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Another Ali Muhammad's daughter to make boxing debut Friday
Posted: Thursday October 14, 1999 08:08 PM
LAS VEGAS (AP) -- A new Ali era will begin Friday night. Well, sort of. Laila Ali, the Greatest's daughter, will launch her pro boxing career at the Turning Stone Casino at Verona, New York. Her debut will come 29 years and 6 days after Muhammad Ali's heavyweight career ended on a stool in a Las Vegas ring after a 10-round battering by Larry Holmes. Actually, Ali had one more fight, a 10-round loss to Trevor Berbick on Dec. 11, 1981, at Nassau, Bahamas, but the real ending was against Holmes in an ill-advised bid to become heavyweight champion for a fourth time. "I am the master of illusion," a svelte Ali said before the Holmes fight. In fact, Ali was a 217-pound (98-kilo) shell. When his legion of fans talk about Ali, of course, it is the not the Ali who fought Holmes, but the Ali who floated like a butterfly and stung like a bee, who put bully Sonny Liston in his place, who roped-a-doped menacing George Foreman and who co-authored with Joe Frazier a three-chapter story of skill and courage. He also beat the establishment -- refusing induction into the military during the Vietnam War in 1967 and having his conviction overturned by the Supreme Court of the United States. Sounding like an echo from the past, 21-year-old Laila Ali says, `If I want to do something, I just do it, I really don't care what anybody has to say." The 5-foot-10 (1.78-meter), 168-pound (76-kilo) Laila, who will box April Fowler (0-1) in a four-round bout, also says that because she is Muhammad Ali's daughter "that I naturally have boxing skills that most people probably don't have when they start." Score one for youthful exuberance. Laila Ali, who runs her own nail salon in Los Angeles, started boxing as exercise and then decided about a year ago she wanted to do it for real. Muhammad Ali, who suffers from Parkinson's Syndrome, has not turned against the sport that made him famous, and Laila says he supports her 100 percent. As a father, however, he is skeptical. "I just love how it feels," she says of boxing. So does her father -- how it feels to be hit with Frazier's left hook or Earnie Shavers' right, how it feels when your legs become rubbery and your breath feels like fire in your throat. Laila said she knows she is going to get hit and bruised, but that she's just going to have to deal with it. How long remains to be seen. At least, one old follower of her father's career hopes Laila's career is successful -- and short. Laila is one of Ali's eight children -- seven daughters and Muhammad Ali Jr. None of the others has shown any interest in following in dad's footsteps. She is one of two daughters Ali had with Veronica, the third of his four wives. The main event Friday night will be a 10-round bout between Donovan "Razor" Ruddock and Jose Ribalta, two heavyweights whose best days are behind them.
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