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Laila Ali: A Star Like Her Daddy
 by Thomas Gerbasi (July 30, 2003)
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When it came to psychological warfare, no boxer in history ever came close to Muhammad Ali. From his crazy act before the first Sonny Liston fight to the rope-a-dope of George Foreman, ‘The Greatest’ knew that to gain victory, the mental game could be even more crucial than the physical.
With his daughter Laila, the apple didn’t fall far from the tree, and when the 25-year-old super middleweight champion met up with her August 23rd opponent, Christy Martin, at the press conference to announce their pay-per-view fight, it was an opportunity not to publicize a bout, but to set a tone and gain an edge.
“A lot of times people see pictures of me in magazines and they see this pretty girl, and they don’t realize that I’m really very street and I’m a fighter at heart,” says Ali. “So you’re not going to get that same type of attitude that you’re going to get from Mia St. John – the smiley and ‘I’m here to be cute’ attitude. That’s not me.”
That’s not Martin either, and when the two squared off, something had to give.
“When she got in my presence and I was speaking at the press conference, she kept trying to talk, and I don’t think she was prepared for the way I reacted,” says Ali. “Then she got herself put on the spot because she is a fighter and she does have pride, and then she ended up feeling like she had to do something. I think she was just a little insecure in the situation with me being the star, her being the challenger, her being the underdog. She can usually intimidate the fighters that she’s fighting, but with me she doesn’t sense any intimidation. She had to stand up and I told her to sit her ass down, and then that’s when she decided to push me. You can tell by the way she pushed me that she didn’t want to fight. She grabbed my shirt, shoved her face in my chest, and was right on top of me. I pulled her off of me by her hair and then I hit her in the head with two hooks and then it got broken up. When she got up she asked my husband why he hit her. She didn’t realize that I had hit her. She thought it was a man that hit her.”
Round One to Ali.
And on paper, every successive round should be in Ali’s favor. She’s younger, faster, and bigger than Martin, and as Ali improves with every bout, Martin has declined, the latest instance being a lopsided but lackluster decision over Mia St. John last December.
In fact, truth be told, this is a fight that shouldn’t even be happening. But in a women’s boxing world with few marketable stars, Ali vs. Martin is a fight you can sell to the casual fan. Ali knows this and admits as much. And while she is one of the savviest businesswomen in the sport, she is also one of the most candid.
“I’m very realistic and I know that when I win it’s really not going to prove anything to fight fans,” said Ali. “All they’re gonna say is that Christy Martin is old, she’s at the end of her career, and that she’s too small. This is not about gaining respect; I want to make that clear. What this is about is about whupping somebody who has called me out and has been very disrespectful, and making money. That’s what this is about. And this is also going to help women’s boxing grow because we are the two best-known names in female fighting, and the public wants to see this fight. That’s why I’m fighting her. This is not about respect. I am supposed to be able to whup her. I’m a bigger fighter than she is; I’m a stronger fighter than she is. That’s no big deal.”
Anything with the Ali name on it is a big deal though, and Laila knows this.
“Everybody wants to fight me, everybody wants to be next,” she says. “But it’s like, what have you done to get there? Everybody calls out Oscar De La Hoya, everybody wants to fight Roy Jones, and everyone wanted to fight Muhammad Ali. You’ve got to work to get to that point.”
So Ali has to juggle the “money” fights (Martin, Jacqui Frazier) with the real fights - battles against the best the super middleweight division has to offer. Unfortunately, the best fighters at 168 pounds have fallen behind the curve on Ali, whose work ethic, bloodlines, and athletic talent has surprised even the most hardened cynics.
“There aren’t that many girls, and it’s not just because I’m so great, it’s because of the level of women’s boxing and that talented fighters are so few and far between, especially in my weight class, because the bigger girls are not as skilled,” says Ali. “It’s the same in men’s boxing, where the bigger fighters aren’t as skilled a lot of the time.”
Right now, the only intriguing fights left for Ali are with Ann Wolfe and Veronica Simmons. But even they have asterisks next to their names that make it impossible to make them appear to be realistic threats.
Wolfe, who is expected to appear on the Ali-Martin undercard, is a hard-punching, hard-fighting athlete with some real skills. But Valerie Mahfood, who Ali stopped twice, has also knocked Wolfe out. Wolfe gets a chance to get things right against Mahfood on August 23, but her loss to Mahfood does put a wrench in the marketing machine.
“That fight is definitely going to happen because I think we’re two, big, strong athletes, and we’re both going to come in there with heart and we’ll be ready to win,” says Ali of a fight with Wolfe. “I think that would be a good fight. The problem with her has been her management, who has been pretty hard to deal with. We finally got it to where she’s going to be fighting on this undercard in a rematch with Valerie Mahfood, who knocked her out and who I already whupped like she was my child twice. Let’s see if she can get past her, since she wants to keep doing all this running of the mouth.”
The other intriguing matchup for Ali at 168 is with New York’s Veronica Simmons. A decorated amateur champ, Simmons’ pro career has been in a holding pattern, with only three pro fights in three years (all victories). So while Simmons is touted as boxing’s best kept secret, if a fight with Ali does eventually come off, will inactivity render her helpless against Ali?
“Veronica Simmons has been running her mouth since the first day I turned pro, talking about how I was afraid and how she would do this and do that, and then when she got the phone call to make the fight happen, she’s nowhere to be found,” says Ali. “We’ve called her, we’ve tried to send her contracts, and now it’s like, ‘oh, she doesn’t have enough experience.’ Well what about when I didn’t have experience and everybody wanted to see us fight? The bottom line is that Veronica Simmons was a good amateur, but the reality of it is, in women’s boxing, the big girls don’t have a lot of talent. It’s easy to be an amateur champ. It’s easy to whup a bunch of overweight girls who are out of shape. And she’s only had so many fights against nobodies so now she’s not ready to fight me. So I don’t know if that’s ever gonna happen.”
Four years removed from her first pro bout, Ali has effectively cleaned out her division, with only Wolfe and Simmons keeping her from a clean sweep. And if odds were issued today, Ali would be a prohibitive favorite over both contenders. That’s sad, because given her growing talent and her willingness to fight all comers, a series of superfights with top-notch competition would do wonders for the stagnant sport. But as it stands, Ali already sees the end (and not her boxing future) in sight.
“There’s only so far that I can go in my time,” she admits. “Every time I fight I get better because I spar with fighters who actually know how to fight. When I’m in sparring I’m just not beating up on people; sometimes I take the beating, but that’s because I’m sparring with a world champion or somebody like that, who’s going to help me get better. That’s what makes it so easy for me when I do get in the ring with these girls. But that’s why I know my career is not going to be that much longer. I’m already at a point where I’m getting a little bored. There’s really not that much to look forward to. It’s not like I’ve been doing it for so long and I have a long list of great fights under my belt. I don’t. But everybody that was out there that I was supposedly afraid of and supposedly would never fight, I fought. We have one more – Ann Wolfe - and I’m just going to totally annihilate her too, and then when she’s gone, who else is there going to be? There’s not that much left. So it would have to be done right, and then I’m looking to do something else.”
Needless to say, Ali doesn’t consider Christy Martin in her league, and she is far from complimentary in her assessment of the “Coal Miner’s Daughter”.
“People accused me, when I first started boxing, of being in it for the money,” says Ali. “Christy is really about being in it for the money. To a certain extent, all fighters are, but at the same time, she doesn’t have that heart and desire of a true champion fighter. It’s funny because she keeps talking about coming into this fight, and that she has all this heart and that she’s the best, when everyone in boxing knows she’s not the best. It’s not even between me and her. She’s not the best, period. There are a lot of girls in her weight class that are better fighters than she is. But she wants to fight me, of course, instead of somebody else, because she can make more money fighting me. And then when she does lose she can use the excuse that I was bigger and that I was taller. She’s already setting that up. She’s coming into the press conference talking about why would Laila Ali fight someone her weight. She’s the one that called me out. She should coming to me saying, ‘I’m little, but I’m gonna whup your ass.’ That’s what she should be saying.
“To me, Christy Martin is not one of the greatest fighters out there,” continues Ali. “She is one of the more experienced. She’s been out there a long time and she’s a pioneer in women’s boxing, but as far as skill level is concerned, it’s not like I’m going to feel like I overcame this big mountain by fighting her.”
Tough talk from Ali, but at the very least, Martin will come to fight, even if outgunned and outsized. And with her experience and heart, Ali could be brought into some deep waters if she underestimates her foe. Ali can’t see it, but she is still taking Martin seriously – well, a little bit.
“It’s always important going into any fight to have a game plan and to be very focused,” says Ali. “And I always am. She can come in with the best game plan possible and be focused and have all her experience under her belt, but when she can’t get past this jab and when she starts getting busted all upside the head with punches that are way harder than she ever expected or anything she’s ever dealt with; when she starts getting hit with body shots, and then has to deal with my movement, it doesn’t matter what her game plan is. Everyone that’s come into the ring with me has had a game plan. They thought they were going to pressure me, they thought that I had never been hit before, but they don’t know what I dealt with. I’ve been through everything in sparring so I’m ready for any type of situation. So with me, I don’t care if I didn’t have a game plan. If I just went in there and did what I felt like doing, I’d be able to whup her. So it’s going to be even worse for her that I am going to have a game plan. My game plan is going to be what it always is: to go in there and win. And when one thing ain’t working, I know how to switch up and do the next thing. I think that’s part of what’s in my blood, and part of being a champion is to find a way to win and to work it out. I’m not worried about Christy at all, trust me. And when I say that I don’t mean that I’m not taking her seriously, or that I’m not going to train as hard or be ready for everything. I know what she has in her arsenal, and I know what I have in my arsenal.”
Ali seems to have grown a lot in her four years in the public eye, and not only in an athletic sense. Oh, she can still talk trash with the best of them, and she’s got a bit of a mean streak, but at 25 she is also more at ease in her role as the spokesperson for women’s boxing. Maybe it’s because of her acceptance as a legitimate fighter, maybe it’s just a question of maturity, but she is, without question, a star.
E-Mail Thomas Gerbasi at tgerbasi@mindspring.com
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