The One and Only Muhammad Ali Dies
HAVANA TIMES — Boxing legend Muhammad Ali, 74, died on Friday night at a hospital in Phoenix, Arizona where he was admitted in the morning for respiratory problems, reported ESPN based information from a family spokesman.
The three-time heavyweight champion, who suffered from Parkinson’s disease, retired from boxing in 1981. In recent years, he was hospitalized on several occasions, including twice in 2014 and again last year.
See this documentary on the life of Muhammad Ali.
I realize that the courtesy which Tefilo extended in responding to me in English would be beyond your comprehension. I think also that he rather enjoyed speaking in English. You make the gross error of thinking that all Cubans wish to live in the US, they don’t, but they do envy those of us who have freedom of expression and are able to access information.
I have no idea how you conclude that I “so adore’ the US. Maybe it reflects a touch of conceit about your own citizenship?
I merely wrote of fact about Tefilo Stevenson and your sneering about him only reflects your own character and obvious disbelief that there are Cubans who are loyal to Cuba but do not admire the imposed regime which controls their lives.
If you received the average earnings in Cuba, you would be delighted to work for Walmart or Tysons.
Okay, let’s assume that you really did talk to Teofilo. Could be, b/c you said he spoke English. You and your fellow anti-Cubans love to extoll about the millions of Cubans who risk their lives to escape to freedom and a job at Walmart or Tysons. Yet here was a guy, not even a Communist, who turned $5 million and the chance to live in the cradle of liberty ? Interesting. Too bad you didn’t get to meet Ali too. You could have set him straight about his misconceptions about the racist, classist, imperialist nature of these United States which you so adore.
I remember well Ali’s fight in London against Henry Cooper when having been knocked down by “our ‘enries” famous left hook for the count, he was saved by the bell and helped to his feet by the people in his corner.
But the photograph above of Ali with the fabulous Tefilo Stevenson who won the Olympic Heavyweight Gold Medal three times, reminds me of the conversation I had with him in Havana only two years before his untimely death at age 61 and when the whole of Cuba mourned.
Tefilo who spoke good English was a gentleman and had refused to go to the US to fight Ali for $5 million declaring that his home was in Cuba and he was a Cuban, but not a communist.
Tefilo’s achievement in winning those three gold medals in three Olympics will be difficult for anyone to match. Ali won one.
I met Ali in 1970, very quiet and I think amazed at how popular he became. Just a few words but in my opinion a man who advanced the cause for minorities and blacks in general. Being black in the US during that time, sixties and early seventies was horrific as witnessed by me in NYC where going to a bar with social workers who were black were refused service!! Oh, when we exclaimed that was illegal the comment would be, “call a cop, in fact, there’s a cop at the end of the bar.” Personally, I liked him and condolences to his family and friends.