Читать книгу Ali vs. Inoki. The Forgotten Fight That Inspired Mixed Martial Arts and Launched Sports Entertainment онлайн

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No one besides the six-foot-three kid himself—“a golden-brown young man,” A.J. Liebling observed in the March 1962 edition of the New Yorker, “big-chested and long-legged, whose limbs have the smooth rounded look that Joe Louis’s used to have, and that frequently denotes fast muscles”—was eager to approach deep waters. Trainer Angelo Dundee knew superior talent could get a person by in some fields, but not boxing, not even for a specimen like Ali.

There was much to learn on the arduous road ahead.

The purpose of boxing is to inflict damage with your fists while avoiding strikes in return. During a career in prizefighting that’s nearly impossible. Boxers are expected to be stout because almost all of them get caught. The game ones respond to trouble and fight on. The great ones do that then win.

For Ali’s doubters it boiled down to, yeah, sure, the fancy-footed dancer’s talent was obvious, but what kind of fighter was he really?

New York matchmaker Teddy Brenner lived up to his reputation by testing Ali’s doggedness in the boxer’s Garden debut, and Sonny Banks, a twenty-one-year-old converted southpaw puncher from Detroit, got the nod. Midway through the opening round, Banks snapped off a left hook that put Ali on the canvas and turned the Miami-based Dundee from tan to pale. Ali, a 5-to-1 favorite, needed only the count of two to regroup, shake off the cobwebs, and get to his feet.