THE arrival of Muhammad Ali brought sudden excitement and great expectations to where there had been only despondency and despair. You could actually feel the atmosphere lift when he swaggered into Munich, accompanied by an entourage of 54 helpers, healers, hawkers, hucksters and hangers-on. I had travelled the world covering major sporting events, but had never witnessed anything quite like the Ali circus coming to town. They took over Munich like an invading army.
Ali’s management had chartered a flight from the United States, and virtually every one of the passengers was on the fighter’s payroll and/or expense sheet. They filled 40 rooms in the five-star Bayerischer Hof hotel and another 10 in the Munich Hilton, where the relatively small Dunn party was camped.
Throughout his stay, I noted that Ali never changed his wristwatch from US time. He ate breakfast in the evening and dinner in the morning, and while everybody thought he was not training he would go to the gymnasium in the middle of the night. I witnessed him knocking lumps off his white sparring partner Rodney Bobick, while taking it easy on his four black hired accomplices, including former heavyweight champion Jimmy Ellis, who had been forced to retire with a damaged retina. Ali carefully hit him only in the body.
It was noticeable that he did not have a southpaw among his sparring partners. When I put that to him, Ali just shrugged and said: “Southpaw, northpaw, eastpaw, westpaw, I’m gonna knock your boy clean out. Have you told him he’s fighting the greatest heavyweight the world has ever seen?”
Ali saw me as a vessel to get to Richard. I had worked
