The gloves that Muhammad Ali wore in his historic 1971 fight against Joe Frazier will go under the hammer on 31st July 2014, in Heritage Auctions’ Sports Collectibles Platinum Night Auction at The House of Blues in Cleveland, OH. The opening bid will be $125,000. “This match was billed as ‘The Fight of the Century,’ and, despite the fact that Ali lost, it more than lived up to its billing,” said Chris Ivy. “It was a controversial fight at a controversial time in America and the bout took on distinctly political and cultural overtones. These gloves are more than sports memorabilia; they’re artifacts of early-1970s American Pop Culture.”
The gloves came from the collection of the late Hall of Fame trainer Angelo Dundee, who trained Ali and died at age 90 in 2012. His son, Jim Dundee, put much of his father’s collection of boxing memorabilia up for auction to help pay family medical bills.
Another pair of gloves Ali wore in his first clash with Sonny Liston in 1964 sold by Heritage Auctions for a record $836,500 in February, almost 50 years to the day of the fight.
