NH Steve
Administrator
I can only imagine how quick this guy really was with his hands, and his feet...
I saw him fight in his prime and in his decline, all on television, which some of you may or may not realize, slows actual speed up somewhat.
I knew a fellow who used to box, he was just an above average boxer in the middleweight class and at the time this took place I would guess his age at about 60... We worked together selling cars at Marshall Chevrolet in Hempstead, Texas. Nice fellow, Johnny Hopkins was his name, fought in the Roy Head era and was from a small town near Conroe, Texas called Cut and Shoot. Long story short, I used to rib him all the time about how he couldn't box a lick and if he wasn't so old I'd show him a thing or two about boxing... well, one day I asked him if he wanted to just shadow box a round with me and not have any hard contact, just light contact, pulling our punches. He said no, I wouldn't like it... Well, this caused me to egg him on even more, being the competitive guy I am, so I continued with the needle until he finally agreed....
He was right... Even at 60 years old, he destroyed me... he stepped inside and musta hit me in the stomach 7 or 8 times and open hand slapped me in the face 4 or 5 times more before I could get away from him... He was 60, an old man, and not even a contender in his prime, Ali was a 3 time heavyweight champion of the world and the most recognized man in the world for about 30 years, he was larger than life...
I can only imagine how fast he really was...
RIP. Warrior
Danny di Liberto comes to mind... Danny was also trained during his short boxing career by Angelo Dundee.