LOVERRO: Ali gave the world his best, but Washington got something a little less

OPINION:

The champion stood there at the Sheraton-Lanham Hotel with California Gov. Jerry Brown on a campaign stop for the presidential candidate.

A few hours later, Muhammad Ali would step into the ring at the Capital Centre to defend his heavyweight title.

“He stopped in to wish me luck.” Ali told reporters. “A friend of mine told me he was here in Maryland. I wanted to meet him because he’s a young guy like me and pretty.”

Turned out Ali needed all the luck he could get — and some sympathetic judges — when he faced unheralded Philadelphia heavyweight challenger Jimmy Young 50 years ago on April 30, 1976, in his first ring appearance in the D.C. area.

It was memorable only because it was a fight that many observers believed Ali lost, despite winning a unanimous decision.

Ali did all but concede that Young, a light-punching but crafty technician, won the fight.

“My title was in jeopardy,” the 34-year-old Ali said. “The only reason I thought I’d win was that I was attacking him.”

Most boxing writers ringside had Young, 27, winning the bout, judge Terry Moore had scored the fight 72-65, while judge Larry Barrett had it 70-68 and refereed Tom Kelly also had it 72-65.

The crowd of 12,472 at the arena had a different opinion and let everyone know with loud boos when the decision was announced — remarkable considering Ali’s popularity at this stage of his career. There were also reports that the offices at ABC, which broadcast the bout, received many calls protesting the result.

There has always been an unwritten code in boxing that you have to take the title from the champion with a definitive performance. Young’s defensive counter-punching style didn’t lend itself to such a performance, and those who believed he won acknowledged it was a close decision.

But Ali may have offered another motive for the generous scoring in his favor.

“I don’t know how many rounds I won,” Ali said. “I got to look at the fight to know that. But winning that fight was worth $20 million to me. I couldn’t go to Germany and Japan, then fight Norton if I’d lost last night.”

Ali was referring to future commitments against European heavyweight champion Richard Dunn, a match against Japanese wrestler Antonio Inoki and a third bout against Ken Norton — all of which added up to a big payday for the champion.

All would have been in jeopardy if Ali lost.

Ali earned $1.6 million for his fight against Young, who made just $75,000. Young would go on to score an upset win over George Foreman 11 months later that would send Foreman into his first retirement. Young died of a heart attack in 2005.

The year 1976 was a strange one for Ali — and possibly one that significantly contributed to the young-onset Parkinson’s disease from repetitive head trauma that debilitated Ali in his later years before he passed away at the age of 74 in June 2016.

He started the year with a walk over, facing a Belgium fighter named Jean-Pierre Coopman on Feb. 20 in Puerto Rico. Ali stopped him in five rounds and actually helped him to his corner when he knocked him out. A little more than two months later came the Young bout – which Ali came in weighing 230 pounds, the highest of his career. He thought Young would be another easy night.

“I thought I won, but would like to say that I underestimated Jimmy Young, that I didn’t know Jimmy Young was so awkward, that he was as hard to hit, that he was as fast,” Ali said. “I didn’t worry about him. I took him lightly.”

Campaigning with a presidential candidate the day of the fight? I would say so.

Less than a month later, Ali went to Munich, Germany, to face Dunn. This one was an easier fight, and he stopped Dunn in five rounds.

A month later, Ali went to Japan on June 26 for the hyped boxer-wrestler match against Inoki. It turned out to be a farce, one of the lowest points of Ali’s career, but he earned $6 million for the closed-circuit television event.

Inoki stayed on the mat in a crablike position and kicked Ali’s legs for 15 rounds. Ali managed to land just two punches. The show was declared a draw and fans in attendance threw garbage in the ring. Ali would suffer leg infections and blood clots from the kicks to his shins.

Three months later, Ali stepped into the ring to face an opponent that was no tomato can — Norton, who had broken Ali’s jaw in their first match, which Norton won. Ali won a split decision in the rematch.

That was the end of Ali’s busy, bizarre bicentennial year.

After his historic brutal fight against Joe Frazier on Oct. 1, 1975 — the “Thrilla in Manila” — and the damage he suffered in that war, even in victory, the last thing Ali needed was a year of activity in the ring like 1976 and the sparring preparation that came with it.

After the Norton bout, Ali wouldn’t fight again until returning to the Capital Center on May 16, 1977, against Alfredo Evangelista, winning a lackluster 15-round decision.

Just 10 miles away from the arena, Ali would win one of his greatest fights in 1971 when he won his appeal before the Supreme Court of his conviction for refusing to report for induction into the armed services in 1967. But in the ring, the great heavyweight champion left behind a forgettable legacy in the D.C. area.

• Catch Thom Loverro on “The Kevin Sheehan Show” podcast.