November 23, 2020 • 24 mins
Muhammad Ali steps back into the ring for the first time in over three years. The robbers place themselves in position for the heist as the partygoers leave the Municipal Auditorium in Atlanta. The mastermind sets his plan in motion.
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Speaker 1 (00:02):
Good anything waters in, gentlemen, I'm Tom Harmon ringside here
from Atlanta, Georgia, where tonight there are five thousand fans
anticipating a great fight and primarily to see the return
of a great heavyweight champion, Muhammad Ali Or as of
course most all of you know him. Cash is playing
profile and in half a sec they then put on
(00:26):
a show. You will sign that Kennema White had a
big spotlight running when I saw it, Lizath, you know,
I saw all these famous people of this family. I
don't think anything before I end up seen in my life.
The fight meant the recognition of Atlanta as the capital
(00:48):
of the civil rights movement, not only in the shelf,
but in the nation nation. From my heart radio and
doghouse pictures, this is fight night. I'm Jeff Keith. Hours
before the first round bell rang, the robbers were buying ropes,
(01:09):
walkie talkies, duffel bags and weapons at different pawn shops
around Atlanta. The Stash House, an apartment that one of
the thieves had rented, was only a few miles away
from the house on Handy Drive, where the after our
parties had gone on for the past two nights. I
imagine they spent the afternoon checking their guns and going
(01:31):
over the plan as they prepared to rob the partygoers
after the fight. But I don't think they had any
idea of the level of gangsters they were about to face. Meanwhile,
Chicken Man checked his wife into a hotel, and then
he met Barbara Smith, his down woman or mistress, at
the house on Handy Drive. She was cooking food for
(01:54):
the party with a woman named Ola May, another of
Chicken Man's girlfriends. You may remember Ola May from episode two.
She and her daughters ran a shoplifting hustle. In fact,
she had stolen a tuxedo for Chicken Man's son to
where it was prom Apparently Barbara and Ola May were
not happy with sharing Chicken Man. So it's Chicken Man
(02:17):
is getting ready for the biggest party of his life.
He's dealing with girl problems. I wouldn't got my wife
and went checked in the hotel. I knew this thing
was seriously. I had no idea that it was gonna
get it serious, and it had gotten but something that
me know that this was a serious offense. Boba Smith,
(02:38):
my woman, lived in the house, living over already scenes
they were cooking some green. They find the fish and chicken,
and they're going in anything we had bought so much,
being champagne. They bought all up. Barbara a friend, and
they was fussing by it. So this kind of made
me a little nervous. Two. But I'm saying to them,
I got the tickets. Meanwhile, J D. Hudson was intensely
(03:01):
focused on keeping Muhammad Ali alive. Since he was in
charge of his security detail, which included escorting Ali into
the ring. He was dealing with the enormous pressure of
protecting such a controversial figure. I had the responsibility of
God and cascious clay, because that's been about five thousand
(03:23):
threats against slight and I cared rapt roadwork in the
morning three and four o'clock in the morning changed place
every day. I let no I know that me what
I was doing, and so I had been with him
all day. While j D managed ali security detail. Media
members from all over the country in the world gathered
(03:44):
in the lobbies of their hotels, testing catchphrases and discussing
different angles of the story. I was able to speak
to legendary boxing analyst Larry Merchant. He worked for the
New York Post at the time and was in Atlanta
covering the Ollie Quarry fight. There were a lot of
questions hanging in the air about how much Russ there
(04:10):
was on him, but he was still in his prime years,
so everything was connected to the comeback, and he to
understand that he was still a controversial figure in that
he was a cultural slash political figure, not just a fighter.
He was in a different dimension in terms of how
(04:32):
he communicated with the media. And you know, I've described
it as I was just one of the many dogs
following his parade, and he was an extraordinary performer and showman,
even before he had expressed himself politically. He was a
(04:56):
controversial figure in boxing because he was behaving in a
way that athletes were not supposed to behave then having fun,
being outrageous, and he was entertaining, and he used the
power of television. And of course there were the spectators
(05:16):
who attended this historic event. Let me introduce you to
Mike Florence. He and a few friends drove from Athens,
Georgia on a whim to see the fight, which was
being held at Atlanta's Municipal Auditorium. It was a peaceful
day sitting in the law library. I had not given
the fight much thought. I usually said in the same
(05:39):
place in the library. But some buddies of mine who
knew where I sat, came up and said, let's go
to the fight tonight. So it certainly wasn't a plan
that was random and spontaneous. So the four or five
of us got into the car and drove over to
Atlanta in time to the site. Bunny Jackson Ransom and
her husband, Armer Atlanta mayor Maynard Jackson, were there too.
(06:03):
They were about to have a child, and she was
dealing with fashion dilemness while getting ready for the event.
I was excited, and I was pregnant, and I remember
being told that people were going to get all dressed
up and so forth, and here I am pregnant. I
have to wear a maternity outfit because I'm very pregnant.
And to set the outfit off, I found this huge
(06:27):
white box hat and it looks like a cloud of
Everyone had spent the day preparing for the fight, and
now they were outside the Municipal Auditorium working their way
in to take their seats. This is Henrietta Antonine. She
worked for Jesse Hill, who helped Gilroy Johnson get the
(06:49):
fight to Atlanta. She gets the opportunity to make a
little extra cash thanks to the generosity of her boss. Well,
Jessie gave me to have tickets. And that fight was
in October, and we were working on the fight in
June and July, you know, in August. So I took
the tickets and put it on the mirror on my
dresser back in August sometimes and when the fight came
(07:12):
in October, all the whole city, the whole town, the
whole country was focused on Atlanta. I never forget. My
husband was working in the University of Berkeley and came
home for the fight and brought some friends. And he
had asked me to buy some tickets for six people.
And I went and bought the tickets and paid for
him and paid the tickets on when he came here,
(07:33):
I had forgotten all about I had twelve tickets on
in my mirror and my dress and that would have
been twelve hundred dollars I could have had. On the
way to the fight, we were in the car and
he said, the scavengers are everywhere. They're selling these sicks
for five hundred dollars and four thousand dollars. So it
hit me, Oh my god, I got twelve tickets. I
(07:54):
told my husband and I got to go home. So
I got to go home. I got to go home.
So we turned and home and I looked under my
dress and the tickets. So I got the tickets and
put in my pocketbook and went to guy. Back in
the car. We went to the fight. It was like
the academy. White had a big spotlight running all over
every well. I saw a little bit till I saw
(08:14):
all these famous people that were just fabulous, and I
was scared as hell. But I saw him and he
was asking about the tickets, and I saw my tickets.
He gave me a thou was off each one of
little tickets, and then I got scared that he was
a detective of something. But he gave me the money
very fast and stacks other Here's Mike Florence again describing
(08:36):
the scene. He taken a chance driving to the fight
on a whim. We didn't have tickets. We bought him
on the curb, bought him at the window, which was
amazing to me. That's such a publicized man. But it
didn't seem that difficult. And then of course you have
the hustlers. Here's J. D. Hudson, Alan and Burbon and
(09:01):
seen in and they put on a show. They're gonna
make coat the head name. I mean, it's a bay,
it's a same de Tha. Here's Chicken Man looking back
on that incredible night. I don't thinking like that before
I d seeing in my lifetime. Right there not sen
(09:29):
Barbara Smith was supposed to meet Chicken Man at the fight,
but she hadn't shown up, and apparently Chicken Man had
been drinking and smoking. At this point, He's so high
and excited by the crowd that he doesn't give it
another thought. In the arena, there was one other empty
seat beside Barbara's. We believe it belonged to the mastermind
(09:51):
of the heist. Meanwhile, just miles away, two Cadillacs filled
with masked gunmen armed with saw off shotguns are turning
into the neighborhood where the after party is being hosted.
Barbara and everyone at the house on Handy Drive have
no idea what's about to go down. Jerry Quarry is
(10:29):
the number one ranked challenger, so Clay is certainly not
in there against an easy opponent. If the Bellflower belter connects.
He can take any man out with one punch. Here's
Larry Merchant with his thoughts on Jerry Quarry. Quarry was
a really good heavyweight who had some pressive wins. George
(10:51):
Foreman Win said he was the best fighter of that
era and not to win a championship, so he was
b plus heavyweight and he was called the great White Hope.
Guys just play. On the other hand, is one of
the great heavyweights of all time. He is and has
been a great champion, and everybody here tonight has since
(11:12):
the excitement that he has brought back to this crowd
and to this ring, and of course to fight itself
wherever it's being seen around the world. The heavyweight had
never seen a fighter who is both big and fast
and brave. I mean his skill set, much of it
(11:33):
was improvisational, his speed with a difficulty for big plotting heavyweights.
But it also in a way offended the old school
fight establishment, and there were a lot of people who
resented the fact that this brash kid had come along
(11:58):
and captured the world. You can feel attention and the excitement.
It's in the air. Here's Henrietta describing the scene with
her husband and friends sitting a few rows from the ring.
All of us set together at the fight, and we
were right on the front row and maybe the second row,
and the crowd people were coming, and the fashions and
(12:21):
the excitement was just in the room. You were just
excited to be there. And this is Mike Florence with
his view from the cheap seats. They were standing room only.
We did not have seats, but we could see over
everybody's head. As soon as we got close to fight time,
anxiety built and the interest built, and everybody flooded into
(12:42):
the arena. It was the first live fight that I've
ever been to. In the crowd, the closeness it was,
it was shoulder to shoulder that was overpacked. You couldn't
have moved. It was just overcrowded, uncomfortably overcrowd Jerry Quarry,
(13:05):
the number one rank challenger, who is of course tonight
going to be fighting now on the far side, coming
in for us, the crowd yelling, screaming, Fixed Booze again
stepping in as a heavyweight Muhammad Ali. Here's J. D.
Hudson looking back on the time when he escorted Ali
(13:28):
into the ring. I care him to the fight and
led him into the rings. Matter of fact, I got
beat up, and see whose head is on too? Round me?
And I was walking in front of him. Guts me
with structing, with going only hid and pulling them. We're
just about ready for our official ceremonies. And here is
(13:48):
the famed ring announcer from New York, Johnny Addi, Ladies
and gentlemen, or dousing Jerry Warri Chick all ready to
(14:11):
go back at Handy Drive, the robbers were in position.
One Cadillac was parked on a street called Old No Drive,
which led to the backyard of Chicken Man's house on
hand He Drive. The other Cadillac was parked on Handy Drive,
(14:35):
just a few blocks down the street, so they could
spot any cars turning into the party. They tested their
walkie talkies, They checked their guns, and they waited. There
(15:03):
was a slight redness just over the bridge of Jerry
Quarry's nose. That left jab is finding its mark. Well,
there's a round two end round one. Muhammad Ali is
still plenty fast and his left jab is still a
dynamite punch. Both fighters are up. Approximately two to three
(15:33):
robbers exited from each of the cadillacs and made their
way towards Chicken Man's house. One group, all wearing masks,
moved through the darkness of the backyard and stationed themselves
near the basement door. The other group, unmasked, headed up
the walkway towards the front of the house. They heard
(15:56):
music and partying going on inside, and they saw through
the curtains figures of men and women dancing. That's the
end of round two. It looks as though Mohammed is
(16:18):
having quite a comeback, and he appears to be an
excellent shape. As the robbers waited in position, Barbara Smith
and her girlfriends prepared for the guests to arrive in droves.
They knew, based on the parties the last couple of nights,
that everyone would be drunk, high and ready to gamble
(16:40):
as soon as they walked through the door, especially if
Ali was victorious. Way is using that left jass just
like a piston. They cut the pores left. I got
(17:00):
a beating, bleeding profously once again, I can right combination.
My play was fighting back with the I's got over.
There's a battle en Ralph Reed, Rafree, Tony Bress. He
(17:25):
is calling or the doctor worry is upset about him rafree.
Tony Perez as said the fight is over, apparently because
of the night time. I didn't hear any dispute over
the call, largely because Ali was clearly winning. If it
(17:48):
had been a close fight or one sided fight against Allie,
maybe there would have been a question. But there was
no question that there was a real cut on Quarry
and that it was caused by punch or punches. He
broke Quarry down, but I remember being impressed by the
(18:09):
way he handled Quarry. It was not a preordained outcome.
Put it that way. Here's David Davis describing Quarry's reaction
to the referee's decision. Immediately after referee Tony Perez stopped
the fight, Quary was near hysteria and in tears. He
(18:32):
was so upset. But his cornerman and everybody said he
can't continue. This cut is too treacherous. He could actually
lose his eye if he continued and got damaged some more.
It was disappointing in the sense of there wasn't that
climactic knockout or that vicious exchange where one guy goes
(18:54):
down or is obviously in big trouble, and the referee
stops the fight, so it was Anti mac dick, but
that soon turned to Jubilasian because obviously Ali had been
declared the winner and there was a lot of relief
that he had come back and against some major odds
and the major obstacles, he had prevailed. Muhammad Ali's victory
(19:18):
in Atlanta began a love affair with the city which
would continue into the nineteen eighties, when Ali returned to
the tragic Atlanta child murders and donated money to the
reward fund in the case. Then culminated in with the
iconic moment of Ali lighting the torch for the Olympics
in Centennial Park. Here's Dr Hobson. The relationship between Mohammed
(19:44):
Ali and Atlanta, Georgia is one that deserves considerable research
and attention. Ali understood that Atlanta given him the opportunity
to come back and fight, set a stage for him
to do what he loved to do, most be a
champion of humanity. Atlanta understanding the bron the brain, the
brilliance of Ali as not only a heavyweight fighter, but
(20:06):
as a champion for civil and human rights, attached itself
and both the city and Ali immerge themselves and presented
the kind of image of what it meant to be
rising into the black New South. Here's David Davis expressing
what this fight meant to Ali and the city of Atlanta.
(20:30):
Even pretty sophisticated fight fans don't remember this fight. They think,
when Ali came back, he fought Joe Fraser and Madison
Square Garden and lost. But that's not true. Ali needed
to prove himself in the ring and he needed that
not just athletically and not just as a boxer, you know,
(20:54):
to get your ring legs back, so to speak. But
he also had to do that to prove to the media,
to the boxing commissions that you know, life goes on,
and his unpopular stance there against Vietnam that was soon
becoming actually the popular stance. And so this fight was vitally,
(21:17):
vitally important to Ali. If this fight doesn't happen, you
might not have seen that Ali Frasier fight in Madison
Square Garden. In I think the other thing that's important
about the fight, it was really a big deal for Atlanta.
The fight meant the recognition of Atlanta as the capital
(21:37):
of the civil rights movement, not only in the South,
but in the nation, and it showed the emergence of
African American political power and influence in Atlanta and in Georgia,
and it really maybe changed some perceptions of people outside
of Georgia and the South about what the direction of
(22:00):
the state and the South was moving it coming into
the nineteen seventies, it really was a feather in the
cap of Atlanta. The decision made by the referee to
call the fight was not controversial, but the outcome had
huge implications for the former champion of the world. This
(22:21):
triumph justified everything that had been at stake and united
the fans as they celebrated all around the country. And
while Muhammad Ali was announced victorious, the unmasked group of
robbers knocked on the front door of Chicken Man's house.
William Knox answered the door. He recognized the faces from
(22:44):
the past few nights of celebrations and greeted them warmly,
but they were not here to party this time. They
quickly overpowered Knox and announced it was a robbery. And
remember those two empty seats at the arena I told
you about. We know one of them belonged to Barbara Smith.
(23:04):
She was inside getting dressed in her bedroom the other
empty seat we believe belonged to Richard Wheeler, the mastermind
of the heist. He had boarded a flight earlier that
day and was sitting with his entourage at Madison Square
Garden watching the Ali fight on closed circuit TV. The
(23:25):
Perfect Alibi. Fight to Night is a joint production from
My Heart Radio, Will Packer Media and Doghouse Pictures in
association with Psychopia Pictures. Produced and hosted by Jeff Keating.
Executive producers are Will Packer, James Lopez, Kenny Burns, Dan Bush,
(23:49):
Lars Jacobson, and Noel Brown. Supervising producer is Taylor Shakoyne.
Story editors are Noel Brown and Dan Bush. Written by
Jeff Keating and Jim Roberts, at at it by Matt Owen.
Mixing and sound designed by Jeremiah Kulanni Prescott. Music written
and performed by the Diamond Street Players. Additional music by
Ben Lovett. Audio archives courtesy of WSB News Film and
(24:13):
Video Tape Collection, Brown Media Archives, University of Georgia Libraries.
Special thanks to Dr Maurice Hobson and David Davis. Fight
Night is a production of I Heart Radio. For more
podcasts from my heart Radio check out the i heart
Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Good anything waters in, gentlemen, I'm Tom Harmon ringside here
from Atlanta, Georgia, where tonight there are five thousand fans
anticipating a great fight and primarily to see the return
of a great heavyweight champion, Muhammad Ali Or as of
course most all of you know him. Cash is playing
profile and in half a sec they then put on
(00:26):
a show. You will sign that Kennema White had a
big spotlight running when I saw it, Lizath, you know,
I saw all these famous people of this family. I
don't think anything before I end up seen in my life.
The fight meant the recognition of Atlanta as the capital
(00:48):
of the civil rights movement, not only in the shelf,
but in the nation nation. From my heart radio and
doghouse pictures, this is fight night. I'm Jeff Keith. Hours
before the first round bell rang, the robbers were buying ropes,
(01:09):
walkie talkies, duffel bags and weapons at different pawn shops
around Atlanta. The Stash House, an apartment that one of
the thieves had rented, was only a few miles away
from the house on Handy Drive, where the after our
parties had gone on for the past two nights. I
imagine they spent the afternoon checking their guns and going
(01:31):
over the plan as they prepared to rob the partygoers
after the fight. But I don't think they had any
idea of the level of gangsters they were about to face. Meanwhile,
Chicken Man checked his wife into a hotel, and then
he met Barbara Smith, his down woman or mistress, at
the house on Handy Drive. She was cooking food for
(01:54):
the party with a woman named Ola May, another of
Chicken Man's girlfriends. You may remember Ola May from episode two.
She and her daughters ran a shoplifting hustle. In fact,
she had stolen a tuxedo for Chicken Man's son to
where it was prom Apparently Barbara and Ola May were
not happy with sharing Chicken Man. So it's Chicken Man
(02:17):
is getting ready for the biggest party of his life.
He's dealing with girl problems. I wouldn't got my wife
and went checked in the hotel. I knew this thing
was seriously. I had no idea that it was gonna
get it serious, and it had gotten but something that
me know that this was a serious offense. Boba Smith,
(02:38):
my woman, lived in the house, living over already scenes
they were cooking some green. They find the fish and chicken,
and they're going in anything we had bought so much,
being champagne. They bought all up. Barbara a friend, and
they was fussing by it. So this kind of made
me a little nervous. Two. But I'm saying to them,
I got the tickets. Meanwhile, J D. Hudson was intensely
(03:01):
focused on keeping Muhammad Ali alive. Since he was in
charge of his security detail, which included escorting Ali into
the ring. He was dealing with the enormous pressure of
protecting such a controversial figure. I had the responsibility of
God and cascious clay, because that's been about five thousand
(03:23):
threats against slight and I cared rapt roadwork in the
morning three and four o'clock in the morning changed place
every day. I let no I know that me what
I was doing, and so I had been with him
all day. While j D managed ali security detail. Media
members from all over the country in the world gathered
(03:44):
in the lobbies of their hotels, testing catchphrases and discussing
different angles of the story. I was able to speak
to legendary boxing analyst Larry Merchant. He worked for the
New York Post at the time and was in Atlanta
covering the Ollie Quarry fight. There were a lot of
questions hanging in the air about how much Russ there
(04:10):
was on him, but he was still in his prime years,
so everything was connected to the comeback, and he to
understand that he was still a controversial figure in that
he was a cultural slash political figure, not just a fighter.
He was in a different dimension in terms of how
(04:32):
he communicated with the media. And you know, I've described
it as I was just one of the many dogs
following his parade, and he was an extraordinary performer and showman,
even before he had expressed himself politically. He was a
(04:56):
controversial figure in boxing because he was behaving in a
way that athletes were not supposed to behave then having fun,
being outrageous, and he was entertaining, and he used the
power of television. And of course there were the spectators
(05:16):
who attended this historic event. Let me introduce you to
Mike Florence. He and a few friends drove from Athens,
Georgia on a whim to see the fight, which was
being held at Atlanta's Municipal Auditorium. It was a peaceful
day sitting in the law library. I had not given
the fight much thought. I usually said in the same
(05:39):
place in the library. But some buddies of mine who
knew where I sat, came up and said, let's go
to the fight tonight. So it certainly wasn't a plan
that was random and spontaneous. So the four or five
of us got into the car and drove over to
Atlanta in time to the site. Bunny Jackson Ransom and
her husband, Armer Atlanta mayor Maynard Jackson, were there too.
(06:03):
They were about to have a child, and she was
dealing with fashion dilemness while getting ready for the event.
I was excited, and I was pregnant, and I remember
being told that people were going to get all dressed
up and so forth, and here I am pregnant. I
have to wear a maternity outfit because I'm very pregnant.
And to set the outfit off, I found this huge
(06:27):
white box hat and it looks like a cloud of
Everyone had spent the day preparing for the fight, and
now they were outside the Municipal Auditorium working their way
in to take their seats. This is Henrietta Antonine. She
worked for Jesse Hill, who helped Gilroy Johnson get the
(06:49):
fight to Atlanta. She gets the opportunity to make a
little extra cash thanks to the generosity of her boss. Well,
Jessie gave me to have tickets. And that fight was
in October, and we were working on the fight in
June and July, you know, in August. So I took
the tickets and put it on the mirror on my
dresser back in August sometimes and when the fight came
(07:12):
in October, all the whole city, the whole town, the
whole country was focused on Atlanta. I never forget. My
husband was working in the University of Berkeley and came
home for the fight and brought some friends. And he
had asked me to buy some tickets for six people.
And I went and bought the tickets and paid for
him and paid the tickets on when he came here,
(07:33):
I had forgotten all about I had twelve tickets on
in my mirror and my dress and that would have
been twelve hundred dollars I could have had. On the
way to the fight, we were in the car and
he said, the scavengers are everywhere. They're selling these sicks
for five hundred dollars and four thousand dollars. So it
hit me, Oh my god, I got twelve tickets. I
(07:54):
told my husband and I got to go home. So
I got to go home. I got to go home.
So we turned and home and I looked under my
dress and the tickets. So I got the tickets and
put in my pocketbook and went to guy. Back in
the car. We went to the fight. It was like
the academy. White had a big spotlight running all over
every well. I saw a little bit till I saw
(08:14):
all these famous people that were just fabulous, and I
was scared as hell. But I saw him and he
was asking about the tickets, and I saw my tickets.
He gave me a thou was off each one of
little tickets, and then I got scared that he was
a detective of something. But he gave me the money
very fast and stacks other Here's Mike Florence again describing
(08:36):
the scene. He taken a chance driving to the fight
on a whim. We didn't have tickets. We bought him
on the curb, bought him at the window, which was
amazing to me. That's such a publicized man. But it
didn't seem that difficult. And then of course you have
the hustlers. Here's J. D. Hudson, Alan and Burbon and
(09:01):
seen in and they put on a show. They're gonna
make coat the head name. I mean, it's a bay,
it's a same de Tha. Here's Chicken Man looking back
on that incredible night. I don't thinking like that before
I d seeing in my lifetime. Right there not sen
(09:29):
Barbara Smith was supposed to meet Chicken Man at the fight,
but she hadn't shown up, and apparently Chicken Man had
been drinking and smoking. At this point, He's so high
and excited by the crowd that he doesn't give it
another thought. In the arena, there was one other empty
seat beside Barbara's. We believe it belonged to the mastermind
(09:51):
of the heist. Meanwhile, just miles away, two Cadillacs filled
with masked gunmen armed with saw off shotguns are turning
into the neighborhood where the after party is being hosted.
Barbara and everyone at the house on Handy Drive have
no idea what's about to go down. Jerry Quarry is
(10:29):
the number one ranked challenger, so Clay is certainly not
in there against an easy opponent. If the Bellflower belter connects.
He can take any man out with one punch. Here's
Larry Merchant with his thoughts on Jerry Quarry. Quarry was
a really good heavyweight who had some pressive wins. George
(10:51):
Foreman Win said he was the best fighter of that
era and not to win a championship, so he was
b plus heavyweight and he was called the great White Hope.
Guys just play. On the other hand, is one of
the great heavyweights of all time. He is and has
been a great champion, and everybody here tonight has since
(11:12):
the excitement that he has brought back to this crowd
and to this ring, and of course to fight itself
wherever it's being seen around the world. The heavyweight had
never seen a fighter who is both big and fast
and brave. I mean his skill set, much of it
(11:33):
was improvisational, his speed with a difficulty for big plotting heavyweights.
But it also in a way offended the old school
fight establishment, and there were a lot of people who
resented the fact that this brash kid had come along
(11:58):
and captured the world. You can feel attention and the excitement.
It's in the air. Here's Henrietta describing the scene with
her husband and friends sitting a few rows from the ring.
All of us set together at the fight, and we
were right on the front row and maybe the second row,
and the crowd people were coming, and the fashions and
(12:21):
the excitement was just in the room. You were just
excited to be there. And this is Mike Florence with
his view from the cheap seats. They were standing room only.
We did not have seats, but we could see over
everybody's head. As soon as we got close to fight time,
anxiety built and the interest built, and everybody flooded into
(12:42):
the arena. It was the first live fight that I've
ever been to. In the crowd, the closeness it was,
it was shoulder to shoulder that was overpacked. You couldn't
have moved. It was just overcrowded, uncomfortably overcrowd Jerry Quarry,
(13:05):
the number one rank challenger, who is of course tonight
going to be fighting now on the far side, coming
in for us, the crowd yelling, screaming, Fixed Booze again
stepping in as a heavyweight Muhammad Ali. Here's J. D.
Hudson looking back on the time when he escorted Ali
(13:28):
into the ring. I care him to the fight and
led him into the rings. Matter of fact, I got
beat up, and see whose head is on too? Round me?
And I was walking in front of him. Guts me
with structing, with going only hid and pulling them. We're
just about ready for our official ceremonies. And here is
(13:48):
the famed ring announcer from New York, Johnny Addi, Ladies
and gentlemen, or dousing Jerry Warri Chick all ready to
(14:11):
go back at Handy Drive, the robbers were in position.
One Cadillac was parked on a street called Old No Drive,
which led to the backyard of Chicken Man's house on
hand He Drive. The other Cadillac was parked on Handy Drive,
(14:35):
just a few blocks down the street, so they could
spot any cars turning into the party. They tested their
walkie talkies, They checked their guns, and they waited. There
(15:03):
was a slight redness just over the bridge of Jerry
Quarry's nose. That left jab is finding its mark. Well,
there's a round two end round one. Muhammad Ali is
still plenty fast and his left jab is still a
dynamite punch. Both fighters are up. Approximately two to three
(15:33):
robbers exited from each of the cadillacs and made their
way towards Chicken Man's house. One group, all wearing masks,
moved through the darkness of the backyard and stationed themselves
near the basement door. The other group, unmasked, headed up
the walkway towards the front of the house. They heard
(15:56):
music and partying going on inside, and they saw through
the curtains figures of men and women dancing. That's the
end of round two. It looks as though Mohammed is
(16:18):
having quite a comeback, and he appears to be an
excellent shape. As the robbers waited in position, Barbara Smith
and her girlfriends prepared for the guests to arrive in droves.
They knew, based on the parties the last couple of nights,
that everyone would be drunk, high and ready to gamble
(16:40):
as soon as they walked through the door, especially if
Ali was victorious. Way is using that left jass just
like a piston. They cut the pores left. I got
(17:00):
a beating, bleeding profously once again, I can right combination.
My play was fighting back with the I's got over.
There's a battle en Ralph Reed, Rafree, Tony Bress. He
(17:25):
is calling or the doctor worry is upset about him rafree.
Tony Perez as said the fight is over, apparently because
of the night time. I didn't hear any dispute over
the call, largely because Ali was clearly winning. If it
(17:48):
had been a close fight or one sided fight against Allie,
maybe there would have been a question. But there was
no question that there was a real cut on Quarry
and that it was caused by punch or punches. He
broke Quarry down, but I remember being impressed by the
(18:09):
way he handled Quarry. It was not a preordained outcome.
Put it that way. Here's David Davis describing Quarry's reaction
to the referee's decision. Immediately after referee Tony Perez stopped
the fight, Quary was near hysteria and in tears. He
(18:32):
was so upset. But his cornerman and everybody said he
can't continue. This cut is too treacherous. He could actually
lose his eye if he continued and got damaged some more.
It was disappointing in the sense of there wasn't that
climactic knockout or that vicious exchange where one guy goes
(18:54):
down or is obviously in big trouble, and the referee
stops the fight, so it was Anti mac dick, but
that soon turned to Jubilasian because obviously Ali had been
declared the winner and there was a lot of relief
that he had come back and against some major odds
and the major obstacles, he had prevailed. Muhammad Ali's victory
(19:18):
in Atlanta began a love affair with the city which
would continue into the nineteen eighties, when Ali returned to
the tragic Atlanta child murders and donated money to the
reward fund in the case. Then culminated in with the
iconic moment of Ali lighting the torch for the Olympics
in Centennial Park. Here's Dr Hobson. The relationship between Mohammed
(19:44):
Ali and Atlanta, Georgia is one that deserves considerable research
and attention. Ali understood that Atlanta given him the opportunity
to come back and fight, set a stage for him
to do what he loved to do, most be a
champion of humanity. Atlanta understanding the bron the brain, the
brilliance of Ali as not only a heavyweight fighter, but
(20:06):
as a champion for civil and human rights, attached itself
and both the city and Ali immerge themselves and presented
the kind of image of what it meant to be
rising into the black New South. Here's David Davis expressing
what this fight meant to Ali and the city of Atlanta.
(20:30):
Even pretty sophisticated fight fans don't remember this fight. They think,
when Ali came back, he fought Joe Fraser and Madison
Square Garden and lost. But that's not true. Ali needed
to prove himself in the ring and he needed that
not just athletically and not just as a boxer, you know,
(20:54):
to get your ring legs back, so to speak. But
he also had to do that to prove to the media,
to the boxing commissions that you know, life goes on,
and his unpopular stance there against Vietnam that was soon
becoming actually the popular stance. And so this fight was vitally,
(21:17):
vitally important to Ali. If this fight doesn't happen, you
might not have seen that Ali Frasier fight in Madison
Square Garden. In I think the other thing that's important
about the fight, it was really a big deal for Atlanta.
The fight meant the recognition of Atlanta as the capital
(21:37):
of the civil rights movement, not only in the South,
but in the nation, and it showed the emergence of
African American political power and influence in Atlanta and in Georgia,
and it really maybe changed some perceptions of people outside
of Georgia and the South about what the direction of
(22:00):
the state and the South was moving it coming into
the nineteen seventies, it really was a feather in the
cap of Atlanta. The decision made by the referee to
call the fight was not controversial, but the outcome had
huge implications for the former champion of the world. This
(22:21):
triumph justified everything that had been at stake and united
the fans as they celebrated all around the country. And
while Muhammad Ali was announced victorious, the unmasked group of
robbers knocked on the front door of Chicken Man's house.
William Knox answered the door. He recognized the faces from
(22:44):
the past few nights of celebrations and greeted them warmly,
but they were not here to party this time. They
quickly overpowered Knox and announced it was a robbery. And
remember those two empty seats at the arena I told
you about. We know one of them belonged to Barbara Smith.
(23:04):
She was inside getting dressed in her bedroom the other
empty seat we believe belonged to Richard Wheeler, the mastermind
of the heist. He had boarded a flight earlier that
day and was sitting with his entourage at Madison Square
Garden watching the Ali fight on closed circuit TV. The
(23:25):
Perfect Alibi. Fight to Night is a joint production from
My Heart Radio, Will Packer Media and Doghouse Pictures in
association with Psychopia Pictures. Produced and hosted by Jeff Keating.
Executive producers are Will Packer, James Lopez, Kenny Burns, Dan Bush,
(23:49):
Lars Jacobson, and Noel Brown. Supervising producer is Taylor Shakoyne.
Story editors are Noel Brown and Dan Bush. Written by
Jeff Keating and Jim Roberts, at at it by Matt Owen.
Mixing and sound designed by Jeremiah Kulanni Prescott. Music written
and performed by the Diamond Street Players. Additional music by
Ben Lovett. Audio archives courtesy of WSB News Film and
(24:13):
Video Tape Collection, Brown Media Archives, University of Georgia Libraries.
Special thanks to Dr Maurice Hobson and David Davis. Fight
Night is a production of I Heart Radio. For more
podcasts from my heart Radio check out the i heart
Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Host
Jeff Keating
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