‘Why go back?’ Ali says he’s done
‘Why go back?’ Ali says he’s done
Muhammad Ali insisted Wednesday one more time his boxing days are over and said, “The worst thing I could do would be to go back into the ring.
“Why go back?” asked the heavyweight champion, who last week unretired for the umpteenth time before a scheduled bonanza with Duane Bobick fell through. “I got out of boxing with my looks and my brains intact. I’m a movie star. And, I have a few million dollars in taxfree bonds.”
Ali appeared at a news conference along with baseball’s home run champion Hank Aaron to promote a local, blackowned hotel, a new sports Hall of Fame, and his movie, “The Greatest.”
State Sen. Leroy Johnson, one of the owners of the hotel, introduced the pair as, “two of the greatest sluggers in the world Hank at the plate and Muhammad Ali in the ring.”
“It’s hard to be humble when you are the greatest like we are,” quipped Ali. Ali was asked if he might return to boxing in some other capacity than a fighter.
“I’m 35,” he said. “I’ve got about 20 years to do what I want to do. I don’t want to spend those years in some smelly gym teaching someone else how to box.
“Now that I’m out of boxing, I want to do something to help solve our racial problems, and God,” said Ali. “I don’t want to be like Howard Hughes, get $2 billion and only have two people come to my funeral.”
Ali said he is finding acting, “a snap. You know I’m a good actor, I fooled you people for 10 years. I’m not really cocky. I’m a humble fellow. I had to act like that to sell tickets.”
Muhammad Ali disclosed Wednesday that after he fought Jerry Quarry here in Atlanta Oct. 26, 1970 in his first fight in more than three years Johnson’s house was shot at and there were a number of threatening telephone calls.
“I never told this before,” he said. “But, after that night after the fight here’, some rednecks drove past Sen. Johnson’s house and fired shots. There were calls telling me I’d better get out of town if I wanted to stay alive.”