see, you don't need to fight no more. everything fresh! doughnuts just came out. you don't remember when you met me once before. long ago. you know my name! you came to my school, right before you win the title. interviewed you for the school paper. i was eleven. yeah! you called me little indian girl, then. i loved you then, like all those kids. i never stopped. i still do. first time? 1961. sister khalilah introduced you at assembly. you said you would be heavyweight champion of the world by the time you were twenty-one! i was eleven. i interviewed you for the student paper. you called me "little indian girl," 'cause i wore my hair real long, in a braid. i told you"man, you scribble! you can't even write! you ought to go back to school until you do it better" she's got to be done with that bottle. no, he didn't. i told them about the one on the way. myself. you wanna try changing her, for the experience? that happen, you promise me you put some new people around you. where are they when we need them? you got gene kilroy droppin' off groceries like charity. borrowin' money from my folks. so? muhammad? hell, i can't. i'm defying them by talking to you. and being with you. you don't need their management. my god. they killed you! here's your water. you could pick up parasites. you're seeing what you want to see, muhammad. mobutu is taking care of mobutu and stealing all the wealth and sending it to switzerland. we're here 'cause don king got mobutu to put up ten million dollars. don king don't give a damn about africa. he worse than herbert. yeah. 'cause where was he when we was broke and borrowing money? and bundini and all them that "love you"? disappeared, is where they were. all over you when you got it and drop off you when you don't. and don king fit right in. that double-breasted hipster is now a dashiki-wearing rip-off. don king talks black, lives white and thinks green! why you defending him and "brother" herbert? and now they got you up against george foreman. do they give a damn you could get killed? i think: why is my muslim husband letting himself get strung up on a cross? it means, "tell me." maryum is sick. maybe i oughta go back to chicago and look after her. i'll be back before the fight. if that's all right, my husband. hello, muhammad. bingham. mr. cosell. just now. muhammad, may i have a word with you, please? what is going on? but i don't have to have it thrown in my face. i don't have to read about it and have people call me up on the phone about it. oh, hell, muhammad, you got no discretion. you never did. you humiliate me! i clean for you. i cook for you. i feel every punch you take. then why you got to be visible with women? i live with the casual ones. but this, this. i can't hold it together anymore. then why do you disrespect me this way?! do you love her? do you want to marry her? "you're following your heart"? that's what you do. no matter what anybody says. or thinks. or what it does. and what happens now? neither of us did. i didn't come this far to quit.