INTERVIEW BY LAWRENCE LINDERMAN
THE PLAYBOY INTERVIEW | NOVEMBER 1, 1975

PLAYBOY: Let's change the subject. Since a lot of people are wondering about this, level with us: Do you write all the poetry you pass off as your own?
ALI: Sure I do. Hey, man, I'm so good I got offered a professorship at Oxford. I write late at night, after the phones stop ringin' and it's quiet and nobody's around—all great writers do better at night. I take at least one nap during the day, and then I get up at two in the morning and do my thing. You know, I'm a worldly man who likes people and action and I always liked cities, but now when I find myself in a city, I can't wait to get back to my training camp. Neon signs, traffic, noise and people—all that can get you crazy. It's funny, because I was supposed to be torturing myself by building a training camp out in the middle of nowhere in northern Pennsylvania, but this is good livin'—fresh air, well water, quiet and country views. I thought I wouldn't like it at all but that at least I'd work a lot instead of being in the city, where maybe I wouldn't train hard enough. Well, now I like it better than being in any city. This is a real good setting for writin' poetry and I write all the time, even when I'm in training. But poems aren't the only thing I've been writing. I've also been setting my mind to sayings. You want to hear some?

PLAYBOY: Do we have a choice?
ALI: You listen up and maybe I'll make you as famous as I made Howard Cosell. "Wars on nations are fought to change maps, but wars on poverty are fought to map change." Good, huh? "The man who views the world at 50 the same as he did at 20 has wasted 30 years of his life." These are words of wisdom, so pay attention, Mr. Playboy. "The man who has no imagination stands on the earth—he has no wings, he cannot fly." Catch this: "When we are right, no one remembers, but when we are wrong. no one forgets. Watergate!" I really like the next one: "Where is man's wealth? His wealth is in his knowledge. If his wealth was in the bank and not in his knowledge, then he don't possess it—because it's in the bank!" You got all that?

PLAYBOY: Let's talk about boxing anyway. What's the physical sensation of really being nailed by hitters like Foreman and Frazier?
ALI: Take a stiff tree branch in your hand and hit it against the floor and you'll feel your hand go boingggggg. Well. getting tagged is the same kind of jar on your whole body. and you need at least 10 or 20 seconds to make that go away. You get hit again before that, you got another boingggggg.

PLAYBOY: After you're hit that hard, does your body do what you want it to do?
ALI: No, because your mind controls your body and the moment you're tagged, you can't think. You're just numb and you don't know where you're at. There's no pain, just that jarring feeling. But I automatically know what to do when that happens to me, sort of like a sprinkler system going off when a fire starts up. When I get stunned, I'm not really conscious of exactly where I'm at or what's happening, but I always tell myself that I'm to dance, run, tie my man up or hold my head way down. I tell myself all that when I'm conscious, and when I get tagged, I automatically do it. I get hit, but all great fighters get hit—Sugar Ray got hit, Joe Louis got hit and Rocky Marciano got hit. But they had something other fighters didn't have: the ability to hold on until they cleared up. I got that ability, too, and I had to use it once in each of the Frazier fights. That's one reason I'm a great defensive fighter. The other is my rope-a-dope defense—and when I fought Foreman, he was the dope.

PLAYBOY: If you prepared that tactic for your fight with Foreman in Za'ire, then why was Angelo Dundee, your trainer, so shocked when you suddenly went to the ropes?
ALI: Well, I didn't really plan it. After the first round, I felt myself getting too tired for the pace of that fight, but George wasn't gonna get tired, 'cause he was just cutting the ring off on me. I stayed out of the way, but I figured that after seven or eight rounds of dancing like that, I'd be really tired. Then, when I'd go to the ropes, my resistance would be low and George would get one through to me. So while I was still fresh, I decided to go to the ropes and try to get George tired.

PLAYBOY: What was your original Foreman fight plan?
ALI: To dance every round. I had it in mind to do what I did when I was 22, but I got tired, so I had to change my strategy. George didn't change his strategy, 'cause he can't do nothin' but attack—that's the only thing he knows. All he wants to do is get his man in the corner, so in the second round, I gave him what he wanted. He couldn't do nothin'!

PLAYBOY: Did Foreman seem puuled when he had you cornered but couldn't land any punches?
ALI: Nope, he just figured he'd get me in the next round. When he didn't do it in the third, he thought he'd get me in the fourth. Then he thought it would be the fifth, and then the sixth. But in the sixth round, George was so tired. All of a sudden, he knew he'd threw everything he had at me and hadn't hurt me at all. And he just lost all his heart.

PLAYBOY: How could you tell?
ALI: He stopped attacking the way he'd been doin'. He had shots to take and didn't take 'em, and then I purposely left him some openings and he wouldn't take them. George knew he'd been caught in my trap and there wasn't but one way he could get out of it: by knocking me out. He kept trying with his last hope, but he was too tired, and a man of his age and talent shouldn't get used up that quick. George was dead tired; he was throwing wild punches, missing and falling over the ropes. So I started tellin' him how bad he looked: "Lookatcha, you're not a champ, you're a tramp. You're fightin' just like a sissy. C'mon and show me somethin', boy."

PLAYBOY: Do you think Foreman was so confident of beating you that he didn't train properly?
ALI: No, George didn't take me lightly. He fought me harder than he fought Frazier or Norton. Whoever I fight comes at me harder, because if you beat Muhammad Ali, you'll be the big man, the legend. Beating me is like beating Joe Louis or being the man who shot Jesse James. George just didn't realize how hard I am to hit and how hard I can hit. He thought he was greater than me. Well, George is humble now. I did just what I told him I'd do when the ref was giving us instructions. There was George, trying to scare me with his serious look—he got that from his idol, Sonny Liston. And there I was, tellin' him, "Boy, you in trouble! You're gonna meet the greatest fighter of all time! We here now and there ain't no way for you to get out of this ring—I gotcha! You been readin' about me ever since you were a little boy and now you gonna see me in action. Chump, I'm gonna show you how great I am—I'm gonna eat you up. You don't stand a chance! You lose the crown tonight!"

PLAYBOY: Did you receive a lot of hate mail during those years?
ALI: Only about one out of every 300 letters. And I kind a liked those, so I put 'em all away in a box. When I'm 90 years old, they'll be something to show my great-grandson. I'll tell him, "Boy, here's a letter your great-granddaddy got when he fought the draft way back when they had wars." Anyway, there's good and bad in every race. People got their own opinions and they free to talk.

PLAYBOY: Considering your feelings about white America, did it surprise you that so many whites agreed with your stand against the draft?
ALI: Yes, it did. I figured it would be worse and that I'd meet with a lot more hostility, but that didn't happen. See, that war wasn't like World War Two or like America being attacked. I actually had a lot going for me at the time: The country was halfway against it, the youth was against it and the world was saying to America, "Get out." And there I was, among people who are slaves and who are oppressed by whites. I also had a platform, because the Muslim religion and the Koran preaches against such wars. I would've caught much more hell if America was in a declared war and I didn't go.

PLAYBOY: Would you have served if America had been in a declared war?
ALI: The way I feel, if America was attacked and some foreign force was prowling the streets and shooting, naturally I'd fight. I'm on the side of America, not them, because I'm fighting for myself, my children and my people. Whatever foreigners would come in, if they saw some black people with rifles, I'm sure they'd start shooting. So, yeah, I'd fight if America was attacked.

PLAYBOY: When you returned to the ring in 1970, most boxing observers felt you'd lost a good deal of your speed and timing. Did you think so?
ALI: Nope, I thought I was about the same, maybe even better. My first bout when I came back was with Jerry Quarry, who I'd fought before. It was the strangest thing, but when I watched films of the first Quarry fight, I looked fast; yet when I looked at the second Quarry fight I was superfast. Then, after I lost to Frazier, I studied the films and even though I wasn't in great shape and clowned a lot, look at how sharp I was, how much I hit Joe. Anyway, you saw what Foreman did to Frazier and then what I did to Foreman, so what could I have lost by resting for three and a half years? Couldn't be much, could it? That's why I can stay champ for a long time, and if I fight just twice a year, my title can't be taken away. And those'll be big, big fights worth at least $5,000,000 apiece. That's $I0,000,000 a year for five years, which means I'll split $50,000,000 with the Government. I'll wind up with $25,000,000 after taxes. Whew!

PLAYBOY: That kind of money wasn't around when you began boxing professionally. Are you ever astonished by the fact that you can make $5,000,000 in the course of an hour?
ALI: No, and when I leave boxing, there will never be that kind of money for fighters again. I can get $5,000,000 or $7,500,000 a fight because I got a world audience. The people who are puttin' up that money are the richest people in the world—black oilmen. It was a rich black man who paid me and George Foreman, and he did it because he wanted some publicity for his little country, and he got it. For 15 years after the white Belgians had to get out of there, no one—including me—ever heard of Zaire. No one knew it was a country of more than 22,000,000 people, but now we do. I just got offered $7,500,000 to fight Foreman in Djakarta, Indonesia, by a black oilman who wants to promote his country. How to do it? Call Muhammad Ali over and have him fight for the title and the world will read about where he's fighting. But after I'm out of boxing and the title goes back to a fighter like a George Foreman or any good American, title fights won't travel no further than America and England, And that'll be the end of the big, big money,

PLAYBOY: Do you think you'll miss boxing when you finally retire?
ALI: No, because I realize you got to get old. Buildings get old, people get old and we're all gain' to die. See the fat I have around my stomach? Ten years ago, it would come off in two weeks, but not anymore. I can't exactly feel myself getting old, but I ain't like I was ten years ago, so time equips me to face the facts of life. When I get to be 50, I won't really miss boxing at all, because I'll know l can't do it anymore. But when I quit, I sure ain't gain' out like the old-time fighters. You ain't gonna hear it said about me that when I was champ I bought me a Cadillac, had me a couple of white girls on my arm, and that when I retired I went broke. You'll never read articles about me that say, "Poor Muhammad Ali, he made so much money and now he's working in a car wash." No, sir.

PLAYBOY: With the possible exceptions of a few of our politicians, you're probably the most publicized American of this century. What kinds of problems does fame on such a grand scale create?
ALI: None. It's a blessing if you use publicity for the right thing, and I use it to help my brothers and to promote truth around the world. It's still an honor for me to talk to TV reporters who come all the way from Germany and Australia just to interview me. And when we're talking, I don't see a man from Germany, I see millions of Germans. The reporter will go back home and show his film to his entire nation, which keeps me popular and sells fight tickets, which is how I earn my living—and also how I can keep buying up buildings for my people. That's why talkin' so much don't bother me, but I'll be bothered when the reporters quit coming around, because on that day I'll realize I'm not newsworthy anymore, and that's when it all ends. So I enjoy it while it's happening.

PLAYBOY: Does your claim of being the greatest mean that you think you could have beaten every heavyweight champion in modern ring history?
ALI: I can't really say. Rocky Marciano, Jack Johnson, Joe Louis, Jack Dempsey, Joe Walcott, Ezzard Charles—they all would have given me trouble. I can't know if I would've beaten them all, but I do know this: I'm the most talked-about, the most publicized, the most famous and the most colorful fighter in history. And I'm the fastest heavyweight—with feet and hands—who ever lived. Besides all that, I'm the onliest poet laureate boxing's ever had. One other thing, too: If you look at pictures of all the former champions, you know in a flash that I'm the best-looking champion in history. It all adds up to being the greatest, don't it?

PLAYBOY: Do you think you'll be remembered that way?
ALI: I don't know, but I'll tell you how I'd like to be remembered: as a black man who won the heavyweight title and who was humorous and who treated everyone right. As a man who never looked down on those who looked up to him and who helped as many of his people as he could financially and also in their fight for freedom, justice and equality. As a man who wouldn't hurt his people's dignity by doing anything that would embarrass them. As a man who tried to unite his people through the faith of Islam that he found when he listened to the Honorable Elijah Muhammad. And if all that's asking too much, then I guess I'd settle for being remembered only as a great boxing champion who became a preacher and a champion of his people.

And I wouldn't even mind if folks forgot how pretty I was.