MUHAMMAD ALI 70TH BIRTHDAY TRIBUTE DINNER AT THE MUHAMMAD ALI CENTER IN LOUSVILLE KENTUCKY THIS SATURDAY NIGHT
ALL PHOTOS COPYRIGHT AND COURTESY OF STACEY VERBEEK, MAPLE AVENUE BOXING GYM, DALLAS, TEXAS
His name is Alex Saucedo and he’s a young professional boxer from Oklahoma with a 2-0 record and huge dreams.
He dreams the same dreams that a kid named Cassius Marcellus Clay used to dream when he was running behind the school bus heading to then racially segregated Central High School.
Clay, later to become legend Muhammad Ali, dreamed of Olympic gold and then went to Rome and got it.
Clay dreamed of becoming heavyweight champ and he did that an unprecedented three times.
“I said I was the greatest before I knew I was,” Ali has said of his storybook life and times.
On Saturday night, in Lousiville I only saw three professional boxers among the 350 who turned out to pay tribute to Ali at the Ali Center. Advertisement
One was the former Rudolph Valentino Clay, the champ’s two years younger brother, now 68 and living again in hometown Louisville.
The second was our last undisputed world heavyweight champ Lennox Lewis, a classy gentleman who got on the dais to praise his idol and, more importantly, made a cool donation of $250,000 to aid the Ali Center’s mission of fostering racial and ethnic peace and harmony across the globe.
Once up a time, growing up in Kitchener, Ontario, a kid named Lennox Lewis had the same dreams that Clay had before him.
Lewis won Olympic gold and was an excellent heavyweight champion. He made Canada, Jamaica and the United Kingdom proud.
The third fighter at the dinner was a boyish dreamer named Alex Saucedo.
He got to meet and greet Lewis, Hall Of Fame trainer Angelo Dundee and Ali. He sat at the same table with Muhammad’s brother.
This protege of Maple Avenue Dallas gym owner Arnie Verbeek has a long road in front of him.
But, at Ali’s 70th birthday bash, he lived part of his dream.
