Article first published at BigFightWeekend.com

October 2^nd 1980. The Last Hurrah.  

45 years ago, Larry Holmes beat up his hero. A fight which sickened those watching on who loved his hero too. Muhammad Ali had reached into his deep reserves of magic and found there were no more miracles to summon. Aged 38, Ali’s feet were now slow, his energy sapped by a decade of grueling encounters with Frazier, Foreman and Norton, weight drained by misuse of Thyroid pills and the first creep of neurological demise becoming ever more evident. Ali was no longer the quicksilver punisher of the 1960s, the lion-tamer of the early 1970s or even the stubborn old warhorse of 77 and 78.  

That he would fight again a year later against Trevor Berbick ghastly evidence that those who loiter in a champion’s orbit are rarely there for love.

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