There was a haunting 10-count salute, the traditional memorial for a boxer who has died, delivered Saturday night at the Edelweiss Club in James Bay.
Many of the Island’s former greats from the fight game, gathered for the 25th anniversary reunion of Peterec’s Gym, spoke of how Muhammad Ali influenced their lives.
Neither Babe Ruth, Pele, Wayne Gretzky nor Michael Jordan transcended sport in the way Ali did. Numerous Island athletes were on the floor of the stadium when Ali lit the torch to open the Centennial Olympic Games at Atlanta in 1996. The moment is seared in the memory.
Boxer Jason Heit, who came within one victory at the national trials of being there, said the imprint Ali left on the sport and the culture is incalculable.
“Ali had a huge impact on me, and not just as a boxer,” said Heit, a former amateur champion and pro boxer who now coaches boxing and mixed martial arts in Victoria.
“He had a bigger impact because of his beliefs outside the ring,” added Heit, who trained alongside Ali’s daughter, Laila Ali, in Los Angeles.
“He stood for justice and what he believed in, including civil rights. He lost the best years of his career because he was willing to stand up for his beliefs. He had an incredible amount of strength and will. He was everything a fighter should be. Outside the ring, he parlayed that into something even more powerful.”
Peterec, perhaps the Island’s most renowned boxing, kickboxing and MMA mentor, said Ali was “an icon on the level of Elvis or Marilyn Monroe.”
“With less education, he spoke better than most presidents or prime ministers,” he said.
“He spoke beyond boxing. He was bigger than sport.”
Peterec, rated the No. 4 toughest fighter in the world in 2006 by Black Belt magazine, is one of only three men to fight professionally over five decades. He said he will never forget being a child and watching, for the first time, clips of Ali perform.
“I was floored watching it,” he said. “I was seeing something I had never seen before. Ali was an artist on the canvas … and lives were changed forever. Everybody wants to be the next Ali. But we will never see anything like him again.”
Ali died Friday at age 74.
