'Aussie' Joe Bugner recalls telling Elvis to 'get stuffed'

IN A wide-ranging interview, Joe Bugner tells GRANTLEE KIEZA of the time he told Elvis Presley to 'get stuffed'.

My fights with Elvis and Ali

Before your first fight with Muhammad Ali in Las Vegas, Elvis Presley gave him a magnificent bejewelled robe. Did you ask Elvis if he had one for you?

The robe Elvis gave Ali had the words ``Peoples Choice'' spelt out in gemstones on the back. It was February 1973 and Elvis was performing at the Las Vegas Hilton. Before the fight Elvis invited about 50 or so people to his hotel suite for a party. I thought I'd be very complimentary to him. I said ``Excuse me, Elvis that's a beautiful robe you gave Ali. I'd love one like that because, as you know I'm also a champion.'' But Elvis turns around and says ``you're no champion'' just like that. I told Elvis to get stuffed and I walked out.

Did Elvis say: ``ladies and gentlemen, Joe Bugner has left the building?''

No but his bodyguard, a guy they called Big Red comes over and says ``hey man whatya doin ... no one speaks to the King like that.'' I said ``mate, you tell Elvis he's a dickhead.''

You can certainly find a celebrity to blue with. You've called Russell Crowe a gutless wonder?

He is. He punches like a girl too. When Russell was making the boxing movie The Cinderella Man he asked me to help him prepare. I said I'd love to but I had things in the pipeline and needed to know if it was a done deal. Russell kept stuffing me around and I finally found out that he'd hired Ali's old trainer Angelo Dundee instead. Russell didn't have the guts to tell me.

Your first fight with Ali - you're 22, going in against one of the greatest boxers of all time. Did you really think you had a chance?

I was very confident. I felt I knew Ali inside out. I first met him in New York in 1969 and I must have sparred 200 rounds with him over the years. My left jab was my best punch and I knew it gave Ali trouble. But he beat me on points over 12 rounds in a non-title fight. Sammy Davis Jr jumped into the ring to hug Ali straight after the fight. Frank Sinatra told me later he thought I won.

Sinatra was a big fight fan?

Yes. I had a lot of respect for him. Joe Louis, the great heavyweight champ of the 1940s was doing it tough for a long time but Frank got him a job at Caesars Palace as a greeter on $1000 a week, a lot of money in the 70s.

Boxing is full of horror stories. Of your opponents Joe Frazier's dead, Ron Lyle's dead, Greg Page, Sonny Liston, Vince Cervi all dead. Ali has been sick for years, Frank Bruno was in an asylum. But you look fit enough to fight tomorrow. What's your secret?

My lovely wife Marlene takes great care of me. I'm 63 but I still exercise every day - not too strenuously - but I always do a little boxing training for my shoulders so they don't stiffen up. I never hit the heavy bag because I don't want to stress the joints but I hit the speed bag. I do crunches for my stomach and do a few weights for my arms.

What do you do to stay busy?

I speak at corporate functions and I have a book about my life coming out in November. I've met so many fascinating people. I had dinner with Tony Abbott and his wonderful wife at (businessman) Anthony Pratt's home in Melbourne. Tony is a great fellow. We talked about his sporting days and he told me he did some boxing at school.

It was actually Oxford University. He was their heavyweight champion.

I'm not surprised. He looks very fit.

You've had this extraordinary life, a Hungarian war refugee who grows up in England, becomes a boxing champion then a movie actor rubbing shoulders with all these celebrities?

I lived in Beverly Hills for 10 years from 1975. You would be with famous people every day, Dean Martin, Tom Jones. Ali had a house in Hancock Park not far from me. Two of my kids went to the same school as Ali's daughter Laila and I met my wife at Joan Collins' house. That was 1977. I'd been married once before but I fell head over heels in love with Marlene and we were married the next year.

It was through Marlene that you entered the movie business?

Marlene was a top journalist and she knew an actor named Franco Nero who helped me get some big roles in Italian movies. When I was a kid I never wanted to be a boxer, I always wanted to be an actor. I loved James Bond. I was about 13 when I saw Sean Connery and Robert Shaw in From Russia With Love at the Granada Cinema in Bedford. I've been in more than 20 movies over the years.

Were they all great fun?

I love the experience but there are some big egos involved. In 1994 I was in a movie called Street Fighter with Jean-Claude van Damme and the lovely Kylie Minogue. Then Van Damme comes out saying he'd had an affair with Kylie and I thought that was so tacky.

Van Damme looks pretty tough. Do you think you could take him?

If I spat on him he'd drown.

Do you remember much of your native Hungary?

I remember leaving our village Szoreg when I was six. The Russians moved in and my mum, Margaret, moved us out. She was a single parent and she left the country with five children. She risked a long prison sentence if she was caught but she put us on a bus for a while and then we walked through the night across the border to a refugee camp in Yugoslavia. We ended up in England in 1957.

I was in your corner for your fights with Greg Page and Frank Bruno, who both won major titles. I always thought you were a gentle giant who deep down didn't like to fight?

I always loved athletics more than boxing. Even now I'd much rather watch a discus thrower than watch a fight. When I was little my hero was the actor Steve Reeves who played Hercules and he carried a discus. I was the British junior discus champion at 14 and I had dreams of going to the Olympics until boxing arrived. At school one of the teachers said we were going to do some boxing and I didn't want any part of it. But I said I'd have a go. In the first round I got a bloody nose and I hated it. But I got better and better.

What made you fight if you didn't like it?

I loved the excitement. It really is a great thrill to be going out there to fight Muhammad Ali or Joe Frazier and the crowd is cheering and the world is watching on TV. The adrenalin is racing through your body at 100 miles an hour. It's a different excitement to any other sport. You're in the ring totally exposed, nowhere to hide, just you and the other bloke who is trying to tear your head off.

At 17 you turned professional. It was a disaster?

I fought a big bus driver from Birmingham named Paul Brown at the Anglo American Sporting Club in Mayfair. I was too busy looking for the movie stars Stanley Baker and Oliver Reed in the crowd. Paul hit me with a big haymaker and it was goodnight.

You must have been determined to prove yourself because you came back?

I fought Paul again twice the next year, 1968, and I knocked him out both times. I lost only once - on points - in my next 33 fights.

Is it true you never hit anyone really hard again because Ulric Regis died after you beat him in 1969?

Some reporters have said that but it's not true. Ulric was a good heavyweight from Trinidad. We fought in Shoreditch. He was out on his feet and the referee should have stopped the fight. I won on points over eight rounds. A few hours after the fight Ulric collapsed. He died a few days later after surgery for a clot on the brain. The verdict was accidental death. His death shook me up but it was not my fault.

Not long after that you headed to New York to spar with Ali?

Yes. Ali loved to insult people to provoke a reaction. I first met him in a coffee shop in New York in 1969. He drew a crowd of 200 just walking in. The first thing he says is ``so you're this white boy thinks he can whup me? Man you ugly. Your mamma must have been sad when she had you.'' I said Muhammad if you think I'm ugly you haven't seen my sister. That stunned him. He didn't know what to say. For the first time in his life he was speechless.

You also sparred the monstrous Sonny Liston there?

That was in Newark, New Jersey. He was getting ready to fight a big brawler named Chuck Wepner. Sonny was one of the most intimidating heavyweights of all time. Wepner went nine rounds with Sonny but they brought him to Wembley for his next fight and I stopped Wepner in three. Sylvester Stallone wrote a movie about him. Rocky.

In 1971 you won the British, Commonwealth and European titles on the one night against Henry Cooper?

I beat him over 15 rounds at Wembley Arena. I was only 21 but Henry was a demigod in Britain and the British press never forgave me.

I just re-watched your fight with Joe Frazier on YouTube. It was a slugfest. George Foreman thought you won.

We had 18,000 people at Earls Court in London in 1973. We went flat out for 12 rounds. It was brutal and we both hurt. In the end Joe scored a very close decision. He was the best fighter I ever faced. Ali was much more gifted and a much better boxer technically but Frazier was a real fighter - strong, tough, fit. Non-stop aggression. I proved that I had the chin to stay with one of the toughest men who ever lived.

Not everyone was a fan though?

I once presented a trophy to Princess Anne after an equestrian event at Wembley and some bastard told me her father Prince Philip wanted a word with me. So I go up to this private section and tap him on the shoulder which apparently is an absolute no-no with royalty. He turns around and looks at me like he's just stepped in something. I said `I believe you summoned me Sir' and he says ``what on earth for?'' He was a real snob. It was very embarrassing.

Was Joe Frazier the heaviest puncher you faced?

He hit hard but for one punch, the biggest hitter was Earnie Shavers. He dropped me in Dallas in 1982, then cut my eye with a headbutt. Ron Lyle in 1977 in Caesars Palace was my toughest fight. Ron was a convicted killer. I fought him to a split decision but ended up in hospital with bleeding kidneys.

You fought Ali a second time in 1975, this time for the world title?

Yes it was in Kuala Lumpur. I was threatened with assassination by some Muslim fanatics and had all these soldiers guarding me. The fight was in 120-degree heat in the middle of the day to suit worldwide TV. It was exhausting and Ali finished on a drip after outpointing me over 15 rounds. After the fight some guys from the British press asked me to pose with a drink in the swimming pool to show the heat of the place. Instead they all wrote that I'd treated the fight like a holiday and wouldn't have a go. I was really stitched up. Lionel Rose won a 10-rounder on the undercard against a Japanese guy.

What brought you to Australia?

Marlene's a Queensland girl and she wanted to come home. We went to Sydney first where I trained with Johnny Lewis but we've lived on the Gold Coast for 20 years or so. It's magic.

You retired after losing to Frank Bruno in 1987 in what was then the richest fight ever held in Britain? But you came back in 1995 and won the Australian heavyweight title. Why?

I'd lost all my money buying a vineyard so I had to fight again. I beat Vince Cervi for the Australian title in my first fight back at age 45. At 48 I won a version of the world title against Bonecrusher Smith, who had gone the distance with Mike Tyson. I punched him on the shoulder in the first round and it popped out.

Do you keep in touch with Ali?

I saw him a couple of years ago in America and he wasn't well. I spent some time with him at the Sydney Olympics. He was badly affected by the Parkinson's disease even then but I said to him: ``Muhammad, damn your lookin' good'' and he whispers ``Joe Bugner, I wish I could say the same.'' I gave him a kiss and he froze and said ``Don't do that again.'' I said ``Muhammad it's a common custom for Europeans.'' And he says ``Man we ain't in Europe.''

Ali always had to have the last word?

He whispered to me ``how many kids you got? I said ``five, how many for you?'' Ali says ``Nine. Hah. Beat you again Joe Bugner.''

For another hit of boxing, check out Grantlee Kieza's blog at foxsports.com.au

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