On This Day: When Muhammad Ali’s Incredible Career Came To An End – “The Greatest” Deserved Better

If Muhammad Ali’s fight with Larry Holmes was one fight too many, the 39-year-old was able to make it two fights too many, for it was on this day back in 1981 when Ali, needing money as well as fame, returned to fight yet again, despite his poverty in the Holmes fight of October 1980.

The Berbick Gamble

Enter Trevor Berbick. Ali, insanely, still had ambitions to make good on his four-time champion ambition. If he could defeat Berbick, a solid heavy, if nothing too spectacular, Ali would get his chance. All these years later, when we know the full and awful price Ali paid for having fought on for far too long, the thought that he would have had another fight if he had beaten Berbick is chilling. But Ali didn’t win the Berbick fight. In fact, he looked awful.

Against Berbick, Ali came in at a career-high 236 pounds, his body soft and fleshy. But, then again, to be charitable, at least Ali was able to fight back against Berbick; this was something he was unable to do against Holmes. And in the fight in Nassau, Bahamas, Ali even managed to win a few of the ten rounds the bout was scheduled for. Ali couldn’t dance like he once could, but he did make an effort to get on his toes and to also pump out some punches. There was no snap or sting on Ali’s shots – he could no longer float like a butterfly or sting like a bee, but against the physically strong but lumbering 26-year-old from Jamaica, Ali was able to hear the final bell (the bell used for the fight being a cowbell, as no standard bell was available).

There was almost no fight at all. Berbick was still uncommitted to fighting just hours before the bout was due to start, Berbick wanting assurance he would be paid in full. The whole show was something of a farce, with ticket sales poor and the undercard boxers all having to share the same dressing room. It was no way for the finest heavyweight boxer of them all to go out. But finally, at last, it was over.

The Last Bell for The Greatest

Ali had fought his final fight. No longer would he put his health, his life even, on the line. To this day, those two final fights Ali had bug the hell out of his fans. It could have been an almost perfect career: three-time champ, three losses, but each of them avenged – Ali waving goodbye with a satisfied smile on his face. Instead, Ali ended up leaving on as sad a note as the man he said he’d never end up like, this being Joe Louis. At least Ali was never knocked unconscious, through the ropes, the way Louis was by Rocky Marciano in his final fight 30 years before Ali-Berbick.

Still, as we all know, Ali’s real fight came after he’d hung up his gloves; this was a battle with Parkinson’s that raged until the very end. We will never know if Ali’s latter-year health would have been better had he quit the ring two, three, four, or five fights sooner than he did. In short, “The Greatest” should have had a far more dignified career end than the one he did have.