I Am Ali Page #3

what you mean by luck.

I told you it would end in

five and that's what happened.

Yes, and you came in the ring

with a crown on your head.

- Is that because...

- Because I am the king.

I understand you have a Queen of

England, but you don't have a king.

The second time we went, though,

we couldn't walk the streets.

So there you go. I mean, then he

wasn't as glib or crazy or anything,

but the people fell in love with him

because they knew it, he was for real.

Maryum, what do people say? Do

they know you're my daughter?

Yes, everybody.

Tell me the truth.

Do they make any cracks?

"You think you're cool

'cause of your daddy. "

Yeah, like, if I do

something, they say,

"You think you're big just because

you're Muhammad Ali's daughter. "

They say that to you?

Who say it? Boys or girls?

- Mostly boys.

- Oh.

I mean, I knew he was famous

as soon as I can walk and talk

and understand words.

You know, I heard how

much people adored him

and, you know, a simple trip

to the convenience store

was 50 people surrounding our car.

He couldn't go anywhere.

And my father loved people,

so he would entertain them

and stay out there and talk to 'em and,

"He's gonna get knocked down in five. "

And I'm sitting here looking at

him and I'm looking at the people

and so I knew this is not normal.

You know what I'm saying?

So I knew really, really

young, um, how huge he was,

is when I would see people on television

that I admire, like Tom Jones,

or Philip Wilson or Sly Stone,

Sammy Davis, Jr.,

and then they would be at my house.

I'm like, "Whoa. "

You know, "You're famous," you

know, so I knew he was up there.

My dad played kind of the good cop

out of the parents, you know.

You know, it was so funny.

He would, like, if I acted up, he'll go,

"Belinda, go, she needs a spanking. "

And then, you know, my mother

give me a little spanking.

And he'll go in your room,

"Are you OK?"

"You want me to get you

some ice cream?"

You know. He always had

to be the nice guy,

but he was just a practical joker.

Loved to joke.

He just always played around,

very loving, very affectionate.

Always kissing your cheeks.

He'd wake you up in the

morning kissing your cheeks.

"Gimme jaws, gimme the nose," you know.

So he was very loving

and you would think a boxer

wouldn't be a teddy bear like that.

I just had fun with my dad. I

always wanted to be with him.

I was like a daddy's girl.

Daddy's gotta leave. He's going

into training, do you hear?

- Daddy's going to fight.

- I want to go with you.

You wanna go with me? You can't.

Can you fight?

Do you fight? No, you don't fight.

You can't go.

- Here you go.

- Yes, I go!

No, Daddy going to get in shape

and you stay at home. You hear?

I wanna...

I wanna go with you.

You wanna go fight with me?

OK.

- Come on, sweetheart.

- The man gonna fight!

- Who gonna fight?

- The man.

The man? Your dad.

Would you please

cook me some dinner?

I go to work all day,

I've been out all day

and when all you have to do is to lay

around in this big house and live easy

and at least you can

have my meal on time.

- Woman, please, is the food ready?

- Yes.

All right. Come on.

Let's go eat, May May.

There's one thing you don't mess

with is colored folks' food

and colored folks' money.

Come on. Come on, darlin'.

He loved his children.

He loved his children,

but he was a blessed man

to have Belinda's mom and dad

take care of the kids

when there was such a demand put

on him as being a world man.

He asked to travel here or travel there

so his title, his heavyweight belt...

What was more valuable

than that heavyweight belt

was having his mother-in-law raising

the children, which she did.

And she did a good job.

He used to love

to tape record conversations

and he would always say,

"I'm gonna tape you guys,

and when you're older you're

gonna love this, these tapes. "

And, um, he would always do it

so when my parents got divorced,

he would call me. "How you doing?

What are you doing?"

"What do you wanna be

when you grow up?"

He would always tell me time is gonna

fly, you know, I'm gonna be older.

I mean, he was just, like...

he could foresee things

and knew how important

those things would be.

- Maryum?

- Sir?

You're now 11 years old. Now,

do you wanna go to college?

Yes, sir. Now, what do

you wanna do there?

Everything Allah made has a purpose.

Trees have a purpose.

- What's the purpose of a cow?

- To give us milk.

OK. What's

the purpose of the sun?

- The sun?

- Sun.

- To give us light and heat.

- And make things grow.

So everything God made, the cows,

horses, the moon, stars, ants,

everything has a purpose.

Now, what's your purpose?

You're a human being.

If God made the sun have a purpose,

humans have a purpose too.

Hey, you haven't found your

life purpose yet, have you?

Yes.

If everybody's born for a purpose,

what do you think you were born for?

- To make people feel better.

- To fix people up.

That's good.

That's good, Maryum.

This bout, 15 rounds for the

heavyweight championship of the world.

The challenger from Louisville,

Kentucky, Cassius Clay.

And his opponent

from Denver, Colorado,

the heavyweight champion of the

world, Charles Sonny Liston.

Ali, by then, had had

19 professional fights.

It wasn't as though he'd

suddenly come upon the scene.

He'd been properly,

properly managed

in the sense that, Dundee

was an expert match maker.

I mean, match making is one of

the great skills in boxing.

Finding the right

guy at the right time.

- Sonny Liston was a gangster.

- I mean, he was a mob guy.

He had fast hands and he could punch.

You wouldn't take him lightly.

Nobody gave, Ali, or Clay

as he then was, a chance.

Liston will kill him.

Kill him in the first round.

It'll be Liston in three rounds.

- Liston.

- One, Liston.

- Second round, Liston.

- Liston in four.

Liston!

- Well, I am for Liston.

- Who did this guy ever fight?

- Who?

- Yeah.

- Clay?

- Yeah.

I mean, what Ali set out to

do was to get into his head.

And, you know,

it had occurred to Ali,

I think, that,

Liston thought he was crazy.

That Ali was crazy.

- You ain't got a chance!

- Let us see, let us see.

Liston, he can't deal with this.

A fella coming at him with a

sledgehammer, he could deal with it,

but, well, "This fella's

crazy," you know.

And that's how he

went into the ring.

Hey, get back!

I predict that tonight somebody will

die at the ringside from shock.

The world heavyweight boxing

title on the line.

Looking to get Sonny to lunge.

Liston thought he was

gonna win the fight

and his people thought

he was gonna win the fight,

but,

um, that wasn't what Ali saw.

Less than one minute more

in this second round.

Another downright hammer shot.

There goes another one!

Sonny wobbles. Got a wobble.

The fight never went

Liston's way.

At the end of the sixth round,

Liston sat on the stool and said,

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