must have been "nine thousand" scam artists claiming to be Ali's agents.
Muhammad Ali's journey from Louisville's West End troublemaker to global icon culminated in a September 2003 meeting with the Dalai Lama at a temple dedication in Indiana. Trembling and unsteady, Ali accepted the Nobel Peace Prize winner's hand to walk from car to seat. When presented with an Indiana University sweatshirt as a gift, Ali, ever the imp, quipped his only words that day: "Is this all I get?"
The story of Ali and Cosell represents one of the most fascinating cultural partnerships in American history. They were opposites in many ways-young and old, Black and white, athlete and intellectual-yet they recognized in each other a shared ambition and authenticity that transcended their differences. Through their televised encounters, they helped America navigate its most turbulent era, challenging conventional wisdom about race, religion, war, and the very purpose of sport. Their legacies remain intertwined, two men who changed not just boxing and broadcasting, but the cultural landscape of America itself.
Chapter 10
The Enduring Legacy of Two American Originals
What made the Ali-Cosell relationship so compelling was its authenticity in an increasingly manufactured media landscape. Neither man was quite what he seemed on the surface, yet both were exactly who they claimed to be. Ali's bombastic poetry and Cosell's polysyllabic pronouncements were performance art, but beneath the theatrics lay genuine conviction and mutual respect.
When Ali's health deteriorated, Cosell privately mourned the loss of the vibrant young man he had known. During a visit to Ali's Michigan farm in 2003, the author showed Ali old footage of himself declaring to Cosell, "Howard, you know you need me more than I need you..." The aging champion fell asleep watching his younger self, the irony impossible to miss.
Their relationship transcended the typical athlete-broadcaster dynamic. Cosell risked his career by defending Ali's religious freedom and legal rights during the Vietnam era, while Ali gave Cosell the perfect foil for his journalistic crusades. Together, they created television moments that remain indelible decades later-from Ali threatening to reveal Cosell's toupee to their poignant final interviews as both men faced mortality.
The tragedy of Ali's physical decline-the greatest athlete of his generation reduced to trembling silence-was counterbalanced by his spiritual growth. "I did a lot of wrong in my life, and I'm trying to repent and go to heaven," Ali said. "I'd rather God punish me now than in the hereafter. Maybe this is my punishment. I'm okay with it."
Cosell never found such peace. After Emmy's death, he retreated into bitterness and isolation, telling Bob Lipsyte, "Leave me alone. I just want to die." Yet even in decline, he maintained his principles, refusing to participate in boxing broadcasts after witnessing too many brutal beatings.
Their legacies continue to evolve. Ali, once feared as a dangerous radical, became universally beloved-perhaps too beloved, as his complexity was flattened into sainthood. Cosell, once the most recognizable voice in sports broadcasting, has faded somewhat from public memory, though his influence on sports journalism remains profound.
What endures is the remarkable chemistry they created together-the boxer and the broadcaster, the butterfly and the blowhard, two American originals who found in each other the perfect counterpoint. In their televised pas de deux, they embodied America's contradictions and possibilities, creating a dialogue about sports, race, religion, and politics that changed the cultural conversation forever.
As Ali once told Cosell during a particularly heated exchange: "Howard, you're always talking about what's wrong. I'm going to tell you what's right." In their finest moments together, they showed us both-what was wrong with America, and what could be right about it. That, perhaps, is their greatest legacy.
