Photographer Chris Smith and writer Hugh McIlvanney joined The Greatest at his Miami training camp before the Fight of the Century: Ali vs Frazier at Madison Square Garden.The truth is that Muhammad Ali has done a fair amount of fooling around, haranguing the paying spectators at his work-outs, eulogizing himself and dismissing Frazier as a second-rate street-fighter, a short-armed hooker who will never get past his jab. But mainly in these moments he gives the impression of remembering a part he played in another show. One striking exception was the day he took Burt Lancaster, who has connections with the promoters, on a Pied Piper’s tour of the black ghetto area of central Miami. As Ali leapt from his Cadillac, five years fell away and he was the compelling, hysterically ebullient champion who had led me noisily through the same district three weeks before his title fight with Henry Cooper. Continue readingread full article
