Ferdie Pacheco wasn't much of a doctor. Most doctors don't earn a living selling paintings, working as a cornerman and serving working for various television networks as a boxing commentator and matchmaker. Of all his "careers" as an adult, I think he was a physician in a poor section of Miami for couple years. What was his speciality in medicine? Does anyone know? Did anyone ever ask? All I've ever heard, in terms of medicine, is him prescribing medication and stitching fighters after matches. That's about it. Pretty rudimentary stuff.
After returning to beat Alfredo Evangelista in May 1977, Ali struggled in his next fight against Earnie Shavers that September, getting pummeled a few times by punches to the head. Ali won the fight by another unanimous decision, but the bout caused his longtime doctor Ferdie Pacheco to quit after he was rebuffed for telling Ali he should retire. Pacheco was quoted as saying, "the New York State Athletic Commission gave me a report that showed Ali's kidneys were falling apart. I wrote to Angelo Dundee, Ali's trainer, his wife and Ali himself. I got nothing back in response. That's when I decided enough is enough."
I know, Mark. Ferdie Pacheco has also said a thousand times Ali should've retired after Manila. Ferdie also said Ali was a shell of himself after the Jimmy Young fight. Ferdie also said Ali could've died getting on a plane after the Inoki farce. Ferdie said a lot of stuff AFTER he left Ali. But he went along for the ride and kept collecting a check (because he didn't have any other income) until he got a job with NBC. Everything you're saying about Ali before Holmes could be said about Ali before any fight after Manila. He fought too long. We got it. People should've stepped in but didn't. We got it. But Ali refused to. And when Ali was refused a license to fight in the U.S. after the Holmes fight, his team took him to the Bahamas to fight. Ali wanted to keep fighting. His new wife thought he beat Berbick. Dundee and Herbert Muhammad and Bundini and the whole gang was there in the Bahamas to get another check. We got it. Sad end. Same thing happened to a lot of great fighters. Ali didn't 'have' to fight. He chose to. In the end, the blame rests on the person who won't stop. And he paid the price.
I'm guessing he was referring to Ali not being able to walk on to the plane after all the kicks to the legs from Inoki? Not quite. Ali turned back the clock in the Spinks rematch looking way better. And none of the previous matches to the Spinks match were as lopsided as the Holmes match. Essentially we've never seen Ali look as bad as he did against Holmes, beat up as much. The first Spinks match Ali was lackluster but he didn't take anywhere near the beating he did against Holmes. Ali himself claimed that his performance vs Holmes was due to him taking thyroid medication leading up to the bout which he claimed weakened him. He also came in very light vs Holmes compared to the next year when he fought Berbick in the Bahamas he was much heavier. The Berbick match was very competitive. Ali arguably did enough to eek out a decision on Berbick. He was sullen and didn't have his usual liveliness but when the bell rang Ali was incredibly focused and determined vs Berbick, and he never lost concentration. He fought Berbick tooth and nail over the 10 rounds. The footwork and his overall stamina was way better vs Berbick than he was vs Holmes. I mean comparing Ali vs Holmes to Ali vs Berbick it was like watching 2 completely different fighters. Vs Holmes, Ali was fighting like a clown, he came into the ring showboating and playing to the crowd, during the match he even held on to the ropes to gain leverage to punch Holmes. Ali knew he was weak heading into the Holmes match but he tried to put on a spectacle for the fans early on just to make it fun to watch. But vs Berbick, Ali was like a zen master, showing no emotion, total concentration to dance dance dance and jab his way to victory.
Which goes back to my point in another thread where Mark insisted the Holmes fight never should've been made. The last time Ali fought prior to the Holmes fight, Ali regained the heavyweight title from Spinks. He wasn't entering the Holmes fight on a losing streak. And Ali appeared to be in even better shape for Holmes. Ali passed his physicals. Ali thought he could win. His team thought he could win. His manager thought he could win. The Ali who fought Evangelista would've probably been beaten to a pulp by the Larry Holmes who dominated Ali in 1980, too. The Ali who stepped in the ring with Young probably would've been beaten to a pulp and stopped by Holmes, too. Ali looked bad in a number of fights after Manila. But Evangelista wasn't Holmes. Hell, after Ali got his jaw broken by Norton, and he barely got past Norton and Frazier in their rematches, people thought the Ali-Foreman fight shouldn't be made. They thought Ali was going to get knocked out in two rounds by George, like George stopped Frazier and Norton in two. Foreman was an 8-1 favorite. Nobody was predicting Holmes was going to stop Ali in two. It was virtually an even-money fight when the bell rang. It's easy to say a fight shouldn't have taken place once someone loses. Knowing what we know now and knowing how the fight ended, of course they shouldn't have fought. But everyone who fought Holmes was an underdog when he was the champ, if I'm not mistaken. Ali wasn't considered a bigger underdog than any of them. Holyfield supposedly had a bad heart, and had recently been knocked out by Bowe and was slurring his words when he signed to fight Tyson in 1996. Holyfield was immediately more than a 20-1 underdog. Tyson's last two title fights had lasted three and one round. People said that fight shouldn't be taking place. Tyson might kill him. And Holyfield stopped him. Then people said Holyfield beat a past-it Tyson. (LOL) Nobody knows until they get in the ring. Then everyone is an expert after the fact.
Ali was just yet another that couldn't stop. He was like the long term drug addict who just can't give it up, or not for too long. He needed that attention and glory and combat. During the later stages of his career he thought he could build up an immunity to punches in the head by taking more of them and welcomed (encouraging might be a better word) sparring partners doing just that, quite often taking them on purpose. Imagine the thousands of blows he took in sparring them last years. The in ring battles were only a part of it. You can't tell a guy like Ali.
Yes, but King didn’t promote most of Ali’s fights and hadn’t promoted one in some time before this one. Wasn’t Arum doing the same thing before this? Ali wanted the fight. He could either fight Holmes for bigger money or wait and fight the winner of Arum’s tournament (with the same result most likely) for a lot less. If you’re looking to blame someone, start with Ali, not the promoter. Not that Don King’s not a slime ball, but Ali was the one who made this fight happen.
It wasnt just how the fight ended. Ali couldnt pull the trigger the whole fight. He looked bad in training. He hadnt fought in two years and was 38. The match was made soley on Alis reputation. Holmes carried him. It was a sad and pathetic sight.
I've always thought that everyone in the Ali camp KNEW what kind of condition he was in. Dr. Pacheco had already left warning them. Do you think Dundee couldn't see that Ali couldn't even hit the speed bag? That his speech was so bad you had to concentrate to understand him? I put a lot of the blame on Dundee, he could have walked away and that might have gotten Ali's attention but what did he do?,,he later walked a zombie into the ring with Trevor Berbick. Dispicable
exactly this. i remember reading a newspaper article where his then sparring partner tim witherspoon described ali bewildered as some kind of "pain junkie", because his boss encouraged him again and again to hit him with full force to the head at sparring sessions. ali was caught up in his own legend and it looks as if he finally made himself believing in his own mystique. and then there were bills to pay. for his ex wife, for his extended court and his royal household, active debts for dubious financial deals. it took revenge, that he had never cared about finances in his life. his financial matters were a complete mess and nothing short than a catastrophe. since no money was left and he had to pay many people who depended on him, he simply had to make new money. the only way ali knew how to do this, was to fight again. this was just one of the reasons for his ill-fated 1980 comeback. the other important reason - as you wrote already - was missing the lime light, nothing really to do (since his political political attempts failed), addiction to fame.
Correct. The difference is Ali always looked bad in training during his second reign. Usually let everyone pound on him. Did little roadwork. Everyone covering him admits it. Some fights, he didn't even train at all. But he won those fights, so it isn't given much thought now. And people say the same about fights all the time - the match was made on so-and-so's reputation. He hasn't fought in two years. And on and on. And then we get Joshua-Klitschko. And Tyson-Holyfield. And Foreman-Moorer. Vitali-Sam Peter. Wilder-Fury I. You never know what you're going to get until the fighters fight. It's always easy, after a fight, to say a fight shouldn't have been made. Like I said the other day, if Weaver hadn't knocked out John Tate, Ali would've fought John Tate for the WBA belt in the summer of 1980. Ali had retired as the World Champion. He'd won his last fight. He was determined to come back. People wanted to see him come back and win. He and his team thought he could do it. That's boxing.
Oh please. Don King wasn't on Ali's 'gravy train.' The last fight Don King promoted for Ail prior to the Holmes fight was Ali-Evangelista three years earlier. King didn't promote the Berbick fight. The first or second Spinks fight. Any of the three Norton fights. The first two Frazier fights. The Shavers fight. The Dunn fight. The Coopman fight. The Inoki farce. The Quarry fights. The Ellis fight. The Mac and Bob Foster fights. The Patterson fights. The Chuvalo fights. The Lubbers or Blue Lewis fights. And on and on. The people on the gravy train were Ali's manager, Herbert Muhammad (who MADE all those fights), Ali's trainers (Angelo Dundee and Wali Muhammad) who failed to get him ready for most of those fights, and everyone else in the Ali entourage who were happy to pick up a check no matter how Ali looked and no matter how long he fought. Don King wasn't Ali's exclusive promoter. If Don King brought Herbert Muhammad a fight and Herbert liked the fight, he accepted. And Herbert liked the Holmes fight. If Tate had lasted 45 more seconds against Weaver, Bob Arum was set to promote Ali-Tate. Ali's team thought Holmes was going to be another Jimmy Ellis. That's all they talked about, how Ali used to beat up Holmes when he was his sparring partner. They thought they had a psychological edge on Holmes. But it didn't help like they assumed it would.
I'm guessing he meant that blood clots in his legs could result in a pulmonary embolism, especially if confined to a cramped seat for hours on end, with underlying hypertension to boot.
