love for boxing

I don’t know when I got interested in heavyweight boxing. Perhaps the stories of Mohammed Ali narrated to me by my cousin got me hooked to it. To love a sport in which India never figured may appear strange now. Though India has not got to the world cup football, we had our own football heroes. But it was not the case in boxing. Even now we have won medals only in the lighter category.

It may be because of the omnipresence of the legendary Ali. He used to dominate the newspapers whenever there was boxing match. The manner in which he was glorified in the press made us feel sorry for his opponents. There was no TV those days and I had to read the description of the fight in sports magazines to keep track of Ali’s exploits.

At the peak of his popularity there was a song composed on him which ran like `Ali floats like a butterfly and stings like a bee ….catch me if you can’. It has reference to his famous rope-a-dope trick. He takes punches on his body and wears the opponent down and then beats him.

I came to know about other heavyweight boxers through Ali. All his opponents became popular once they fought Ali. So the names Sonny Liston, Joe Frazier, George Foreman etc became familiar. The Ali-Foreman fight in Zaire called `rumble in the jungle’ was given wide coverage. Ali defeated the super heavy Foreman in that much publicized bout.

It was years later I became aware that Ali was not the greatest boxer. There were other greats like Joe Louis, Rocky Marciano, Jack Dempsey etc. During the TV days Mike Tyson was the star for his on the ring and off the ring exploits. As far as I can remember his opponents never lasted one or two rounds. But he never stayed in the memory of his fans like Ali did. His career went downhill when he was jailed.

ESPN channel used to show all the classic fights in all categories of boxing. It is still a treat to watch those patchy black and white clips.