Every so often comes a moment that can set the history of sport on a different trajectory. I believe we will witness such a moment on Saturday when Anthony Joshua, of Golders Green no less, fights the veteran Wladimir Klitschko for the Heavy-weight Champ-ionship of the World. At Wembley Stadium, not a Las Vegas car park. This is a battle of the ages and for the ages, and it is right here in London.
For those of us who were glued to barely audible radios at 3am to hear epic US fights or flogged around seedy London cinemas for a live transmission, the romance, the magic and the brutal beauty seems to have gone out of the heavyweight game. The story of Muhammad Ali, and the brilliant film of his Rumble in the Jungle, When We Were Kings, now feels like a romantic confection. But it wasn’t.
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Who can forget seeing the writers George Plimpton and Norman Mailer rising open-mouthed in awe, as we all did when we watched the film, when Ali dropped George Foreman in the eighth, having exhausted him in the heat of the Zaire night with his ‘rope-a-dope’ courage. It is the best sporting documentary ever made and justly won an Oscar in 1996: both Ali and Foreman went to the awards. They had long buried their differences and Foreman helped Ali on to the stage. It is a brutal sport, but a noble one.
Joshua and Klitschko, these two gentleman giants, literally, can bring it all back before 90,000 spectators and millions of viewers. Klitschko is a colossus, immensely dignified and a great ambassador for boxing. He has won 53 fights by knockout and spent an average of 15 minutes in the ring over all his fights.
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