A Quote by Brin-Jonathan Butler

An offer to fight Muhammad Ali came after Stevenson won his second Olympic gold in Montreal in 1976. Stevenson was at his peak. The world had never seen a heavyweight with the tools Stevenson brought into the ring.

Brin-Jonathan Butler

Quote Topics

After Ali Brought Came Fight Gold Had Heavyweight His Montreal Muhammad Never Offer Olympic Peak Ring Second Seen Tools World

Quote Author

Brin-Jonathan Butler
American - Journalist
Born: 1979

Teofilo Stevenson won his first Olympic gold medal in 1972 and his last world amateur championship in 1986. He won 302 fights and once went an unbelievable 11 years without a loss. Had Cuba not boycotted the 1984 Summer Olympics, many think Stevenson would have won an unmatched four gold medals in boxing.

Brin-Jonathan Butler

Stevenson had noble ideas--as did the young Franklin for that matter. But Stevenson felt that the way to implement them was to present himself as a thoughtful idealist and wait for the world to flock to him. He considered it below him, or wrong, to scramble out among the people and ask them what they wanted. Roosevelt grappled voters to him. Stevenson shied off from them. Some thought him too pure to desire power, though he showed ambition when it mattered.

Garry Wills

Muhammad Ali inside the ring and Muhammad Ali outside the ring were totally different men; his abrasive, magnetic daring and infectious self-love outside the ring galvanized the world and distracted many from his sniper's precision. He was a heavyweight with the fluttering gracefulness of a middleweight.

Elvis Mitchell

No author's writing more influenced my own than that of Robert Louis Stevenson. My first steampunk story, 'The Ape-box Affair,' is a sort of melange of Stevenson and P.G. Wodehouse.

James Blaylock

Many of the greatest Cuban boxing champions since the revolution triumphed on the island resisted the temptation to leave Cuba and, in some cases, defied any suggestion they were tempted in the first place. Most famously, Teofilo Stevenson rejected multi-million dollar offers to leave his island to fight Muhammad Ali.

Brin-Jonathan Butler

Even before I could vote, I was involved in the political arena. My father was an admirer of Adlai Stevenson, and he took me to the Stevenson for President headquarters, and he volunteered me. That was my introduction to electoral politics, which was exciting and fun and thrilling and very theatrical.

George Takei

Ali vs. Stevenson would have served as a symbolic battle between the United States and Cuba, capitalism and communism: Castro's values instilled in his boxers pitted against the values of 'merchandise' boxers from the rest of the world.

Brin-Jonathan Butler

I like the thought of gaining revenge over WBC light-heavyweight champion Adonis Stevenson, who beat me in 2013.

Tony Bellew

I'd like to go back in time and haunt Robert Louis Stevenson during his years in the South Pacific.

Marjorie Liu

I've never chosen the easy route to world titles or the easy route in fights, and I came up short against Stevenson.

Tony Bellew

I want to be remembered as the man who changed the pay scale for featherweights, who put the sparkle back in boxing after Muhammad Ali left, the man who took risks with his ring entrance, the man who, before the fight, would do a front flip into the ring without even thinking about turning an ankle, and then knocking his man out. I mean out.

Naseem Hamed

In Robert Louis Stevenson's 'Jekyll & Hyde,' the hero decides on the terms of his transformation in a process that's explained not through the supernatural but the natural or, at least, through biochemistry.

Joshua Cohen

I still can’t believe [ Muhammad Ali ] knows my name. It astounds me he knows who I am. I first met Ali in 1976. I was locked up in a juvenile home and he came to visit. I’ve never forgotten it.

Mike Tyson

I had no idea how Stevenson's cases would hold up under close scrutiny. But given what was at stake - nothing less than possible concrete evidence of life after death - weren't they at least worth a visit?