EARLY BRAIN TRAUMA
MUHAMMAD ALI WAS showing signs of brain damage when he was just 29, says author Jonathan Eig.
While researching “Ali: A Life,” his meticulous and massive Ali bio, Eig discovered that one of the boxer’s corner men — a doctor — noticed signs of brain damage in 1971, the year he first fought Joe Frazier for the heavyweight title. But it would be another decade before Ali (photo inset) would bow out of the ring.
Eig told Confidential that he consulted with speech scientists to analyze Ali’s speaking abilities.
“We started in the late ’60s and tracked them into the early ’80s and it’s true that Ali was losing his speaking ability even by 1971,” the author explained. “His speech was declining in speed and clarity. Over that 10-year span, he lost approximately 26% of his speaking rate, which is terrible and shouldn’t have declined at all.”
The boxing legend died in 2016 at 74. He had been diagnosed with Parkinson’s syndrome in 1984.
Eig says he was surprised by how poorly Ali, who married four times, treated women.
“He had endless affairs,” Eig says. He spoke to over 200 people for the book, including Ali’s second wife, Belinda Boyd, who said that she would sometimes book extra hotel rooms for other women because she knew it was part of the drill. Ali would tell her that he would sleep with Belinda the first two nights, a girlfriend the following two and someone he’d decide upon later.
The author said that what touched him about Ali was how humble he truly was despite the famous trash-talking and endless braggadocio.
Eig estimates that Ali lost tens of millions of dollars due to shady managers and hangers-on. “He got ripped off by several of his managers and people in his entourage,” says Eig. “One of his dearest friends stole Ali’s championship belt and pawned it for $500. He got ripped off by almost everybody and he never seemed to care. It was all like water off a duck’s back.”
Eig, who is also working on an Ali documentary with Ken Burns, says the boxer’s life “was a big mess, in wonderful ways as well as horrible ways.”
“Ali: A Life” comes out Tuesday.