I remember seeing it later. It was from early 1973. He was 51 (almost 52). Same age Hopkins was when he fought Joe Smith Jr.
I don’t remember from its actual time but I have seen it. Hard hitting but necessarily so. Very sad, like so many other diseases, ALS is a horrible thing. Poor Ezz. I remember Ali doing ads re MS, relating to the work/research being done by Jonas Salk (creator of the Polio Vaccine) re that particular disease. Last time I checked, I couldn’t find the exact ad I recall on YouTube but I’ll fly by the seat of my pants, going on vague memory, - in this specific ad, Ali rapped the following words (likely not verbatim, lol):- “We’re gonna pound and trounce it, it’s a mean disease, we’re gonna chill it and kill it and knock it to it’s knees” <can’t recall the exact words at this point> “….and that’s not all, because the man on the job is Jonas Salk”. The ad finished with the announcer asking “Help Fight Multiple Sclerosis”. Anybody remember that one?
Crushing to see the GOAT utterly helpless the way he is here the fire has faded. Like the sad portrait's of Napoleon in exile he looks disconnected.
In November of 1968, a benefit dinner was arranged at a Chicago hotel for the ailing fighter. It was attended by a number of prominent boxers and an overflowing crowd of fans. At the speaker’s table, Archie Moore and Rocky Marciano sat alongside Charles, who was in a wheelchair by that point. Marciano called his former foes the “odd couple” while Moore and Charles shared jokes and smiled for photographers. I remember reading about this in the biography on Ezzard Charles by William Dettfield. In the book Charles came across as a first class gentleman, intelligent and loyal. He was definitely one of the good guys. Like most fighters, given a different start in life, he wouldn't have gone near the ring.
He was so good he was one of few guys I’ve read about that broke Moores composure in the ring. I don’t know which fight it was but Archie got dirty, called him just another “that word” it’s good to see Moore left that in the ring.
He beat Charley Burley twice too. It's only my opinion but both of these lads plus Lloyd Marshall, another of my favourites, Charley Burley and a peak Holman Williams could have all won the middleweight crown and/or the light heavyweight title too, in Charles and Marshall's case and earlier for Moore
This is a very sad commercial. Wonder if most watching at the time thought how brutal boxing is to cause that.? Even tho boxing wouldn't be the cause of it, a few would have presumed it was fighting related.
His condition worsened swiftly after it first became public in 1968, though by that time he'd already been living with it for years. One sad thing is that someone evidently gave him the idea that it was curable. https://ibb.co/bKmDnVB
