Rahaman there, who abandoned his own boxing career to become a driver, training partner, assistant, cook and “cornerman” of his older brother Muhammad there, died on Friday (1st). He was 82 years old.
The death was announced by the Muhammad Ali Center, a museum in Louisville, Kentucky, the hometown of the brothers. The statement did not include further details.
In the 1960s and 1970s, when he was considered the most exciting boxer in the world, Muhammad there developed a considerable entourage of assistants, friends and aggregates. The most intimate member of the circle was Rahaman.
Described as Muhammad Ali’s “best training partner” by writer Jonathan Eig in the biography “Muhammad Ali: A Life” (2017), Rahaman helped him prepare for great struggles against Archie Moore, Sonny Liston and Floyd Patterson.
While Muhammad worked in the punching bag, Rahaman watched closely. He cheered from the corner during the fights. Prepared the breakfast as requested. Muhammad didn’t use clock instead, he asked Rahaman’s time.
“His brother’s dreams have become his dreams, and his brother’s triumphs, his triumphs,” wrote sports columnist Dick Schaap in 1975.
Rahaman there was a promising amateur boxer who won his first professional fight in a preliminary fight the same night as his brother defeated Liston to become world-weight champion. Rahaman pursued a career earning a median cartel with ten wins, three losses and a draw. Retired after a technical knockout in 1972.
Several brothers’ youth figures said in interviews that Rahaman there was an intelligent and receptive fighter to instructions, but that he lacked the charisma of Muhammad. When a group of Louisville entrepreneurs gathered to sponsor Muhammad, then known as Cassius Clay, Rahaman, then Rudy Clay, was left out of the deal. (The two brothers changed their names and joined the nation of Islam at about the same time in the early 1960s.)
Many journalists witnessed what the New York Times newspaper called “a public reprimand” in the preparation for the 1975 Thrilla in Manila against Joe Franzier. Rahaman there was instructing journalists to take notes while Muhammad spoke; Then Muhammad scolded him. “You don’t tell them to write,” said the champion. “They can leave, and I will still receive my millions. That’s why you will never be like me.”
Rahaman later minimized the incident in an interview with United Press International.
“What he told me was justified,” Rahaman said. “My love for my brother is infinite.”
The following year, Muhammad Ali told teams that he paid Rahaman an annual salary of $ 50,000, equivalent to about $ 280,000 ($ 1.54 million) today.
In 1990, speaking to Louisville’s The Courier-Journal, Rahaman Ali expressed regret for not focusing on his own boxing career.
“Muhammad never said to me, ‘Good fight, good fight, Rahaman,” Rahaman said. “I feel he could have come back and congratulate me.”
Rudolph Arnett Clay was born on July 18, 1943, a year and a half after his brother. Later, Rudolph Valentino Clay was renamed. His father, Cassius Sr., was a painter of signs. His mother, Odessa (O’Grady) Clay, was a cook and cleaning lady.
His two children slept side by side in single beds. They developed a game in which Rudy was in an adjacent house, two meters away from his house, and threw stones in Cassius, which diverted them with skill.
At the end of Rudy’s adolescence, he and his brother were still “almost inseparable,” Eig wrote, with the two boxing constantly and sharing not only a quarter but also meals and training regimes.
Subsequently, Rahaman served as appliance salesman and restaurant owner and lived in Chicago and Cincinnati. At 60, he was back in Louisville, living in public housing. He was married several times and had two daughters and one son.
