Eyes on the Prize II; Interview with Angelo Dundee

Okay, tell me how you first met Cash's claim. Molo is a very interesting experience ice to go to Louisville and tucking quite a bit with a lot of my fighters and I happened to be there with Willy Pastrano and we were at the Sharpton Hotel and we were sitting in a room and I'd stay in the same room with Willy Cody. He was not the exactly the kind of kid that we know. He used to chase chicks like, you know, Fox Terrier would chase a dog and heat so I stayed in the same room with the kid and the phone rings were watching TV and I pick up the phone and I said, hello, he says, the voice of the other phone was, hey, my name is Cash's Marcellus Clay, Jr.

And I wanted the Golden Glove Championship in Louisville, Kentucky. I wanted the Golden Gloves in Washington State. I wanted the Chicago Golden Gloves. This was 1958, mind you. And he said, I want to win the Olympics in 1960, it's great, I'm glad to hear it. So I didn't know who he was because I didn't pay too much attention to the amateur. Still don't. I'm strictly a professional guy and that's what I do. So I held my hand over the phone and I told Willy I said, hey, some sort of a nut downstairs and what's it talk to us? That was the beginning of Up Comes Cash's Marcellus Clay, which is a brother, Rudy. And they walked into the room and we proceeded to have some of the finest conversations I've ever had with a human being who was then a student of boxing. He was very want to know how I train my fighters, what they do, when they eat, when not to eat. A very, very in-depth young man. And he knew what direction he wanted to go.

His brother, oddly enough, looked like the artist of the two because he had a mannequin, a face he had done in clay, and he had a picture he had painted. The whole family was very artistic because Cash's senior was a painter, a painter of paint signs, paint this, you paint it out to it, you know, that kind of stuff. But we proceeded to talk for three or four hours and that was the beginning. That was the beginning of a friendship that I nurtured to this day because he's one of my best friends. Cash's Marcellus Clay was the nicest thing that ever happened to my life. I don't think the nicest thing that ever happened to boxing. Sounds like one of the places to stop down, I just want to make sure that I can do it. Okay, after Clay turned pro, he trained for a while with Archie Moore, what Sam would like to hear about. Can you tell about the conversation you had with Dick Sadler after you'd taken over as Clay's trainer? Well, you know, think about Archie Moore, I got to give him his due because what people didn't understand there, there was no conflict there, there was just a clash of star quality

because Archie Moore was a star, Archie Moore was a great champion. So when the kid went up there and he would ask him, hey, I want to fight, he said, you're not ready. So you know, I'm not ready, Jesus, I got so many amateur fights, I'm not ready. Well actually, it was a clash of star quality. And then what broke it off, Archie Moore asked him to sweep the kitchen, that did it. He said, I didn't sweep the kitchen for my mother, walk us sweep the kitchen for Archie Moore. So actually, it was a clash of personalities where they got together, a Louisville group called me, we got together, no problem, I sat down, I explained, I'll take my time with the kid. And actually, this was an October. And then I told him, well, why don't you let the kids stay home for the holidays, we'll start in January, fresh, bright eyed and bushy tail. Well that was fine with them with the Louisville group. But then what they said was, no, he wants to come down now. But see they had come down and interviewed me, and I gave him my ideas and what I, Bill Fravisham came down with Worth Bingham, a couple from the Louisville group.

And I explained to him, the way I would move him, nice and easy, nice and slow, so he could learn his profession. And then bang, he wanted to come down right away. Now Dick Sallard was oddly enough as a good pal of mine, we, we in boxing have a lot of camaraderie, and people don't understand us, Dick's a pal of mine, great. And Dick is beautiful, good man, good boxing man, so he came up to me and wasn't one of the times where we had some fights, he says, he said, you still with that kid? I said, yeah, he didn't drive you crazy yet, I said, no, we had a great time together. He said, man, he says, you got to have the purple heart with nine clusters if you're hanging in with that kid because he almost drove me up a wall. He said because he had a, he went on a train ride with him once to Texas, and he described the train ride that was second to none. He's yelling out the, the, the cars going through, he says, I'm the champion. My name is Cassius Marcellus Clay, I'm the beautiful fighter in the world today, oh no,

no, no, no. And then he says, Dick said, you must shut up, you're going to get his killed, see, look about that was, that was the kid from the pep and ginger, and I didn't curtail that because you don't do that. You just project on it and smooth it out a little bit, and the people liked it. Okay. When did you first realize that Cassius Clay might have had some associations with the Muslims? Oh, I knew that two weeks before the fight. Okay, that's an example. I knew about Muhammad's association with the Muslims, about two weeks before the fight. I didn't know anything about, you know, in fact, Cassius Marcellus Clay, they came to me to promote her, Jim McDonald, and my brother was associated with the, with the promotion, and he came to me, said, Angelo, unless Cassius Marcellus Clay refutes the reports out of Chicago that he's not a Muslim, I'm going to cancel the fight.

So I said, well, he's not talked to the kid, and I said, better still, I said, you go talk to the kid, and I made him go off and do another area and speak to the fighter. So Cassius came back, and I'm sitting in the office, and he said, Angelo, I don't think going to have a fight. He said, why? He said, well, because they want me to say I'm not a Muslim, and I am a Muslim. What? If you want to do, you do, Muhammad. I mean, it's up to you, Cassius then, you know, because what the heck? What's in the name? The thing with me was the individual, but the tough, tough thing about it really was that it was such a pretty name. We had neutered it and played it up, you know, Cassius Marcellus Clay, and then we reached the rhyme on it, it was a beautiful name, and then he changed it to Muhammad Ali. You know, why? Why?

And a lot of people wouldn't call him. But what's in the name? To me, he was still the same individual, same guy, and I actually, I don't know what a Muslim was, really, because I thought it was a piece of cloth, and I mean it with all my heart. What the heck is the difference what a guy religion is? That doesn't project to me what an individual is. What the heck I was, I hope later on I said this, I hope I was as good a Catholic as Muhammad was a Muslim. Was it hard for you to get used to calling him a Muhammad Ali? It was easy. No problem. In fact, the 40th bit was with Rudy, Rudy came back to the gym. This is later on, and he said, and so I got great news for you, because I was very close to the brother, and he says, I said, what's that? He said, I got a new name, he said, what's that? He says, rockman, or H-M-A-N, rockman Ali, because it allowed you to give him the name. That's okay, I'll call you Rocky. So no you ain't. This was the little taste I got of it, but I didn't give it down.

What's the difference? And I didn't go around the Mulberry Bush and call him champ. That's baloney. I was still dealing with the same individual, the same guy, great fighter, I mean he proved that at night was Sonny Liston, so what's the action of the name to be? Nothing. Okay, let's stop down. Rocky, I want to go back to just before the Sonny Liston fight again, and pick up that whole business about cashless clay becoming the most on work, Curious, and how the press reacted when they found out that they suspected him? Well, they kept digging, digging night. Yeah. The press kept digging, and I just played it cool, I said I don't know, I don't know anything about it really, and this happened where the guy went that you got, that you got came back. Well, I don't bird dog my fighters, I never do that. I believe that the press, social, eyes on what you're fighter, and getting too up close with your fighter, you're negate, you're influenced with your fighter, I don't believe in that

baloney. I want to go out, take a ride, let me take a ride. See, his only room for one star in my profession. He was the star, so I kept it that way, I kept it loose as a goose, I always had a great sense of humor with the kid, but you gotta remember one thing. He was the most available superstar of our era, because the media got to talk to him, one on one. I pushed that because they want to hear what the star has to say, no one has what Dundee would say. The assistant trainer, the seconds, the doctor, the lawyer, the other in chief, they spoke to him. That was very important. Did the press change after they found out if he came to the hospital? Well, some, some, anti, some plus, whatever. If you, if you dealt in the physical and the visual, the fighter, why change? Okay. All right, we must be close to the end of that role, let's just change the role of the fighter. Okay. Okay. I want you to recall that fight between Muhammad Ali and Floyd Patterson, what happened that night?

Well, it was a good guy, bad guy situation where Patterson was a world-loved individual, and he's fighting Muhammad Ali. And Floyd had the, he always had this thing about saying, caches, caches, caches, you know. And it gets to be a rub after a while, his name was Muhammad Ali, I'm Angelo Dundee, I was Angelo Marina, so what's the big deal? So I didn't see any reason for anybody to be calling him caches clay, guy's got given right to be called when it's a be call. So the fight with Patterson, my kid was doing a number on it, what's my name? Pop. What's my name? Pop. I felt sorry for Floyd because Muhammad did a number on it, but not with vengeance because Muhammad don't dislike anybody, Muhammad likes everybody, he got no axe to grind with anybody. I mean, to this day, he's that way, and he was that way from the beginning. And I've never, never had an argument with caches clay or Muhammad Ali.

We always had a great time together. It was a fun trip. And this guy, when he fought Patterson, he just sort of resented, not being called by his proper name. He's always saying my name's Muhammad Ali. So call me Muhammad Ali, it's tough. In fact, it's shorter, right? Caches, more so let's go. A little longer. Well, now Ali says the Patterson eventually did answer Muhammad Ali. Well, that's nice because Floyd's a nice guy. So I'm happy Floyd finally dissolved that baloney because all the once was a butcher baloney to me. Call a man what he wants to be called, long as you don't call him late for breakfast. Okay. In April of 1967, Ali refused to be drafted into the army. And what did Ali stand in the Vietnam cost him as a fighter? Well, I may lost three and a half years. We probably never did get to see the best of Ali because Ali before he departed was right at the brink of the, he was great anyhow. But to me, his full potential was going to be resolved then.

Sort of three and a half years later, you often do him any good because he wasn't a kid that would have kept running, kept training. I mean, although every time he came to Miami Beach, he used to work out. You know, when he asked me, kid in the lead says, you mind if I come to the gym, I says, please, because Jimmy Ellis was training for a fight. And I actually made him spar with Jimmy Ellis. Not as a spawn partner. He assisted him. And I remunerated him for him assisting us. In fact, he was here with his family and I took care of the hotel because it was a pleasure because Jimmy was in action and Jimmy was fighting. But Mahama was that kind of guy. And this is day you know, Mahama comes down here and he trains and he sweats. He loves to sweat. And you mentioned now what happened to him as a fighter that you lost three and a half years away from him? What about the man, Mahama and Ali? Mahama and Ali was the same man that left three and a half years before. He had no axe to grind with anybody.

He wasn't mad at anybody. He's too big a man to get that way. And to this day, if he didn't have anything nice to say about a guy, he'd say nothing. He don't have an axe to grind with anybody. Mahama was a great individual in and out of the ring. Forget about it. He was a professional. He was just great. He was a professional, no, a great human being. I actually had a guy who was robbing him and I made him aware of it. I said, well, he's a heck of a thief, he said, isn't he? So he'd find a plus about a guy. He was the kind of guy if he didn't have anything good to say when saying nothing. Mahama taught me. He taught me patience. He says, no time for getting mad at anybody. You get glad. You don't get mad. You evaluate and you go further. He just never felt that he was done on anything. He was happy to be back because being in boxing, he had fun. He would never admit it that he loved boxing, but he had fun with boxing.

Tell me what you'd like to tell me about Mahama and all of you. Mahama and all of you was the greatest thing that ever happened to boxing. You know, it changed the whole concept. You can always repeat honesty and ever bullshit. Mahama and I are least probably the greatest thing that ever happened to boxing. It was a thrill for me to be involved with him from the beginning. It was so interesting, so good. You know, there's a young man that the greatest time I had with Mahama was from 60 to 64, a development, nurturing, talent, fighting certain guys, preparing, licking adversity. It was such a big kick, but see what I nurtured was making him available. The media always could have him. We used to attack press conferences, because let me tell you, without the media, without

that camera, without that radio, we're dead city. You guys were going to talk to us, God love you. He did the greatest thing for boxing of all time, because he was the most available superstar of our era. You guys got to talk to the man. You want to speak to Mahama at bank, talk to him, put him in another room, and this is what something that I feel good about. Because be prior to that, you couldn't talk to a fighter. You had to go through the press guy, the mud lord, a fine lord, assistant lord, a broad lord, the seconds, the trainers, then you got to talk to the fighter. That's not right. You got to speak to the star. The star was Muhammad Ali, and I was just happy to be there on the sidelines, helping him. Why don't you pray to him when he go out and tell everybody he was the greatest and go on like that, that he would turn people on? Well, that was wonderful. Isn't it? Wouldn't it be in terms of being a close mount guy, and you wouldn't get to enjoy this guy? Fifty percent would love him, fifty percent would aid him.

At least, when we used to go down the aisle, there would fight, you know, a boon hack on him. He said, well, we know this people here. That was great. I loved it. All right. Thank you very much, Mr. Dambi. Marky? Okay. I've got two quick ones for you. You'll like this because they were funny because we laugh at that today. Herbert Muhammad, who became Muhammad's manager and Muhammad, in fact. There was a guy up in the gym all every day, he came up there. His name was Sam. And he was very friendly with Muhammad, and he'd come to the gym. So after he announced that he was a Muslim, this is two weeks before the fight, Sam would come up there and sit there, and I sit beside Sam, and I'm talking to Sam. I said, yeah, in the shame. Cases of myself, let's play. What a great name. See, the people are not going to accept it because we made it such a beautiful name. You know, Muhammad Ali ain't a bad name.

So I'm going on and on every day with Sam. So finally, a couple of young kids with dark suits come up one day, and they walk up to Sam. Just captain Sam, he was a month's up. I didn't know him. Now the only funny one is that we're in the gym training in Pat Putnam, who was now a sports illustrator, who was from the Miami Herald. So he was sitting in the gym. So I had seen Malcolm X's picture in L.A. papers. So up comes Malcolm X, so he's sitting and it's walking around. So I told Rockman, I said, Rudy, tell me a favor, tell that guy to get out of here. We're going to get back, perhaps. So he said me, you a Taliban, a way old saying, I didn't say nothing, but Malcolm was up in the gym because he had came down and he was visiting with the kid. But Sam, he's now a minister by the way, Sam. I didn't know this. What about, does he ever confide in you? No.

Why he was opposed to the one being now? I am a very lucky individual. I learned early in life, you don't mess around with a fighter's personal life or his religion. You got to lose them, both counts, because everybody believes their religion is the best religion. And you don't want everyone to get into a guy's house, couldn't you hear him argue with his wife, and then you, this happened to be in New York City. Now it's a true story, 49. One kid come up to me, I was working with him, he said, and he said, boy, that wife of mine, she's, oh God, I was like, you know how women are. So end of story, I wound up losing the fighter, I lost a friendship of his wife, could he went back and told his wife, even Angelo believes I'm right. So I'm playing every, I've never got involved, there was none of my business. All I worried about was the professional end of the business, I worked with a great fighter, probably the greatest heavyweight I'll ever see in my lifetime. And it was a joy working with Muhammad Ali, it was a fun trip. Okay, thank you very much.