Alan Hubbard: Sting in the tale of the man who urged Ali to float like a butterfly

Alan Hubbard: Sting in the tale of the man who urged Ali to float like a butterfly

Dusk was settling over the desert and a vast car park behind Caesars Palace in Las Vegas, where a stadium had been built to house the world-title fight between Muhammad Ali and Larry Holmes, exactly 40 years ago next month, when veteran ring announcer Chuck Hull called for quiet before the bout began. "Pray silence" he requested, "while Gladys Knight, of Gladys Knight and the Pips, sings our glorious national anthem."



Alan Hubbard: Olympic medallist Minter should be remembered for more than just the Hagler horror story

Alan Hubbard: Olympic medallist Minter should be remembered for more than just the Hagler horror story

Of the 150 or so boxers who have taken part in the principal pandemic punch-ups conducted behind closed doors over the last couple of months I have noticed only one, 25-year-old middleweight Denzel Bentley from Battersea in south London, has taken the knee as a symbolic gesture towards the Black Lives Matter movement. Yet there has been no Lewis Hamilton-like complaints from him just because nobody followed suit.