Muhammad Ali: Boxing Oracle

It was with sadness I received news of the death of Muhammad Ali. I had followed his professional career since I was a young boy. Brokenheartedly I watched as he overstayed on the boxing stage.

In keeping with the spirit of my blog, I wanted to post something about Ali's uncanny ability predict his victories: "They all must fall in the round I call."

This little shtick of his began very early in his career, while he was still know by his birth name, Cassius Clay. He had gone to a professional wrestling card in a packed-to-overflowing arena that was barely half-filled for his fight the next day.

The difference was in that master of self-promotion, Gorgeous George. Ali took notes and soon began employing the arrogant and obnoxious persona that earned him the nickname, the Louisville Lip.

His first prediction was in his sixth fight against LaMar Clark on 19 April, 1961. Ali predicted Clark would fall in two, and he did.

Several fights later he took on the ill-fated Sonny Banks (who later died of brain damage after another boxing match) and predicted a fourth round stoppage. Although he had to pick himself up off the canvas after his first professional knockdown, Ali did fulfill his prediction.

His very next fight was against Don Warner. Of that fight Ali (Clay) afterwards said:  "I would have let it go five as I predicted, but he wouldn't shake my hand and that made me mad."

George Logan was next in April 1962. Of him the prediction was for an end in four rounds. Logan did fall in four.

However, a month later his prediction failed for the first time when he faced a game Bill Daniels. In Associated Press coverage of the fight it was noted that Daniels was cut on the eye and bleeding from the third round on. The prediction was for a round five stoppage, but the fight went on until round seven. Correct outcome, wrong round.

In his very next fight Ali took on Alejandro Lavorante, another fighter who was later killed in the ring. The prediction was for a fifth round stoppage and that is exactly what went down. Next up. was to be former light heavyweight champion Archie Moore.

Here is where it get interesting, and the above well photograph which has appeared in books, newspapers and magazines everywhere attest to the fact that Ali had the future mapped out. It was to be Moore in four and the then heavweight Champ Sonny Liston in eight.

That latter prediction seemed particularly ludicrous, as Liston seemed near invincible. He had only lost once, a decision he dropped while fight with a broken jaw.  But Moore did indeed go in four. But a Liston fight was still in the future.

Next Ali took on a former pro footballer named Charley Powell. The newspaper coverage of this fight proclaimed Ali the "Champ of Prophecy" for calling for and delivering a third round KO of Powell.

On 13 March 1964 Ali faced the very tough Doug Jones in the famous Madison Square Garden. A tough crowd. Ali had predicted a sixth round KO. But it went the distance. It was a close and controversial decision that went to Ali. He was loudly booed another prediction failed.

Now Ali went to England to battle the rugged slugger Henry Cooper. He was predicting a fifth round knockout (It's no jive, Henry Cooper will go in five"). Yet it was Cooper who floored Ali in the third round. He was in bad shape upon rising to his feet, but a delay caused by the need replace his torn glove gave Ali time to recover. He fought on busting up Cooper's eye and forcing a stoppage in the predicted round.

Finally it was time for his title shot against Liston. He had been predicting he would beat "the Big Ugly Bear" in eight. I have found newspaper reports that he also predicted "Sonny will be all mine in nine."

Few gave the Louisville Lip a chance. Liston had a prediction of his own: Clay (Ali) would fall in two.

In fact Liston lost his title in a colossal upset, retiring at the end of round 6.

Ali would say Liston quit early to just to foil his prediction. There is little doubt had Liston not quit when he did, he could not have gone on much longer as he was out of gas and banged up pretty severely.

After this and especially during the time when he was facing prosecution as a draft dodger the predictions faded from his act. Later he offered predictions again after his three and a half year forced exile from boxing, but the magic was gone. His predictions failed time and again.

At the very least I have to think Muhammad Ali enjoyed a finely tuned intuition. It must be remembered that Ali was the light-heavy weight, not heavy weight champion in the 1960 Olympics. He was light for heavyweight (often under 200 pounds) in his first pro fights. He was never known as a devastating puncher. He didn't usually set for a punch, choosing instead to dance on his toes and throw punches in bunches. He could wear an opponent down through sheer accumulation of punches, or maybe cut him up, but was not know as man who would you out with one punch. Which makes his correct knockout predictions all the more remarkable.

I'm not arguing for anything paranormal about Ali's penchant for calling his early fights. I don't think intuition is anything other than natural. But I feel he did once possess a unique psychic gift. Perhaps one might think of the Law of Attraction, the philosophy of willing things into existence. It's fair to point out that there are records of his forecasts of fight outcomes he was not involved in and he was clearly poor at that.

I just can't convince myself that sheer luck can account for Ali's ability to accurately predict his fight outcomes in his early career. I think he once was a true oracle.

The Strange Fate Of Yuan Shikai

He was, according to Encyclopedia Britannica, a "Chinese army leader and reformist minister in the twilight of the Qing dynasty (until 1911) and then first president of the Republic of China (1912-1916)." Yuan Shikai was more, though. With his defeat of the Nationalist Party (including the murdering of the party chairman) and declaring of a new imperial dynasty, he killed off efforts towards parliamentary democracy in China. As self-proclaimed emperor and president for life he soon found himself facing widespread opposition. He was eventually forced to terminate his dynasty in early 1916. Shortly thereafter he died.

Here is the interesting part. An Australian newspaper article from the October 17, 1914 contained the following:

It will be interesting to see whether the Chinese soothsayer is a true prophet. Yuan Shi Kai is reported as now assuming the title of "Divine Majesty" (Shen Wu), with a view to the imperial purple to follow. Now, when Yuan was Viceroy of Chi Chi his favorite wife persuaded him to consult a famous soothsayer. The prophecy was that Yuan would one day become emperor, and then soon lose his life.

Yuan was so annoyed at this forecast that the prophet prudently withdrew. Then Yuan summoned him back for another little talk. But the soothsayer, fearing to lose his head, was smuggled away by the favorite wife. So Yuan left with the reflection that the paths of glory may lead but to the grave.   

Strange, yes, because it appeared almost two years before Shikai died. He died in an untimely manner of uremia on June 6, 1916. The prophecy fulfilled.

Who this mysterious Chinese soothsayer was I have not yet been able to determine. However, I am keeping this file open as I continue to investigate. I include here a link to the newspaper prophecy.  In this post I will just report and not speculate on the fascinating subjects of prophecy and fate. But is this type of thing not unsettling, to say the least?

Calling All Nostradamites

Pejoratives, I suppose, are inevitable when anyone takes a firm position on an issue. For example, the case of the "prophecies" of Michel de Michel de Nostredam, popularly known as Nostradamus. Those who take his prophetic quatrains seriously are dismissed as Nostradamites. 

On the other hand, there are those who take such a cut-and-dried skeptical position about Nostradamus, preferring to "debunk" rather than seriously weigh the words of the old magician and astrologer - and this because, according to their worldview, such things are impossible to begin with - they often catch a lot of flak.

So I wondered: is there a middle ground between being a Nostradamite or a hidebound Nostradamus skeptic?

So much friction has resulted from debates over whether Nostradamus was using an anagram (Pau, Nay, Loron) to refer to Napoleon, called out Louis Pasteur by name or was simply referring to an unknown priest or "pastor," used the noun Hister to refer to the Danube River or the notorious madman Adolph Hitler, among many interesting things, that I believe something has been lost here.

The suggestions of the Nostradamites are often no more strained than the some of the explanations offered by the skeptics.

However, I also feel those who sincerely feel Nostradamus was a prophet have stuck out their necks so far and so often that they have done considerable harm to their cause. This is especially true when they attempt to use the prophecies to foretell the future.

 

The number one response from the skeptics is: How come it is only after the fact that the alleged prophecies can be understood?

Can that challenge be met by those who take Nostradamus seriously?

What if something like the Jewish pesher hermeneutic were used on Nostradamus' quatrains? That is, for those unfamiliar with that method of interpretation, what if there were both a common meaning and at the same time a deeper, hidden meaning to be found?

The well-known skeptic of all things occult and paranormal James Randi wrote a book about the subject, The Mask of Nostradamus. In it he helpfully, in my opinion, provides some historical and cultural context for the old seer.

The question I feel has to be asked is, is that all there is to it? Could the so-called Nostradamites be employing pesher interpretations? That is, the Randian approach might be okay as a starting point, but might there be deeper, fuller meanings to be culled?

Perhaps so. But if so, we must be careful to be consistent in our approach. If we are dealing with pesher interpretation let us not make the mistake of pretending Nostradamus was speaking only to a distant future.

Think about it. If the present is understood so incompletely, how much more murky might visions from the future be? Might it then be the case that the deeper meaning is only fully comprehendible after the events have fully unfolded? Perhaps history is cyclical and there can be recurring fulfillments of visionary material.

It seems to me that World War ll brought a revival of interest in the prophecies of Nostradamus. MGM produced a little Nostradamus propaganda with a series of shorts on the subject produced by Carey Wilson (who also brought us Andy Hardy and Dr. Kildare). Wilson's first short in his Nostradamus series came out in 1938.

 

Finding Hitler and the rise of Nazism in Nostradamus seems to me to be pure pesher interpretation. Those same lines had been applied to other historical situations beforehand, naturally enough.

Perhaps the critics who find Nostradamus' quatrains vague and subject to numerous interpretations miss the point. Ancient wisdom seems to find a home among the more idealist minded people because it is always relevant.