SOUTHPAW RESISTANCE
BY 1966, MUHAMMAD ALI WAS IN HIS ABSOLUTE PRIME. OF THE FIVE FIGHTS “THE GREATEST” CONTESTED THAT YEAR, HIS TOUGHEST CAME AGAINST A DETERMINED GERMAN LEFTY, KARL MILDENBERGER. By Don Stradley T o knock a challenger down three times on the way to a 12th- round stoppage would be a feather in the cap of any defending champion, and reason enough for plaudits on press row. So it’s hard to fathom the widespread indifference that met Muhammad Ali’s victory over Karl Mildenberger, which played out along those lines in Frankfurt on September 10, 1966. Inexplicably, the fight’s co-promoter, Harry Levene, even offered an apology, saying Ali “is not the champion many people thought he was.” The irony was that Ali was doing things that year that no heavyweight champion had ever done, moving with speed and grace previously unseen in the division. Moreover, starting in November ’65, he was in the process of making six title defenses in a 12-month span, an impressive schedule for any era. Still, the press and many boxing insiders remained stubbornly
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Photographs by Willi Gutberlet/picture alliance
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