We kept watching him that night in Las Vegas, in October in 1980, slumped on his stool between rounds, watching Larry Holmes take round after round from him, watching and waiting for there to be a round or at least a moment when Muhammad Ali would be young again, when no one could decide whether his hands were even faster than his feet.
This should have been the end of it for him, a 60th fight in a parking lot at Caesars Palace, against an opponent who was still young, and too long, and too good. Ali was dehydrated that night in Vegas, and it would be reported later that the athletic commission in Nevada had ordered him to the Mayo Clinic before that fight with Holmes, for a neurological examination. It showed, among other things, that at the age of 38, closer to 39 than 38, he had difficulty with something as basic as hopping on one leg. This man who once floated like a butterfly, and stung like a bee.
Ali would fight one more time, in 1981, in the Bahamas, against Trevor Berbick, and lost in 10 rounds. But the last shot at the title, the last doomed chance for him to once again be heavyweight champion of the world, was against Holmes. He was old, and he was weakened from thyroid medication he’d taken to lose weight before the fight, and you could see that night that Holmes not only didn’t need his whole game, he refused to use it. FULL STORY
