When Ali returned to his corner, his handlers pleaded with him to stay off the ropes, to dance as they had planned or else be killed by any one of Foreman’s mighty blows. Seemingly calm and collected amid the storm, Ali told everyone, “Shut up! All of you. I know what I am doing. Don’t tell me nothing! I don’t want to hear another word. Shut up.” Then, according to Ferdie Pacheco, he explained: “The champ has nothing. He has nothing. He can’t hurt me. I’m going to let this sucker punch himself out.” All during training Ali had planned on using his speed to dance away from the champ’s power and tire him out by rounds eight to ten. Gregorio Peralta had gone the distance with Foreman earlier in the champ’s career, but in that case it was fighting off the ropes. Having watched tapes of the Foreman-Peralita match, Ali’s camp planned to test Foreman’s stamina, but not by laying on the ropes right in front of the champion. Rather, the challenger would dance around the ring and tire Foreman out. Echoing the feeling of the entire camp, Dundee recalled that “when he went to the ropes, I felt sick. I thought Ali would win but not that way.” The goal was to dance for five or six rounds and against a stand-up fighter who didn’t move his head much, Ali could jab him silly. Then when Foreman tired, Ali would knock him out in the late rounds. “But,” Dundee recalled, “everything we planned was built around not getting hit.”
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