Today marks the 40th anniversary of the final fight of Muhammad Ali’s professional career, his 10-round decision defeat against Trevor Berbick in what was incongruously called “The Drama in the Bahamas.” Although the event was enveloped by sadness and dreariness, the impact of Ali’s legacy remained unaffected, for not only did his entry into the sport come at a most fortuitous time, he laid the groundwork for the glorious era that was already in progress by the time he entered the ring against Berbick: The era of “The Four Kings.”

The proof of Ali’s continued relevance lies in the fact that his grandson, middleweight Nico Ali Walsh, will compete inside Madison Square Garden on this special day. The following is an excerpt from “Muhammad Ali: By the Numbers” co-written by CompuBox founder and president Bob Canobbio and punch-counter/historian Lee Groves.

Those interested in ordering a copy of the book can do so by clicking here and purchasing from Amazon.

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The bludgeoning Ali received from Holmes should have resulted in the end of his career, and when he surrendered his boxing license to the Nevada State Athletic Commission in late December and promised not to pursue reinstatement it certainly looked as if that was the case. But in the fall of 1981 rumors of yet another Ali comeback began to stir.

Ali’s immense pride, the asset that fueled his greatest triumphs, couldn’t stomach the thought that a TKO loss while sitting on the stool would be the final scene of what had been a theatrical boxing career.

The overarching issue — one that should have been disqualifying — was Ali’s health, which was in clear decline. Not only was Ali’s speech slurred and gravelly, his movement and general coordination had decayed and, without the aid of the Thyrolar that helped him shed more than 30 pounds in less than two months before the Holmes fight, his physique had the thickness and softness expected of someone five weeks short of 40. To combat those concerns, Ali underwent a battery of tests at New York University in October 1981 with pathologist Dr. Harry Demopoulos heading the 30-doctor team that was involved in the studies.

“There’s absolutely no evidence that Muhammad has sustained any injury to any vital organ — brain, liver, kidneys, heart, lungs — nervous system, or muscle or bone systems,” Dr. Demopoulos said in William Nack’s Sports Illustrated story. “His blood tests indicate he has the vessels of a young man.”

He also said Ali’s slurring was circumstantial rather than innate.

“If the slurring were due to permanent damage, it would be there all the time,” he said, adding that fatigue and stress were the most common triggers. In retrospect, all of it was wishful thinking. But Ali was such a charismatic and financial force that some were still willing to move mountains for him. (1)

James Cornelius, described in press releases as a “Los Angeles-based entrepreneur,” was the man charged with finding those mountains that were willing to be moved. He tried convincing U.S. commissions that Ali was still fit to fight, but none gave their consent. Cornelius persisted, and eventually he found a place willing to stage an Ali fight. Now operating under the umbrella of Sports Internationale Ltd., Cornelius put together a fight between Ali and onetime title challenger Trevor Berbick that was to be staged December 11, 1981 on Paradise Island in the Bahamas. (2) While the exotic locale stacked up well with other Ali fight sites, everything else connected with the venture was anything but paradise.

Berbick (left) stood up to Larry Holmes rocket left jab for 15 rounds. Photo by The Ring/ Getty Images

First, there was the opponent. Berbick, a 27-year-old Jamaican fighting out of Canada, was rated fourth by the WBA and sported a 19-2-1 record that included 17 knockouts. Standing 6-foot-2 and scaling a solid 218 pounds, the Canadian and Commonwealth heavyweight titlist used his broad shoulders to burrow inside and clubbing blows that crushed inferior opponents and wore down the better ones. Berbick vaulted to world prominence with a stunning ninth-round KO of former WBA titlist John Tate on the Roberto Duran-Sugar Ray Leonard I “Brawl in Montreal” card in June 1980, and since then he had gone 4-1 with four early-round knockouts, the most recent of which was a two-rounder against Conroy Nelson in July. The lone defeat in that stretch came against WBC champion Larry Holmes, who was looking to break Tommy Burns’ all-time record of eight consecutive knockouts in heavyweight title fights. Not only did Berbick’s legs stand up to Holmes’ bombs for 15 rounds, he stood up to Holmes himself by spewing taunts throughout the early rounds before “The Easton Assassin” pulled away in the “championship rounds.” While Ali historically had done well against aggressors, Berbick’s persistent smashmouth style was not what Ali needed at this stage of his life.

Recognizing his depleted state, Ali set a modest goal for himself.

“I’ve just got to win six rounds on the cards of the three officials; so I’ll have to fight for six rounds,” Ali told the Associated Press the day before the fight. (3) It was just another illustration of how far Ali had declined physically and in terms of his own expectations. Just three years earlier in New Orleans, a 36-year-old Ali made good on his promise to dance for nearly all 15 rounds in regaining the title from Leon Spinks. Now, he just wanted to get by.

So did the promotion, which was beset with numerous financial and organizational problems.

The venue bore a regal name — Queen Elizabeth Sports Centre — but in reality, it was a converted baseball stadium that was still under construction. The fight card started late because organizers couldn’t find the key that unlocked the front gate of the stadium. Only two pairs of gloves were available for the five-fight undercard, forcing each corner to unlace the gloves after each bout so that the next pair of fighters could use them. While Ali, Berbick and Thomas Hearns (who fought Ernie Singletary) had their own locker rooms, the other nine fighters were jammed into the remaining dressing room. A borrowed cowbell was used to start and end each round. (4)

The main event almost didn’t happen because Berbick had received only $100,000 of his $350,000 guarantee and said he wouldn’t fight until he was paid the full amount. At 5:40 p.m., just hours before stepping into the ring, Berbick got his money thanks to SelecTV, the pay-cable channel airing the card. (5)

“For a fight of this magnitude, this tops it all,” Eddie Futch, who guided Pete McIntyre to a 10-round decision win over Mike Fisher, told the New York Times’ George Vescey. “The promoters just didn’t understand the details. They didn’t anticipate the expenses. Their money ran out before the details could be taken care of.” (6)

Despite the chaos, the event was blessed by a comfortable moonlit night and, thanks to ticket prices being slashed from $50 to $5, a decent turnout of 8,000. (7)

A somber Ali, scaling a pudgy 236 1/4, trudged toward the ring and once there, he and his corner awaited Berbick’s arrival. The onetime “Ali Circus” appeared flat emotionally, for they knew Ali had shown woeful energy throughout the 11-week training cycle. According to Nack, Ali, wearing a rubber corset, walked more than he ran during roadwork, shadowboxed listlessly, then climbed into a waiting limousine that took him back to his hotel. (8) Ali and his retinue knew full well that the string that Ali had played the past few years was frayed and nearing disintegration. For a man who had mastered the 15-round distance, 10 rounds now seemed an eternity.

The more energetic Berbick bounded into the squared circle four minutes later and as he danced around the ring a stony Ali ignored him instead of launching into his usual pre-fight antics. Referee Zach Clayton, who counted Foreman out the night Ali regained the title, delivered the final instructions. Ali, looking bored at times, said nothing as he shadowboxed while Berbick refused to look Ali in the eyes.

The fight’s opening seconds yielded an encouraging sign for Ali fans because in walking out of the corner, firing three soft jabs and landing with an overhand right, he already showed more life than he had in most of the Holmes bout. Yes, his punches were slow and lacked snap and his legs shuffled rather than danced, but he began most of the skirmishes and connected more often.

Even before the end of round one, blow-by-blow commentator Don Dunphy declared the first “a very good round” for Ali, and he was right. Even a late flurry of body shots from Berbick couldn’t negate Ali’s good work in the first three minutes, which saw Ali throw 66 punches to Berbick’s 41 and out-land him 16-12 overall as well as 7-2 in jabs. If Ali could do this five more times, he would do enough to earn the decision and make a good case for the fight he wanted next — a crack at Mike Weaver’s WBA title. (9)

It wasn’t to be. The first was the only instance in which Ali out-landed Berbick, and the effort required to keep the rugged Jamaican at bay had already cut into his gas tank more than it should have. If fighting three minutes against an opponent that largely ceded the round taxed his energy supply, what would happen once the younger bull revved up his attack?

In round two, Berbick’s steady pressure forced Ali to retreat more quickly than he wanted and his rights to the ribs during clinches inflicted damage that registered on Ali’s face. As the crowd chanted Ali’s name, Berbick gestured with his gloves as if to say “why are you cheering him? I’m from your part of the world.” Then, to punctuate his point, he fired a hook toward Ali’s head and blasted more rights to the ribs as Ali clinched. While he couldn’t duplicate his success in round one, Ali still fought with conviction but it was evident to all that conviction alone wasn’t going to be enough.

“Ali’s reflexes are gone,” Dunphy declared as round two began its final minute. “He knows what to do but he can’t do it.” Then, ever the hopeful soul, Dunphy added, “at least he can’t up to now.” His right hands, once crisp and stinging, lacked speed and were occasionally delivered with an awkward downward chop. Ali’s activity — and the overwhelming sentiment — may have won his second round as he threw 68 punches to Berbick’s 51, but more objective eyes saw Berbick’s more frequent (22 to 15) and heavier connects.

Ali may have even won the third as he threw more punches (56 to 48) and jabbed better than anyone could have hoped (11 of 43, 26%). For his part, Berbick out-landed Ali 22-16 overall and landed 19 of his 38 power shots (50%) to Ali’s 5 of 13 (39%).

Based on the expectations game, Ali fared much better in the first nine minutes against Berbick than at any time during the Holmes fight, and, at least for an instant, thoughts about a potential Ali-Weaver fight danced in some heads.

“Sure, Ali could never dethrone Holmes, but he might have a chance against Weaver, who was out-boxed by Tate for nearly the entire fight before a miraculous hook flattened Tate with 45 seconds left in the final round,” they might have said to themselves. “Maybe Ali was right about blaming the weight loss and the prescription drugs concealing his true ability in the Holmes fight. Even at 39 Ali owns a far better chin than Tate does and he’s still a bit quicker on his feet than the cement-footed Weaver. If Ali gets himself into prime shape, if everything falls into place during the fight and if he stays away from that big left hook he might shock the world one more time.”

Logan Hobson, who would later develop CompuBox with partner Bob Canobbio, was then a reporter for United Press International as well as a devoted Ali fan. As he sat ringside, he was optimistic that Ali still had enough in reserve to wring out another victory.

“The fight was competitive enough where I was hoping he was going to do it,” he said in a July 2017 phone interview. “He was doing so much better than he did against Larry Holmes. But then he got tired and he just couldn’t (keep going). He was missing the fastball and he was not getting there in time. Berbick had said before the fight that if Ali was hurt, he would let up on him. He said he wouldn’t step it up on Ali like Holmes did.”

Holmes punished Ali heavily in October 1980. Photo from The Ring/ Getty Images

Berbick might have believed his words, but when he got the chance to dominate inside the ring he took it with both hands. Quite literally.

Nearly a minute into round four, Berbick showed what 27 could do and Ali showed what 39 wouldn’t allow him to do. Berbick drove Ali toward the ropes with a series of heavy body shots, then maintained the pressure as Ali desperately tried to fend him off with clinches and the “Rope-a-Dope.” The crowd tried to spark Ali with “Ali, bomaye” chants but even the ghosts of Kinshasa couldn’t regenerate the Ali of old. Instead, they got an old Ali.

Round four was a wipeout for Berbick as he landed 38 of 68 punches to Ali’s 9 of 51 as well as 33 of 59 power shots to Ali’s 5 of 21. Only Berbick’s fatigue in the final minute saved Ali from oblivion, but another benefit of being 27 was that all he needed to revive himself was the 60-second rest period. Ali, on the other hand, required more time than the sport of boxing could grant him.

Rounds five, six and seven delivered a sobering and punishing message to Ali while allowing Berbick to separate himself on the scorecards and the statistics. In those rounds Berbick out-landed Ali 95-36 overall and 82-10 power, with the seventh — especially the final minute – being the worst by far. In that round Berbick out-threw Ali 89-28 overall (including 72-9 power) and out-landed him 41-8 overall and 39-1 power.

Berbick’s dominance was such that he occasionally barked at the old champion.

“At one point I heard Berbick say, ‘c’mon old man, show me your speed.’ I was livid…livid!” Hobson remembered. “The Brooklyn was coming out in me. Ali wasn’t punching and Berbick was taunting him. I don’t remember if Ali started punching him at that point, but Berbick was asserting his dominance and playing with Ali’s mind. How sad is that: Somebody playing with Ali’s mind. I thought, ‘knock it off, show some respect.’ I wanted to climb into the ring and backhand him. How dare he try to play with Ali’s mind? Ali was the master of that game and here was Berbick talking to Ali. That made it even more insulting to me. It upset me more that he had the psychological balls to do that.”

As Berbick pounded away, Ali dug into that bag of tricks by widening his eyes and opening his mouth in mock duress. The ploy had convinced the likes of Frazier, Shavers and Spinks to throttle down their attacks but Berbick did what they should have done: Hit Ali even more.

Berbick, whose contempt was now replaced by compassion, yelled at Clayton to stop the fight but the onetime Harlem Globetrotter held firm and allowed the battering to continue.

Most other boxers, even those at their zenith, wouldn’t have survived those nine minutes but while Ali’s physical abilities were long gone his competitive drive, his resourcefulness and his toughness remained in prime form. But in boxing, landed punches are the ultimate currency.

As Ali sat on his stool between rounds, his inner being was hard at work. Just as he had in the “Thrilla in Manila” and before the final rounds against Norton (twice) and Shavers, Ali sought out his emergency energy supply, broke the glass and waited for the adrenaline rush to kick in. It saved him in all four bouts and he had every reason to believe it would help him again.

Ali tried but was outworked by Berbick for most of the fight. Photo by Focus on Sport/ Getty Images

As the bell sounded for round eight Ali broke out the old butterfly float and a facsimile of the bee-like sting. The crowd that had sat through Ali’s mid-rounds crisis suddenly perked up as their hero tried to turn back the clock. Berbick did his best to bull Ali and while he got in some heavy blows Ali shook them off and got back on the bicycle. But as the round wore on, so did Ali. Berbick’s body blasts and hurtful hooks broke the spell that had ensnared so many others. If Ali had any doubts before they were erased now: The jig was up, and the “Ali Mystique” was no more.

Berbick’s late rally overcame Ali’s early surge as he out-landed the legend 22-17 despite being out-thrown 59-56 and forged a huge 18-6 lead in landed power shots. Berbick further separated himself in the ninth as he upped his work rate to 70 punches to Ali’s 41 and out-landed him 23-11 overall, including 20-0 in power shots.

“Win, lose or draw, I hope he doesn’t fight again,” Dunphy said between rounds nine and 10.

“I pray he never fights again,” added referee Davey Pearl, who, along with Randy Shields, served as Dunphy’s color commentator.

The 548th round of Ali’s 21-year professional career started as the first against Tunney Hunsaker had — on his toes, using the jab and firing right hands over the top. But while Hunsaker couldn’t touch the whippet-quick teen-age gold medalist, Berbick feasted on the geriatric shell that remained. In the final 90 seconds Berbick climbed all over Ali and attempted to put him away, but Ali, though imprisoned by age, excess weight and physical deterioration, still had enough savvy and toughness to make it to the final bell. If nothing else, Ali could be proud that he earned the privilege of ending this fight on his feet instead of on his stool.

The punishment Berbick dished out was extraordinary. He threw 100 punches and landed 45, including 36 of 86 power shots. The shadow of Ali, 9 of 60 overall and 3 of 22 power, paled in comparison.

Berbick’s second-half surge allowed him to pull away on the scorecards. Alonzo Butler submitted the kindest card at 97-94 while colleagues Jay Edson and Clyde Gray delivered harsher news by seeing Berbick the 99-94 winner.

The statistics backed up the judges while also delivering a brutally honest assessment. Berbick led 279-129 in total connects and pounded out an enormous 236-45 gap in landed power shots. Ali absorbed 43% of Berbick’s total punches and 45% of his power shots while landing just 24% and 26% respectively.

A press conference was conducted at a makeshift pressroom on the second floor of a Holiday Inn undergoing renovation at Paradise Island at 10:30 a.m. the day after the fight. It was here that Ali, who arrived 30 minutes late, finally admitted the obvious — his boxing career had come to an end.

“Father Time has caught up with me,” Ali said. “I’m finished. I’ve got to face the facts. For the first time, I feel that I’m 40 years old. I know it’s the end. I’m not crazy. After Holmes I had excuses: I was too light, I didn’t breathe right. No excuses this time, but at least I didn’t go down. No pictures of me on the floor, no pictures of me falling through the ropes, no broken teeth, no blood. I’m happy I’m still pretty. I came out all right for an old man. We all lose sometimes. We all grow old.” (10)

Indeed we do.

The Berbick fight was Ali’s first loss in 16 appearances outside the United States. He won thrice in London (KO 5, KO 6 versus Henry Cooper, KO 3 Brian London), four times elsewhere in Europe (KO 12 Karl Mildenberger, KO 7 Juergen Blin, KO 11 Al “Blue Lewis, KO 5 Richard Dunn), four times in Asia (W 15 Mac Foster, W 12 Rudi Lubbers, W 15 Joe Bugner II, KO 14 Joe Frazier III), three times elsewhere in North America (W 15, W 12 George Chuvalo II, KO 5 Jean-Pierre Coopman) and once in Africa (KO 8 George Foreman) before losing to Berbick in the Bahamas. If ever a fighter personified the concept of a “world champion,” it was Muhammad Ali.

“Because of me,” Ali said, “the whole world watches boxing now.” (11)

Years into his retirement, Ali gets ready to participate as a guest referee in the inaugural Wrestlemania at Madison Square Garden in 1985. Photo by The Ring Magazine/ Getty Images

The assembled media had either followed Ali from the very beginning or jumped on the bus sometime during its 61 stops. Thanks to the extraordinary access he had granted them, they not only knew Ali as a legendary athlete but also as a human being who experienced the full range of emotions and shared most of them with them. The connection was deep, heartfelt and beyond debate. Now, the whirlwind that was known as “The Ali Circus” was about to fold up its tents and ride into the sunset, once and forever. That realization hit hard and the emotions enveloping the room were raw and real. Even hard-bitten veterans Bob Waters, Dick Young, Dave Anderson and Ed Schuyler were moved by the occasion.

Steve Farhood, elected into the International Boxing Hall of Fame in 2017, was also in the room, a room that stirred feelings of unworthiness.

“To put it in perspective, I’m 24 years old,” Farhood said during a June 2017 phone interview. “As excited as I was (to be there), I felt like I didn’t belong because I looked around me and I saw all these writers like Michael Katz, Eddie Schuyler, Dick Young, all these writers who I had grown up reading. They had been around the world with Ali, and I kind of felt like I didn’t deserve what I was getting, which was, of course, would turn out to be a memory of a lifetime.

“Everybody knew that this was really it,” he continued. “I don’t know if that was the feeling after the Holmes fight — probably it was, he took such a beating in that fight everybody figured there wouldn’t be any more — but this time everybody knew there would be no more. If you couldn’t beat Trevor Berbick there was really no point in going on. The press conference was actually on my floor where I was staying. I had a buddy with me and we went there and it was similar to waiting for a funeral to begin. Everybody was really quiet. Berbick was there first and he was speaking and nobody wanted to hear what he had to say. This was about Ali. It was awkward because this guy just won the fight and he might as well have been a kid filling the soda machine.

“Of course, Ali finally walks in, a little bit late, and one of the first things I remember hearing was Ed Schuyler, this great old tough reporter from the AP who had been around the world with Ali in places he probably never even heard of before he went there, and he just looked at Ali and said, ‘thanks, champ, for a helluva ride.’ It was an emotional moment for the hard-core guys, and they didn’t cry in their beer too often. That was, to me, the official ending of it all. When we left there that day, you knew it would never be the same because of what he brought to a fight from a writer’s perspective was unique and was never going to be matched. The overriding theme of it, being a young kid, was, ‘this is something I’m never going to forget, this is something I probably don’t deserve to be at, and this is the end of the greatest athlete in the history of the world.’ ”

Hobson, who was also in the room, agreed with Farhood’s description of the experience.

“You have the wake and then the funeral, but this fight was like the headstone dedication,” he said. “This was like putting the period at the end of the sentence. Ali seemed fine with it and I didn’t remember feeling sad for him. Berbick was gracious and Schuyler set the tone. It wasn’t as horribly sad as you think it would be. In retrospect, all of us had done our mourning after the Holmes fight. That fight was like watching a mugging. He was brutalized in that fight and he wouldn’t quit. Here, there was no reason for him to quit and there was no time in which I felt like yelling, ‘stop the fight.’ ”

During the final years of Ali’s career, it had been feared that once he lost the title and faded from the scene that he would take the sport of boxing with him. The same fears had been expressed when giants like John L. Sullivan, Jack Dempsey, Joe Louis and Rocky Marciano had left the scene and each time boxing produced a new focal point. Such would also be the case with Ali, and just as it had been with the others, the fears of boxing’s impending extinction proved unfounded. However, the post-Ali era was especially blessed because the sport would be fueled not just by one fighter, but several.

“Ali hadn’t been a constant presence in the last couple of years, and it had been a while since the Holmes fight,” Farhood observed. “And don’t forget: I was coming to the Bahamas off Leonard-Hearns. The baton had been passed to the non-heavyweights at that point. We had Hearns and we had Leonard and we had Duran and Hagler — the Four Kings — and it was a great time. I don’t know that we necessarily knew at that point, as Ali was retiring, that it was going to be as great a period as it was, but in fact, the era was in very good hands and didn’t need Ali at that point. Ali had carried boxing in America, almost-singlehandedly, in the 1970s but the early 1980s was a great time. Boxing was on TV like crazy and we had the big closed-circuit fights. It was not that sad a time for boxing fans — it was sad in one sense because it was the end of Ali — but it wasn’t that sad in terms of ‘will the sport flourish?’ The sport was flourishing at that exact point.”

One measure of a fighter’s worth is whether he left the sport in better shape than it was when he first arrived. When Cassius Marcellus Clay broke into the professional boxing scene following his triumph in the 1960 Rome Olympics, the sport was hurtling toward the abyss. Thanks to the gold medalist’s savant-like skills in terms of self-marketing he revived his sport in a way few others had and the results spoke for themselves. Now, as the nearly 40-year-old Ali announced his departure from “The Sweet Science,” it was evident he had set the stage for another Golden Era whose star power wasn’t isolated to only the heavyweights. Inspired by Ali, a plethora of stars spanning dozens of pounds built on the foundation Ali assembled. They spoke for themselves, they fought for themselves and the fans who paid to see them, and they fought for the sport that gave them a chance to build new lives.

Thanks to the rise of pay-cable outlets and pay-per-view platforms, the purses these fighters generated dwarfed those generated by Ali and they, too, became household names worldwide. Though no longer able to contribute, Ali surely must have surveyed the scene, took it all in and exhaled in satisfaction.

The Ali Era was over. Let the New Era begin.

INSIDE THE NUMBERS: In his Last Hurrah, Ali, approaching his 40th birthday, landed an average of 8.4 jabs per round, 3.1 more per round than the heavyweight average. Also, 65% of his landed punches versus Berbick were jabs, with the CompuBox average being 28%. Ali landed just 51 power punches in his losses to Berbick and Holmes. He landed 68 power shots in rounds thirteen and fourteen alone versus Frazier in Manila, his last great performance. Ali went through hell in his final professional round as Berbick, showing no mercy, threw 100 punches in round ten (86 of which were power punches), the most by an Ali opponent among fights counted. But Ali displayed his trademark courage in surviving that round as well as announcing his permanent exit from the sport as an in-ring participant.

Notes:

(1) “Not With a Bang, But a Whisper,” by William Nack, Sports Illustrated, December 21, 1981

(2) “Berbick Defeats Ali on Decision,” by George Vescey, New York Times, December 12, 1981

(3) “Ali Wants Weaver Title Bout,” Associated Press, published in the Wilmington Morning Star, December 9, 1981, p. 1D

(4) “Muhammad Ali: His Life and Times,” by Thomas Hauser, Simon and Schuster Paperbacks, 1991, p. 429

(5) “Berbick Defeats Ali on Decision,” by George Vescey, New York Times, December 12, 1981

(6) Ibid

(7) “Berbick Pounds Out Decision Over Ali,” by Michael Farber, Montreal Gazette, December 11, 1981, p. 15

(8) “Not With a Bang, But a Whisper,” by William Nack, Sports Illustrated, December 21, 1981

(9) “Ali Wants Weaver Title Bout,” Associated Press, published in the Wilmington Morning Star, December 9, 1981, p. 1D

(10) “Muhammad Ali: His Life and Times,” by Thomas Hauser, Simon and Schuster Paperbacks, 1991, p. 430

(11) “The Curtain Closes on a Great Act: Ali’s Traumas in the Bahamas,” by Dave Anderson, THE RING, February 1982, p. 37

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