Kenneth Egan: fluency and huge mental toughness

Before I went to the Olympics in Beijing in 2008 I had known Muhammad Ali had won the gold medal at light heavyweight in 1960. There was something we had in common, that we both boxed in an Olympics final at the same weight. There’s a connection there.

It’s a nice thing to say and it’s no easy feat and then for him to go on and be world champion three times . . . he was years ahead in the ring in the way that he boxed.

He was the first heavyweight really to get up on the toes and move around the way he did and he was so graceful. That’s something you don’t see any more. He was the first man to do it. They don’t fight like him any more.

He retired in 1981 and I was born in 1982. His boxing was done before I came along but I could hear my father talking about him and I watched old videos and old clips of him.

My father mainly spoke about Ali’s movement and footwork. He was always up on the toes and never flat-footed. My dad always said Muhammad Ali had a fantastic pair of legs. A good boxer always has good footwork and Ali had it in abundance.

He was so hard to hit, a heavyweight at 15 stone but so fast around the ring. He was the first heavyweight to bring that style into the ring. He was also very relaxed in the ring and so calm.

Perfect biomechanics

You’d see some fighters and they are very stiff, rigid. But he was so fluid the way he moved and the way he threw his punches. His biomechanics were perfect. You could see it in the way he threw his jab.

His mental strength too and the way he exposed opponents was unique. Okay, there was talk with Joe Frazier where he was degrading Frazier, but that was part of who Ali was. He would get into your head before he got into the ring. I think that was a mental battle he needed to win himself. No one was doing that at the time.

He also seemed to be involved in historic battles and that's the way he was too. I'm sure when he fought George Foreman he was thinking: 'How am I going to beat this guy?' Foreman was knocking out everybody. He was a power puncher.

You could see Ali sitting down on the stool after that first round against Foreman. You could see the fear in his eyes looking across the ring. He knew he was not going to knock Foreman out that easily with a straight right hand so he went to plan B. He probably made that plan up there and then, the rope-a-dope.

I know that if I’m in a boxing ring and I hit with all the power I have and your opponent just looks at you and gives you a wink, that’s very, very demoralising. That’s what Ali did with Foreman.

The sheer mental strength just to hang in for one more round, one more round as they were ticking by: there was no way he was giving up. He was being beaten there like a dog but he held in there and as soon as he felt the power was leaving Foreman he knew his game was up. That was some game plan, some risk, but that’s what Ali did: he took risks.

Relaxed

You watch him in fights and you can see his hands are low around his waist. He’d throw the jab from his waist. You are taught as a child to throw your jab from your chin. He threw it from his waist. He was so relaxed and it was perfect. His timing was bang on and it all looked so effortless round by round by round with three-, four-, five-, six-punch combinations in the blink of an eye.

You can look at his face as well. There wasn’t a mark on him. He was dropped by Frazier and his last fights. They were the fights he should not have been in at all, God love him. You can discount his last three losses, because he should not have been in the ring at all. But in his prime he was just unstoppable.

Effortless and unique

The reason I think so many people around the world know Ali is because he didn’t do anything by the book. If you dropped Ali out of a helicopter anywhere on the planet people would know who he was. People listened when he spoke, even when he was knocking out his poems and his riddles, having fun. He was a lovely man to listen to, because he was a great talker and that was effortless too and that made him unique, that personality that loved the camera and that talent combined.