I just watched this documentary. Ten of Ali's top opponents discuss their fights with Ali and his impact on their lives others. The director lets the fighters do all the talking. Not all of these men have the greatest love for Ali, Terrell and Frazier especially still have some bitterness but all of them have the utmost respect for a man they recognize as the greatest. There are lots of clips from their fights with Ali and each other. Holmes gives a voice over for his fight describing how he hated to hit Ali in the body because he knew that Ali couldn't take it by that time.

It's a powerful film. In some respects it's an indictment of boxing. The viewer sees the toll that boxing took on these men, many of who have somewhat slurred speech or other health issues. But as Chuvalo points out, boxing was a preferred career path compared to the alternative of poorly paid backbreaking labor (Chuvalo's mother plucked chickens for a penny a bird) or more sinister jobs (Lyle and Shavers describe actually considering being a thug or hitman as a viable option).

Age and other issues have slowed these men down but it's apparent that most of them still have a love for the sport and the instincts for the sweet science. Watching a 70 year old man seemingly lose 50 years of age/infirmity and start throwing combinations as he describes his battles is something else.

There's even a bit of mob lore shared. George Chuvalo claims that the reason he got a fight with Ali before Ernie Terrell was that Bernie Glickman, who was Terrell's manager, (and really a front for Accardo-who Chuvalo names) had gone to Ali's manager, Herbert Muhammad and in quite insulting terms told Herbert Muhammad that Ali was to throw the fight to Terrell and that if he didn't that Herbert might find himself in serious trouble. According to Chuvalo, Herbert Muhammad wasn't the sort of man to take threats lightly and he had his bodyguards beat Glickman within an inch of his life. So Terrell was dropped and Chuvalo inserted.

Lyle sums it up at the end of the film when he says that the fighters love Ali.

"When the snows fall and the white winds blow, the lone wolf dies but the pack survives."
Winter is Coming

Now this is the Law of the Jungle—as old and as true as the sky; And the wolf that shall keep it may prosper, but the wolf that shall break it must die.
As the creeper that girdles the tree-trunk, the Law runneth forward and back; For the strength of the Pack is the Wolf, and the strength of the Wolf is the Pack.