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American Morning
Boxing Analyst Discusses Ali's Birthday
Aired January 17, 2002 - 09:41 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
PAULA ZAHN, CNN ANCHOR: Time to spend a very special wish to Mohammed Ali. The greatest turned 60 today. Ali was larger than life long before his story became a big screen feature. In a sport known for hard hitting, Ali was sassy.
Even as he celebrates his 60th birthday, we remember when he was still Cassius Clay. His bravado and self-promotion where never in short supply.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MOHAMMED ALI: (UNINTELLIGIBLE), tell him: What are we going to do?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You're going to float like a butterfly and sting like a bee.
(CROSSTALK)
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ZAHN: Joining us from Los Angeles to look at Ali's career and life as a living legend, HBO boxing analyst Larry Merchant.
Good morning. Nice of you to get up so early for us this morning.
LARRY MERCHANT, BOXING ANALYST: It must be a labor of love, and it is.
ZAHN: Tell us why. Why is this a labor of love? This is man you followed for many, many years. And as we talk about him today, it's when there's intense focus on his life, not only in a movie, but many, many books out there written about Ali.
MERCHANT: Ali was a revolutionary figure in sports, in boxing, and transcending both. He was a revolutionary figure in boxing because the sport had never seen a big, fast, brave man like him. As well as the fact that he was probably the first athlete who cultivated the media with a great sense of self-promotion, as well as to promote his big events.
He was also a very controversial figure because of that, because he defied all of the old conventions of how an athlete should behave: be humble, be modest, and so forth. And then, of course, at a time of racial and social and political upheaval, his daring, his courage, his spontaneity, his beauty, and wit, and principled stance inspired people all over the world, and tickled them at the same time.
ZAHN: Help us remember the context in which his announcement where he condemned Christianity and converted to Islam -- help us understand the context in which that was pronounced.
MERCHANT: Once again, it was a controversial stand which athlete seldom made. Secondly, of course, at the time, the Nation of Islam considered a dangerous cult, and for the heavyweight champion of the world to make such a public change in his religion was unprecedented, highly controversial, and contributed mightily to the anti- establishment feeling of that time. You have to remember Ali came through at a time President Kennedy associated, Martin Luther King was assassinated, the Vietnam War was such a polarizing thing in the society, Richard Nixon was moved out of the presidency -- all of these things while Ali was around. And he was connected to that counterculture feeling that threatened so many people in America.
ZAHN: So do you see that as the strongest part of legacy or the athleticism?
MERCHANT: I don't know that you could change it, but I imagine decades from now, what people will remember about Ali was the kind of entertaining, brilliant athlete -- but mostly because social figure that he become from the platform of being the heavyweight champion of the world, the movements that he was identified with so closely at a time that there was a great deal of social turmoil in America.
ZAHN: What is he is like one-on-one?
MERCHANT: Well, right today do, you mean?
ZAHN: Yes, have you spent time with him recently?
MERCHANT: I spent time with him from time to time. You can still see that sparkle and glow in his eye. It's brave of him, by the way, for a man who celebrated own beauty and was accused, rightly, of be a narcissist, to just come out there and look the way he does and look you in the eye and show that little bit of a twinkle. And you can still make sense of what he says, and you understand that his brain is working, even if the motor skills are no longer there.
ZAHN: I can tell you one thing, he still certainly knows how to control a room. He attended a ceremony honoring Rudy Giuliani, our former mayor of New York City, and everybody in the room stopped to pay their homage to him.
Larry Merchant, thank you for helping us recognize Mohammed Ali's 60th birthday today.
MERCHANT: Thank you.
ZAHN: Have a good rest of the day.
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