Fifteen Rounds to a Zeitgeist
Gold, Vic
The Alternative • October 1975 • Volume 9, Number 1 Vic Gold Fifteen Rounds to a Zeitgeist • ********** (In Which a One Hunnert Percent American Fight Freak Self-Analyzes & Defends His...
...His name was Angelo...
...No indeed...
...The perfect ringer for these times...
...He will take a punch, two punches, three punches...
...They tell me that Angelo's entry was built like a dark dreadnought, and I believe them, because I had seen him fight as an amateur...
...Foreman is a black...
...Finally, there is Joe Frazier, born thirty years too late...
...Tell me, J .D., why is it that this "leader" who "does not trust whites" manages always to reserve his meanest pejoratives for "his own people" ? ********** (Do I stretch a point...
...All right...
...nurtured in his career by a tender-loving all-white group of Louisville businessmen and solicitous whitehandlers, including the best (white) trainer in the business—I leave that for Ales literary camp-followers to contend...
...Indeed, if Howard Cosell had been marketing his verbosity to mass audiences during the thirties—Cosell, that ultimate new-guard plastic packager of jock "soul" for white audiences—he would have colored Louis dull...
...Thus does Muhammad perceive and advertise the blackness of others, in terms that titillate soft-headed whites...
...But as for the way Clay/Ali handles his business inside a ring, on that subject, this freak has certain firsthand observations: a Jack Johnson he might have been, given his magnificent physical talents...
...Gets up...
...Frazier is a black...
...He always gave us the finest 6 The Alternative: An American Spectator October 1975 1962: Sonny Liston is "the Ugly Bear...
...He was an activist of a different sort...
...This fight freak does not simply dislike Muhammad Ali and his predecessor Cassius Clay, but I fervently hope that, separately and severally, they and their mystique are knocked on their collective butt, come September 30...
...And, oh yes...he did not hide the fact that he did not particularly trust whites...
...Maybe, all time...
...The opponent's handlers urge him to quit, but though in excrutiating pain he will not...
...How can it be that a man who does "not particularly trust whites" spends so much time on the road spilling his soul to a blue-eyed honky bullshit artist like Norman Mailer...
...Brilliance of the mind discharged 2 Enough...
...One of the trainers who later moved to town and adopted it was the younger brother of professional matchmaker Chris Dundee...
...Fast forward speed: November 22, 1965...
...And with that, maybe his name...
...Meaning...
...But Winchell corrected that...
...I grew up in New Orleans but had a cousin, Harold Jacobs, who fought professionally out of Chicago...
...By pure jabber, understand, I mean simply that with a hook, cross, or uppercut my cousin could not punch his way out of a Norman Mailer metaphor (or whatever passed for Norman Mailer metaphors in those days...
...We, the freaks in the back rows, showed our appreciation by contemptuously naming our local white fighters after horses...
...But that argument generally comes from members of the generation that knew not Joseph: the Bullshit Generation that runs its ideological miles with the likes of Norman M. For we benighted fight freaks of that golden pre-television era—freaks of all ages, races, previous conditions of irrational bias—recognized Joe Louis for what he was: We called him class...
...My bias is double-distilled...
...I guess, that the brilliance of his mind is not discharged through his ankles...
...Is knocked down...
...I will never forget what he said: "Dey go to Nashville for regionals," he told us...
...Not that his playing to the Mailer gallery, inside and outside, is irrelevant to my bias...
...although they could, we were told, punch...
...For 11 rounds the champion toys with an opponent who, as everyone in the arena can see, has suffered a dislocated back vertebra...
...Reporters called him Melonjaws...
...Then, one night in the early 1960s, some years after I had left the city, Angelo Dundee imported an out-oftowner to fight in an all-black match...
...You will have to take my word for it, all New Orleans boxing coaches who taught white kids how to handle themselves in those days were named Whitey...
...Bethea The Washington Star...
...As a white boy growing up in New Orleans I had a boxing coach named Whitey...
...No, I do not mean by renouncing Black Muslimism and embracing the Southern Baptist rites, or by changing his name back to Cassius Clay...
...Thus does Muhammad Ali perceive and advertise the blackness of others in terms that titillate soft-headed whites ...Alexander Portnoy is sepia...why is it that this "leader" who "does not trust whites" always reserves his meanest pejoratives for "his own people...
...A young black, out of an Alabama sharecropping family, from the slums of Detroit...
...Joe Frazier wants to know who them dudes fought...
...Except for the fact that the opponent is Floyd Patterson...
...That night, in Madison Square Garden, he just took Johnny out...
...Class, we once believed, will always out...
...Harold was a heavyweight who moved well on his feet and owned very fast hands, particularly his left...
...He also did not hide the fact that he did not particularly trust whites...
...He knows no other way: In the first round of the first fight he ever lost, Frazier is knocked unconscious —on his feet, but unconscious for all medical purposes—by a single punch thrown by George Foreman...
...though I would not go so far as to say, as you do, that my kind could never forgive him, because—who knows ?—the man might yet change his style...
...Bethea, meet Norman Mailer...
...He wants to finish on his feet or be carried out, in the work ethic of his trade...
...The fight is a charade in agony, which might be justified by psycho-historians of the ring as retribution for the wrongs of centuries...
...Frazier goes down...
...Not Whitey Esnault, another Whitey...
...But God protects...
...He gets up—unconscious, but on instinct...
...About the second time my cousin was tagged with a sharp right counter over his pure left jab, he met in executive session with his brilliant ankles...
...But in that innocent era, when our national sports Zeitgeist had not yet been intellectually overwhelmed by the new-guard, we fight freaks—all ages, races, biases—recognized such "free spirits" for what they were: We called them bums...
...That was not Joe Louis' style...
...But this is my cathartic self-analysis and I am, as you were forewarned, a fight freak...
...George Foreman is "the Zombie...
...Never, they used to say about the champion, a wasted motion...
...So dey go to Chicago for nationals...
...The Original Ali was the adopted son of the Prophet Muhammad...
...1974...
...Whether the same can be said for the young Clay—product of a middle-class black family (no hog-slopping for him...
...Jack Johnson, like Sam Langford and other black fighters of the early part of this century, was victimized by white bigotry...
...Next day, dey' re onna train back home...
...Muhammad Ali) ********** The Preliminaries ********** "There is that segment of jock journalism, those old-guard sportswriters and sportscasters of the country, who will never forgive Ali for betraying them...
...And exactly how much does Muhammad Ali owe to Angelo Dundee...
...Well, he was the Great White Hope for the latter part of the month of March 1940...
...The ring announcer once described the champion as "a credit to his race...
...New-guard sportswriter J.D...
...In fact, with the exception of Bicycle Bob Pastor, let me say (as a matter of family pride) that my cousin, potentially, was the best pure heavyweight jabber of his time...
...But a Jack Johnson he is not...
...Get inna ring, t'row dere best punch at some bullet-headed nigger...
...Patterson is "the Rabbit...
...The Alternative • October 1975 • Volume 9, Number 1 Vic Gold Fifteen Rounds to a Zeitgeist • ********** (In Which a One Hunnert Percent American Fight Freak Self-Analyzes & Defends His Irrational Bias Vs...
...It is a phony parallel...
...Pastrano was Carry Back...
...1974: George Foreman is "the Zombie...
...A chameleon in black-and-white...
...So I plead guilty...
...Soundtrack on Ali the Showman, taunting his opposition, hyping the gate: 1962...
...The Introductions ********** J.D...
...That system was "run-and-jab...
...Even as he now adores his friend Ali, who, we are told, does "not particularly trust whites...
...Let us count the ways...
...You will remember, no doubt, my cousin Harold's contender, Johnny Paychek...
...However, if new-guardsmen must give some racial interpretation to a Caucasian fight freak's prejudice against the Muhammad Ali style, let me put it this way: he fights (and even talks) like a lot of bad white fighters I used to watch...
...Pause Ten Seconds for Commercial Break Delivered by a Fighter Who Writes His Own Material "I want him like a hog wants slops...
...Nigger, he just stands dere and blinks...
...Or word...
...Just, bums...
...Liston is a black...
...Knowing this, Ali settles down to a long evening's entertainment...
...He is what my coach, Whitey, used to warn us against...
...Whether Ali himself ever uttered or cogitated such radchicery is neither here nor there...
...His championship, certainly...
...Cosell would have sold them to the public as "free spirits...
...It was a sad night for the family, but what I recall most vividly about that fight—as I do fondly, these latter years, about all those old Louis fights—was that we had a world champion who did not taunt, humiliate, or demean his opponent, either before, during, or after a match...
...Almost overnight, as far as they were concerned, Cassius Clay, the Olympic gold medalist as a light heavyweight, changed from a charming young fighter who was good copy into a Black Muslim who wanted to be called Muhammad Ali...
...Frazier is knocked down...
...He added, "the human race, of course...
...In the fifth round of his title fight against Sonny Liston, Cassius Clay, his eyes burning from a foreign substance believed to be on Liston's gloves, decides to quit...
...Unfortunately, out of not much else...
...Physically, he looked like a new Jack Johnson...
...Two rounds later, Liston quits At a news conference the following day, Cassius Clay announced to the world that he was a Black Muslim convert who, from that moment forward, wanted to becalled Muhammad Ali...
...1965: Floyd Patterson is "the Rabbit...
...For if, as his literary roadmate claims, Ali might one day emerge as a leader of "his people," he shapes up as a false leader...
...Consider, as evidence of his claim to the title, the following line, which describes Muhammad Ali's reaction on being in-formed that Norman Mailer does roadwork: "...[W]ith the exception of Eric Segal and George Gilder, he had never heard of a writer who liked to run—who wanted the brilliance of the mind discharged through the ankles...
...They were the hype men of that era, and Ali, whomever he may be compared to inside a ring, is, outside it, in the tradition of those dismal White Hopes...
...Just outlining a tactical problem...
...Sonny Liston is "the Ugly Bear...
...Eric Segal...
...in runners, jabbers, floaters, and stingers...
...Round after round the champion deals out punishment in sharp, but never quite lethal, doses...
...Whitey was not stating a case for black supremacy in the ring...
...Their decision was unanimous: he hung up his own gloves and began teaching the art of the jab to other young heavyweights, who could punch their way out of metaphors...
...There are those new-guardsmen, I know, who, in the spirit of these times, now imply that Louis, by comporting himself as a champion who did not offend white sensibilities, was little more than a closet Uncle Tom...
...The Main Event ********** Let us proceed, for purposes of argument—since we are arguing anyway—by stipulating that there will be two contending black heavyweight traditions in Manila September 30: In this corner, claiming to represent the Jack Johnson tradition, Muhammad Ali...
...Now a modern Muhammad might become the leader of his people...
...George Gilder...
...Every Monday night, New Orleans fight freaks would go downtown to the Coliseum to see Chris Dundee's feature attractions...
...Even as he and others now color Frazier, who also prefers to talk, as well as do roadwork, like a fighter...
...But by the time the decision was announced (in his favor), they had settled on a permanent nickname...
...We shall see...
...Second, every athlete should be judged, as an athlete, within the framework and standards of his own physical discipline...
...He gets up...
...You don't...
...and caught the next train to Chicago...
...1965...
...1975: Joe Frazier is "the Gorilla...
...I am a traditionalist, all right, part ofan old-guard that does not forgive Ali for past transgressions...
...They called him Cautious Clay...
...The ones who trained the black kids, in the rundown gyms, they were all Georges...
...This was because they could not interpret key sections of the Louisiana constitution...
...Put the same words in Jerry Quarry's mouth and give me a reading on Howard Cosell's reaction...
...Tell me, J.D., do you believe Muhammad Ali really said that...
...My first question then, to all new-guardsmen convinced that every old-guard jock journalist and fight freak who dislikes Muhammad dislikes him because he "betrayed" us by becoming a Black Muslim—is simply this: I am puzzled...
...Or, if you prefer, "float-and-sting...
...Frazier is a better representative of his tradition than Ali is of his: an intra-racist aspersion I will presently discuss in more detail than readers not yet thirty may care to know...
...The then heavyweight champion of the world took out my cousin's meal ticket, in two...
...Dundee pulls Clay's stool away and shoves him center-ring...
...In the opposite corner, representing the Joe Louis tradition, Joe Frazier...
...I do not take on irrational biases without rational provocation...
...I do not remember him as a radical social innovator: I think all he was saying was that it would have been better for his young wards to grow to maturity taking on competition as it came, not as it was hand-picked by the lily-whites who governed the state's customs and mores...
...Old-guard White Liberal Norman Mailer...
...But then again, given the perversity of these times, Schmeling might beat Louis and take the title back to Germany...
...But it will be in Manila, September 30...
...Among Louis' contemporaries, Cosell would no doubt have gone, for color, to clowns like Lou Nova, of the "Cosmic Punch," and bigmouth Tony Galento...
...Frazier is a great fighter, made all the greater because he is a fighter of limited natural gifts...
...Understand: I did not like yon Muhammad, even when he was Cassius...
...Whip up on some farm boys from Mississippi...
...Cosell, yes, would have loved Nova and Galento...
...Joe Frazier is "the Gorilla...
...So great is his pride—his will to win, to emerge as a "leader of his people"—that Clay, protesting the pain, refuses to answer the bell...
...My point being that Ali runs around with the likes of those who say, think, and even earn a living excreting such brilliance...
...One day, with the approach of the annual Golden Gloves competition, my coach explained, in graphic detail, what invariably happened to white New Orleans entries who went into interstate competition...
...Is knocked down again...
...In a television session with his friend Cosell, Muhammad Ali, playing to his gallery, called Joe Frazier "ignorant...
...Yet, oddly—or maybe not so oddly when you consider his trainer's background—the new Jack Johnson fought like...Willie Pastrano...
...True through the years only to that which he claims to despise...
...Alexander Portnoy in sepia, the self-loathing black...
...I mean, the style in which he chooses to utilize his God/—or, if he prefers, Allah/given—talents inside the ring...
...First, I am a Louis man for all the reasons you might The Alternative: An American Spectator October 1975 5 expect of a fight freak who grew up during the thirties and forties...
...False to his past, false to his potential...
...But in the back, my raucous freak friends had other ideas...
...As in our classic concept of the ideal champion, he did his talking inside the ring, with the implements of his trade...
...After three rounds they began calling the new Jack Johnson after another Louisville runner—Chateauguay, the Derby winner...
...Let me explain...
...White, black, no difference...
...Even as Joe Frazier, not much of a verbalizer, fought his way out of South Carolina sharecropping, from the ghettos of Philadelphia...
...Dupas became Native Dancer...
...But they did not concern us then, since young blacks did not qualify, under Louisiana law, to enter a ring with whites...
...Close-up of Ali, Nemesis of Great White Hopes...
...He does not run, or float, but bears in, willing to absorb three-to-five, simply to land one...
...On the front rows, as I got the story, the smart money guessed that with Angelo's handling, this charming young man could go all the way...
...Joe Frazier on Muhammad Ali ********** Those who package the mystique of that charming young fighter we now know as Muhammad Ali never fail to draw the parallel between their product and Jack Johnson...
...Norman—the most cloying literary jock-sniffer of our time...
...The Warning Buzzer ********** By now you should have me spotted, J .D...
...They developed a system—and if you have ever seen a white New Orleans boxer work you will immediately know what I mean when I mention the names Ralph Dupas and Willie Pastrano...
...But my coach was ahead of his time, leaving him and his fellow Whiteys with their tactical problem: how to train New Orleans white boys to compete successfully inter- as well as intrastate...
...However, as I say, Joe Louis, to understate the case, was not much of a verbalizer...
...Not because Ali has betrayed my confidence as an old-guardsman, but because he has betrayed the confidence of others...
...Did he ever think that...
...You see, J.D., I am not your ordinary run-of-the-barstool old-guard bigot...
...Patterson is a black...
...For since Frazier is self-immunized against such hyper-intellectual crap—doing his roadwork, as he does, with other fighters—there will be a special issue drawn when he and Ali, the Great White Liberal Hope, meet at month's end in their rubber match...
...Norman Corwin metaphors...
...The Mumbler...
...The truth of the story is conceded, even by the new-guard: February 25, 1964...
...The Alternative: An American Spectator October 1975 7...
Vol. 9 • October 1975 • No. 1
