Mark Collings

Elvis And Ali: When The Greatest Met The King From the Jack magazine archive: When Elvis and Ali met for the first time in 1974, there was only one place it could be; Viva Las Vegas. Ferdie Pacheco (Ali's fight doctor): "I was there the time Elvis presented Ali with the robe. It was in Vegas in '74 and it was really something to see. They really didn't know what to do with each other. Obviously Elvis was enthralled to be in Ali's presence, but so was Ali, he loved Elvis. He wasn't really into t

Thirty odd years after he was dramatically humbled by Muhammad Ali, on that mythical night in Zaire, the door of the London hotel room opened and in walked George Foreman followed by his smaller and much slimmer son, George III (Foreman has five sons all named George). “Good to see you George.” I said to George Snr. George Snr said nothing and neither did George Jnr. I offered my hand and after a pause George snr took it, without a smile. The Foreman hand was as large as a baseball mitt but the

From the Jack magazine archive: When Elvis and Ali met for the first time in 1974, there was only one place it could be; Viva Las Vegas. Ferdie Pacheco (Ali's fight doctor): "I was there the time Elvis presented Ali with the robe. It was in Vegas in '74 and it was really something to see. They really didn't know what to do with each other. Obviously Elvis was enthralled to be in Ali's presence, but so was Ali, he loved Elvis. He wasn't really into the music, but he said, 'Boy, that guy can danc

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Boxers and Writers. Gods, and the men who make Gods. The divine divide. A thread that unites the two mediums? Rhythm, or a sense of rhythm, where a certain seamlessness occurs. The beautiful ballet. But how rare is it to meet somebody who's been on both side of the ropes? Knows the feel of the canvas as well as the smell of the press box? Meet the writer/amateur boxer-turned-poet who hung out with Muhammad Ali, trained at the famous ‘Champs Camp’ gym in Moss Side, wrote a book about the underbe

He started out punching horses and ended up as a boxing champion of the world. Nicknamed 'Hands of Stone', Roberto Duran was still fighting and winning at 49. I spent a week with him in the UK. More gold from the Jack archive. The harder they come... I hoped Roberto Duran had mellowed. It was 5am and "Limo" Ray was regaling the porter at the Sheffield Hilton with his sole Duran story. It was the one about Duran knocking out a horse, back when he was a wiry shoeshine boy on the streets of Panam

Chuck Wepner, the underdog who managed to get a shot at Ali before ending up fighting fairground freaks and bears. Not only that but his incredible story inspired the one of the most famous boxing stories of all time, Stallone's Rocky series. It is late afternoon in Bayonne, New Jersey, and outside Chuck Wepner's apartment a pale sun is beginning its descent into the Hudson River. Across the street, kids are playing baseball in the Veteran's Stadium., scampering around on the very same field wh

Taking a look back at the time when the old crooner managed to talk the rock out of coming out of retirement to fight Muhammad Ali... Tony Bennett: "Rocky Marciano was retired at the time - this must have been '64 or '65 so he'd been retired seven or eight years - and Rocky and I had been friends for a while and we were in a favourite hotel of ours in Miami. Rocky said to me, 'I want to get back in shape. I want to fight this guy Cassius Clay.' Well, Rocky was nearly 40 years old, but he didn't

I met Jake LaMotta at his favourite restaurant, La Maganette, on the corner of 50th and 3rd in Manhattan, two weeks after the death of Princess Diana in 1997. It was one of those molten hot late summer New York days, but I had a wool suit and tie on. Beforehand I’d read a quote from LaMotta that said, “If you are somebody, you dress like somebody,” so I had decided to wear my only suit. I was drinking ice-cold Coca-Cola, trying to stop myself from sweating, when Jake arrived. “He’s just a baby!”

'The day before David died someone asked him if he'd lived here all his life,' says Joseph Ndima, shaking his head before staring out towards the Oskarberg mountain. '"Not yet," he said.' We are standing outside the Rorke's Drift museum. On this very spot on 22 January 1879, a garrison of 139 young soldiers from the 24th Regiment of Foot, many of them sick or injured, successfully defended this supply base and field hospital from an attack by more than 4,000 Zulu warriors. The museum is built o