Both Laila Ali and Tiger Woods are
terrific athletes whose career arcs have a startling similarity, if
one chooses to make the comparison. Both are young athletes who, if
they desire, have more than a few good years ahead of them in their
individual sport. Both are immensely talented in that chosen sport.
Both Ali and Woods are in great demand in geographic areas far from
their native land and in return for appearing in these far away
countries, both athletes command fees well beyond those available to
their contemporaries. Both Ali and Woods are attractive and
articulate and those qualities have been utilized by major
advertisers for whom they both have capably served as spokespersons.
In professional golf, it is considered an upset when Tiger Woods
enters and does not win a tournament. The possibility of Tiger Woods
not contending for a win, in every tournament he plays, is,
essentially, a non-issue. Laila Ali, likewise, has entered the
professional boxing ring twenty-four times in a nearly eight year
career and has emerged victorious each time. In almost every one of
those bouts, an upset of Ali was considered, by most observers, to
be a non-issue.
Tiger Woods has, during his career, continually pointed towards what
the sport of golf terms "major" tournaments, those four annual
events that bring together the best players in professional golf.
Woods seeks out and seems to thrive on the best competition. Laila
Ali, during her career, well, lets just say: While Laila Ali and
Tiger Woods are startlingly similar, they are not identical.
Laila Ali doesn't do "major" competition. Her seeming aversion to
stepping into the ring with the better fighters in her weight class
continued last weekend when she overwhelmed Gwendolyn O'Neil in
under a minute at the Emperors Palace Casino in Kempton Park, GT,
South Africa, one of the aforementioned, faraway providers of
generous appearance fees. Following the bout, Ali was quoted as
saying, "I would have liked to have shown the fans more rounds, but,
hey, I'm happy with the KO." Laila Ali may have been the only one!
No response, concerning "happy", was available from the sponsors who
freighted the expenses surrounding the fifty-six seconds of
"fighting" nor from the anyone in the audience, all of whom had,
hopefully, eschewed a "fashionably late" arrival for the bout.
As mentioned, in most of Ali's recent eight bouts, over a nearly
three year period, the idea of an upset is usually the furthest
thought from the minds of those who buy tickets. The O'Neil bout was
but the latest in a series of bouts that, for Laila Ali, were
contested against fighters who, in boxing parlance are known as
"opponents", a term not generally used in a complimentary sense.
Gwendolyn O'Neil has appeared on that eight bout roll twice. In
September, 2004, in Atlanta, GA, Ali stopped O'Neil at 1:59 of the
third round. Compared to the bout in South Africa, that fight in
Atlanta provided fans with a veritable "abundance of riches" in
terms of elapsed time, nearly six minutes of boxing. Of course, it
might be fair to speculate that a third Ali/O'Neil bout, should such
a match-up be staged in some alternate universe, would run the risk
of being halted during the introductions, based on the comparative
regression in boxing time of the first two bouts.
Is Laila Ali entitled to manage her career as she and her management
see fit? Of course. Tiger Woods, for instance, does not play in
every golf tournament on the PGA tour and he occasionally makes an
appearance at a tournament where the "field" seems more prepared to
canonize Woods than make a serious run at beating him. But when the
"majors" arrive each year, and the "best of the best" on the golf
tour assemble, Woods is ready to tee off. In contrast, Laila Ali has
seemed to avoid "teeing off" with the top fighters in her weight
class. The reasons are always readily articulated: "Couldn't get
together on the money," "The time is not right," "Other things to
do," "She's (the other fighter) not ready." Ann Wolfe been ready for
an Ali bout the longest, Leaticia Robinson and Laura Ramsey, not as
long, and Mary Jo Sanders has recently emerged as a late entry. All
four fighters have expressed a willingness to "tee it up" with Laila
Ali and any one of those match-ups, Wolfe, Robinson, Ramsey or
Sanders is certainly a more compelling bout than the sum total of
the eight of Ali bouts over the past twenty-one months.
Following the O'Neil bout, Laila Ali, seemed, again, to arrive on a
parallel course with Tiger Woods. Woods recently announced that he
may miss part of the PGA tour this summer, as he takes time for a
mother and child reunion with his wife, who is scheduled to give
birth in the weeks surrounding the British Open. Laila Ali has also
allowed as to how she may be taking time for a hiatus, maybe even a
permanent one, from the ring. While the reason for the hiatus was
not fully articulated, the possibility that the previous eight bouts
had been exhausting was not mentioned.
Both Laila Ali and Tiger Woods are terrific athletes. They have
exhibited a level of skill that place them in the upper echelon of
their respective sports. Their career paths have had many
similarities and several notable disparities. The most apparent
divergence is that, thus far, Tiger Woods has showcased his talent,
in his sport, to it's fullest extent. To date, the same thing,
unfortunately, cannot be said of Laila Ali.
Bernie McCoy
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