Kryptonite

Oh October 2nd, 1980 was a difficult, confusing day for ten-year-old Little Large. Even the prospect of Larry Holmes fighting Ali filled me with a strange and mostly unpleasant feeling, and when it actually was occurring in front of me, I had a near out-of-body experience. All sports for me at that point were a clear struggle between good and evil, the good being always whoever I happened to be rooting for, and the evil being the other guy. Generally that had worked out pretty well for me. The Steve Garvey Dodgers, for instance, were one of the great villains of the ought years of Large, and even in retrospect they seem worthy of that status.

But Larry and Muhammad - I loved them both. I remember watching this fight and being truly baffled by the proceedings, something that admittedly has not really changed much when I watch them twenty-seven years later. The only difference is that now I wonder "why on earth didn't they stop this thing earlier? the man hasn't thrown six punches in the last four rounds!" while then I wondered "what is Muhammad doing? does he think this is funny? he's not even TRYING!" I didn't understand aging then, let alone pugilistic dementia. I thought that if Ali was cowering on the ropes and absorbing one ferile headshot after another without answer, it was because he wanted to, because it was all part of some big show. I really thought Ali was all-powerful when I was a kid. He was the closest thing to a real superhero that I ever believed in. Even in retrospect he seems worthy of that status, but unbeknownst to us all at the time, the most malignant form of kryptonite was growing inside his brain.