Where Was Ali?

Midway through the fifth round, the man sitting next to me in Boston Garden began to shout, "Where's Ali? Where is Ali?" And that was the real question Thursday night when Muhammad Ali forgot to fight, and lost his chance to regain the heavyweight title.

It was like a father having a pillow fight with his son, letting his child swing away and not caring to provide any tallies of his own. But this wasn't a pillow fight; this was a title fight.

Where was Ali? He was there at points, when he would get up on his toes and circle steadily, smoothly to the left. He was there when he would shoot out the right lead--that awesome right lead--and connect to Holmes's face. But it seemed that Muhammad didm't wants us to see too much of Ali...the glimpses he gave us were few and far between.

Floyd Patterson was there in Ali's body, as Muthammad played peekaboo with Holmes in the early going. Kenny Norton was there when Ali would hold his arms horizontally across his face and lean back to avoid Holmes's blows. Even Joe Frazier entered Ali when, for a very strange few minutes, Muhammad bent at the waist and bobbed and weaved as if he were a left-hook-throwing slugger.

But those were all acts. The fight was show to remind us of Ali's fights in his youngers days, a collage of movements, shuffles and feints. Ali never seemed concerned about winning the fitht. He never tried to hurt Holmes.

Ali might have psyched himself out. Maybe he froze when he recognized that it would take some work to regain the title. Maybe this had been his plan all along, to take the money and run. Or perhaps Ali realized early in the fight that he was going to lose, and decided it would be better to go out not fighting, than fighting hard and getting knocked out.

For even though the fight was registered as a TKO, that's not really how it ended. Ali's trainer simply told his man he'd have to fight to win, and when Ali let round after round go by without even trying, a frustrated Dundee told the referee that Ali had had enough.

I don't know how Ali will explain his loss--his unwillingness after so much training and so much bravado to give it a real try. How can he explain that he threw only thirty punches in a ten-round fight? How can he convince us that he didn't choke, or that he had never really intended to win and just wanted to pick up $8 million in cool cash?

And can he give us the answer to the fan's question, where was Ali