Holmes was put up in a hotel near the gym, but he didn’t stay there that night. When Holmes started working with Ali on a regular basis, he would drive home to Easton each day and tell anybody who would listen that he was working with the most famous athlete in the world. (laughs) But he was throwing some punches.” “But then I said, ‘Can I work with you tomorrow?’ and he said, ‘Yeah, come on up here.’ He didn’t pay me or anything, but he let me work with him. Olympic team when he dusted himself off from the exhibition and boldly approached Ali again. But so did Holmes, who was a father of two daughters and trying to earn a spot on the 1972 U.S. You’ve got to have the heart to do it.”Īli had plenty of heart, more than most. That’s what their managers tell them: Don’t take no positions.” These days, the best thing you can do is shut up. “But he never knew if someone was going to shoot him. “It was part of his attraction,” said Holmes. But Ali was still a mentor to Holmes, as evidenced when Holmes was asked about his former boss’ activism and willingness to risk it all for his beliefs, something not many pro athletes at the time were willing to do. It was 22 years after their bout in Las Vegas and even longer from the first time they met in 1971, but watching the two interact made it clear that they were not just work colleagues and then rivals. In December of 2002, Ali and Holmes made a trip to Gallagher’s Steakhouse in New York City to promote the release of a book featuring Ali. “I always went and seen Ali at the gym, even when he wasn’t fighting. “I was there to the day he died,” said Holmes. It was the beginning of a relationship that lasted until Ali passed away at the age of 74 on June 3, 2016.Ī young Holmes is on sparring duty with Ali at the Deer Lake training camp in 1974. “I need somebody to work with for an exhibition.”Įither impressed by the 21-year-old’s confidence or desperate to have someone to spar with for the crowd showing up for the exhibition, Ali brought Holmes on board and the two traded blows for the first time. “I’m a young boxer and I’d like to work with you,” said Holmes to Ali. Eventually, Butler got Holmes some amateur bouts, and in 1971, he introduced him to a man who had gone through a lot since that seminal performance in Miami Beach.Īli, who’d come up short in his quest to regain the heavyweight crown in his third fight after a three-year exile earlier that year, was on the comeback trail following the “Fight of the Century” with Frazier, and he was looking for someone to get some rounds in with him for a charity exhibition to support the PAL in Reading, Pennsylvania, where he was training at the time. Anthony’s Youth Center in Easton, Pennsylvania, and taught him to box. Working everywhere from a car wash to fur, steel and rug factories, Holmes’ work ethic was second to none, something that was noticed by ex-boxer Ernie Butler, who took him under his wing at St. But when Ali, then Cassius Clay, shook up the world, Holmes was a year removed from dropping out of school in order to help his mother, Flossie, and his 10 siblings make ends meet. Little did the future hall of famer know what impact “The Greatest” and his fiercest rival, Joe Frazier, would later have on his life. “I was thinking about working and making some money, trying to take care of my family.” “When I was 14 years old, I wasn’t thinking about boxing,” said Holmes.
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