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Novak Djokovic Made This Kid’s Day, Muhammad Ali-style
12 Comments · Posted by Scoop Malinowski in Articles, Scoop
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YcJL4…layer_embedded
Novak Djokovic brings this kid on the court during practice on Armstrong. Can you imagine how thrilled this kid, about ten years old, must feel? Imagine how many times he will tell this story to his friends and how much this will inspire him?
Novak Djokovic is one very special champion for tennis. No man has ever been able to inject such colossally awesome tennis with an ability to have fun and inject amusement into the cutthroat blood sport of tennis like this super Serbian.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, Novak Djokovic has Muhammad Ali qualities. When all is said and done, Novak Djokovic just might outshine those two remarkable heroic champions who preceded him.
He just might.
I absolutely adore Federer and Nadal, but something about Djokovic…I like him the best of all.
Djokovic shows his inner Muhammad Ali again
Michael · August 27, 2012 at 1:55 am
Scoop, I was on that Joker train a long time ago. In NY, Fed and Nadal are by far the crowd favorites but Joker is third and closing. He’s more natural in front of the crowd. He likes them. And they like him.
Today was a great day. The calm before the storm. But I would title my post “I Can’t Take a Picture I’m in a Hurry.”
Patrick · August 27, 2012 at 6:00 am
Djokovic is hard to dislike. He’s good people.
Scoop Malinowski · August 27, 2012 at 1:23 pm
Djokovic is more of a showman than Agassi IMO Michael. He can take a seemingly mundane moment and turn it into a memory of a lifetime.
Scoop Malinowski · August 27, 2012 at 1:26 pm
True Patrick, I’ve liked him since the first time I met him – did a Biofile after he beat Monfils in five sets at US Open when he was still 18 or 19. He’s a true champ and a good guy. He’ll win over everybody eventually. Fed and Rafa are a very tough act to follow, it’s like trying to succeed Muhammad Ali (Larry Holmes struggled with that). Djokovic is doing an incredible job of following two class act heroes like Fed and Rafa.
Patrick · August 27, 2012 at 1:42 pm
Yeah, not only did Larry Holmes’ career fall in the shadow of Ali, but he was forced to beat Ali even though Ali had absolutely no business fighting in that fight. And then he got his ass handed to him by Tyson in a fight he probably had no business fighting.
ESPN 30 for 30 had an excellent documentary — called Muhammad and Larry — on that fight. Ali had no business fighting that fight. And the people that let him go through with should be ashamed of themselves.
I’m a huge Ali fan. I can pretty much rattle off his entire career by heart.
Scoop Malinowski · August 27, 2012 at 2:02 pm
Ali was just impossible to follow, but Holmes was a great champion himself, maybe even the superior fighter overall. You’re right, how they let Ali fight Holmes and then let that mismatch go on and on and on was insane. They seemed to want it to go 12 rounds – logic suggests the Muslins or some mob must’ve bet big on the fight going the distance. There is no other explanation for Ali’s corner letting that fight go so long. Yes, we all know Ali’s life and career by heart. But Patrick you might be interested that I’m working on an Ali book, collecting memories and anecdotes of people, boxing figures, etc. who actually met Ali and spent time with him. I have a ton of good Ali stories and memories that I never knew about. Just need to collect a lot more to fill a book. It’s going to be kind of like the Rios book format. One example: Ali’s daughter Laila told me Muhammad would take the kids to Jack in the Box in LA for burgers and in about 10-15 minutes there would be like a 100 people crowding Ali at their table. And Ali would get so wrapped up in talking/having fun with fans that he would totally forget why he was there and that his kids were there and Ali would then drive off home – and then remember he forgot his kids and drive back to pick them up lol. Collected a ton of memories like that. )
Patrick · August 27, 2012 at 4:24 pm
Scoop,
Sounds cool. When do you expect it to come out?
Interesting statement about Holmes being the superior fighter overall. I like to bifurcate Ali into two distinct fighters: pre-ban Clay/Ali and post-ban Ali.
Holmes very well may have been superior to post-ban Ali. In fact, Holmes was Ali’s sparring partner for the Foreman fight in ’74. And if you watch some of the footage from their sparring sessions at Deer Lake, Holmes appeared to handle Ali. And Holmes himself said that, based on sparring with him for that fight, that he believed he was able to slip Ali’s jab and counter with his own. Norman Mailer, in his book “The Fight” — which is about the Foreman/Ali fight — will tell you that the reason Holmes appeared to dominate Ali was because Ali was working on his weaknesses. That may be true, but it’s probably also true that Holmes was very near Ali’s level at that point. And taht fight — which is probably my favorite fight of all time — is considered the apex of Ali’s “second” career.
However, I don’t think Holmes was even close to the fighter that was pre-ban Clay/Ali (’64-’67). I think that fighter is quite possibly the best in history. His speed and size is unmatched by any fighter before or since. I watch those old fights — Clay vs. Liston; Ali vs. Cleveland Williams; Ali vs. Patterson; Ali v. Terrell; Ali vs. Chuvalo; Ali v. Foley — and am just in awe of that fighter. He just couldn’t be hit. I don’t think he was ever once even the slightest bit hurt in his title fight with Liston or in any of his 9 title defenses.
Patrick · August 27, 2012 at 4:28 pm
Scoop,
I asked you a question in the Rhyne Williams Biofile post, but I don’t know if you were likely to go back to that thread today. So maybe I’ll just ask you here: is it okay if I use that image of Williams in a quick write-up that I may do this evening on a Tennessee sports blog that I sometimes contribute to?
Scoop Malinowski · August 27, 2012 at 5:07 pm
Sure you can use the Williams photo, just please give credit to me (Scoop Malinowski – http://www.Tennis-prose.com). Yes Ali looked like an unbeatable fighting machine during the 60’s but he was hurt a few times, like in the Henry Cooper fight, where Angelo Dundee had to break the rules and tear the glove to buy extra time for Ali then Clay to recover. Cooper was a smaller man, about 180 pounds, so you have to wonder how Ali would have been able to handle the power of Tyson or Lewis or the Klitschkos. Holmes is a severely underrated great champion, his jab was arguably the best ever. But Renaldo Snipes told me Holmes’ greatest asset was not his jab but his heart. The Ali book should be ready either late next year or 2014.
Patrick · August 27, 2012 at 7:27 pm
Thanks Scoop! I’ll be sure to give you credit.
The Henry Cooper was prior to the Liston fight. He did fight Henry Cooper again after the Liston fight, but the famous cut-glove fight was actually the fight that directly preceded the first Liston fight.
It may seem convenient that I define Ali’s period of invincibility as starting with the fight after a fight where he was hurt. But he was really still growing into his frame all the way up until the Liston fight (he weighed in at 210.5 for the Liston fight, which was the heaviest he ever weighed at that point). And on top of that, I think that the Liston fight was his first fight where he thought he might lose, and so he consequently trained like crazy for that fight and I think that’s where everything came together for him. Where he figured out his style.
I think the fighter that would have given the pre-ban Ali the most difficulty is Lennox Lewis. I agree with you on that one. I’m not sure how he would have dealt with Lewis’ length and effective jab. I think he had too much speed for the Klitschkos. Tyson in his prime vs. pre-ban Ali is a fascinating one to think about.
Tyson would have destroyed the 70s version of Ali. But I think the 60’s version would have really frustrated Tyson. Tyson was a speed fighter himself, but he never had to go up against anybody that could match agility with him AND had a substantial reach advantage. So I give the nod to the 60s Ali in that one. But I’ll admit that that’s the matchup I would love to see the most.
Patrick · August 27, 2012 at 10:01 pm
Scoop,
Here is the little blurb I wrote. I gave you credit in the photo caption.
http://www.rockytoptalk.com/2012/8/27/3272410/rhyne-williams-andy-roddick-US-Open-first-round-tennis
Michael · August 28, 2012 at 7:42 am
“did a Biofile after he beat Monfils in five sets at US Open when he was still 18 or 19.
That was the first time I saw Joker play. I came Monfils (who won 3 of the 4 Junior Majors the year before falling short at the USO in a match you could not see because they moved it offsite due to rain. I guess you could see it if you knew when and where it was) but I stayed for The Joker. Joker bent the medical timeout rules out of all recognition during that one. I did a casual sampling of people after that match to see if they had the same impression. The word “cheated” was definably thrown around. He’s come a long way from that match.