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"There is always a shock in seeing him again. Not live as in television but standing before you, looking his best. Then the World's Greatest Athlete is in danger of being our most beautiful man and the vocabulary of Camp is doomed to appear. Women draw an audible breath. Men look down. They are reminded again of their lack of worth. If Ali never opened his mouth to quiver the jellies of public opinion, he would still inspire love and hate. For he is the Prince of Heaven - so says the silence around his body when he is luminous." ========================================== "Then he made a curious remark one could think about for the rest of the week. It was characteristic of a great deal about Foreman. "Excuse me for not shaking hands with you," he said in that voice so carefully muted to retain his power, "but you see I'm keeping my hands in my pockets." Of course! If they were in pockets, how could he remove them? As soon ask a poet in the middle of writing a line whether coffee is taken with milk or cream. Yet Foreman made his remark in such simplicity that the thought seems likeable rather than rude. He was telling the truth. It was important to keep his hands in his pockets. Equally important to keep the work at remove. He lived in silence. Flanked by body guards to keep, exactly, to keep hand-shakers away, he could stand among a hundred people in the lobby and be in touch with no one. His head was alone. Other champions had a presence larger than themselves. They offered charisma. Foreman had silence. It vibrated about him in silence." "Foreman's hands were as separate from him as a kuntu. They were his instrument and he kept them in his pockets the way a hunter lays his rifle back into its velvet case." ========================================= "He was all alone in the ring; the Challenger on call for the Champion, the Prince waiting for the Pretender, and unlike other fighers who in the long minutes before the tittle holder will appear, Ali seems to be taking royal pleasure in his undisputed possession of the space. He looked unafraid and almost on the edge of happiness, as if the discipline of having carried himself through the two thousand nighs of sleeping without his title after it had been taken from him without ever loosing a contest ... must have been a biblical seven years of trial through which he had come with the crucial part of honour, his talent, and his desire for greatness still intact, and light came off him at this instant. His body had a shine like the flanks of a thoroughbred. He looked ready to fight the strongest man to come along in Heavyweight circles in many years, maybe the worst big man of all," ========================================= "Then a big projectile exactly the size of a fist in a glove drove into the middle of Foreman's mind, the best of the startled night, the blow Ali saved for a career. Foreman's arms flew out to the side like with a parachute jumping out of plane, and in this doubled-over position he tried to wander out the centre of the ring. All the while his eyes were on Ali and he looked up with no anger as if Ali, indeed, was the man he knew best in the world would see him on his dying days. Vertigo took George Foreman and revolved him. Still bowing from the waist in this uncomprehending position, eyes on Muhammad Ali all the way, he started to tumble and topple and fall even as he did not wish to go down. His mind was held with magnets high as his championship and his booy was seeking the ground."
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