Never let it be said that the wit and wisdom of Muhammad Ali is not as sharp as ever.
Now I wasn’t there when British boxing star Ricky Hatton met and paid the proper homage to the Greatest Of All Time in Manchester but a little birdie who was tells me that Ali made two biting remarks about his host.
Remark Number 1: “Is that Ricky Hatton? I didn’t recognize him standing up!”
Remark Number 2: “I hear he’s becoming a stnadup comic. the word that makes me laugh is standup.”
Of course, when Ali has seen me over the years starting in 1964, he usually said, “Did you call me Roy?
Or: “Did you call me Trigger (reference to Roy Rogers awesome horse?
Or my personal favorite: “You’re not as dumb as you look.”
When I told Ali I had teenaged pro boxing aspirations, he said, “You float like a butterfly, you sting like a moth. You’ll do better as a writer than as a fighter.”
OK, one more. What would Ali have told Hatton before the Manny Pacquiao bout?
“If you sign to fight Pacman, you will need speed and endurance. But what you’ll need most of all is increase your insurance!”
OK, I lied. One more round of Ali.
I flew to Mississippi where Ali was shooting the post Civil War flick, “Freedom Road,” and the scenes were filmed inside a huge plantation.
Upon my arrival, Ali told the director to stop filming, beckoned me over and whispered in my ear with a joke.
It wound up attributed to Ali in the next day’s New York Post like so:
“What did Abraham Lincoln say when he woke up after a four day drinking binge?
Answer: I freed the WHO?”
(All dialogue guaranteed verbatim).
(For consumer complaints, wire Judge Gale Van Hoy, Cut’n’Shoot, Texas)
