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Ali's Daughter Makes Debut

September 28, 1999 / 6:46 PM EDT / AP

Laila Ali's beauty and name is a one-two punch that can floor people in Hollywood. But the only place where Muhammad Ali's daughter wants to be a knockout is in the boxing ring.

"If I want to do something, I just do it," she said. "I really don't care what anybody has to say."

Ali will make her professional debut Oct. 8 at Turning Stone Casino in upstate New York on a card featuring Donovan "Razor" Ruddock. Her opponent in the four-round bout will be April Fowler, who has an 0-1 record as a pro.

Laila couldn't resist imitating a bit of her father's famous rhyming for the 18 TV cameras and gaggle of photographers and reporters who came to see her Tuesday.

"There are so many expectations that I must meet, but there is only one promise that I can make. On October 8 in Verona, New York, April Fowler will suffer a painful defeat," she said, prompting laughter from the crowd.

She said her father, who has Parkinson's Disease, hasn't decided whether to attend.

"My father being at my fight would take a lot of the attention away from me and there will be a lot of media surrounding him," she said.

"It's also not going to be easy for him to watch me get into the ring. But whether he's there or not, I'm coming to the ring to do what I need to do and I'm serious about it."

She said her father and her mother, Veronica, Ali's third wife, are skeptical about her new profession.

"He doesn't want me to get hurt, but he's going to support me 100 percent as a father," she said. "My mother is not comfortable with me going into the ring, but she knows that I know what I'm doing."

The elder Ali painted the worst possible picture of boxing for the second-youngest of his nine children.

"He always wants to make sure that I know what I'm doing is not easy and you're going to get hit and bruised and the wind is going to get knocked out, but that's just my father," she said.

"He always takes your mind to the worst possible scenario to see if you're going to still want to go forward with it."

Laila, 21, who runs her own nail salon in Los Angeles, decided a year ago that she wanted to box professionally after picking up the sport as a form of exercise. She's even sparred with her father.

"I just love how it feels," she said.

And what about the danger involved?

"I'm going to get hit, I'm going to get my face swollen, it's going to happen," she said. "I'm just going to deal with it."

Laila's six-day-a-week training regimen involves running three to four miles, jumping rope, sparring and working on punching bags.

"I ran so many miles that I have blisters on my feet," she said.

Her trainer, Dub Huntly, says Laila's best punch is a right hand into a left hook.

"I wouldn't compare myself to my father because we're two different people, buI know that because I am his daughter that I naturally have boxing skills that most people probably don't have when they start," she said. "At the level that I'm at, I would rate myself as excellent."

Of course, she's just a beginner. Laila admits she isn't familiar with such other female fighters as Christy Martin.

"My dad never had this much attention on him when he was first fighting," she said. "It's a lot of pressure on me."

Laila was too young to see her father fight in person, but she's watched tapes of his bouts and says her favorite is Ali's knockout of George Foreman in Zaire in 1974.

"My footwork is very good like my father's. I'm also very strong and very confident," the 5-foot-10, 168-pounder said. "My movement in the ring is just like my dad."

Huntly said he trains Laila like he would any male boxer.

"When I get in the gym, I don't look at her as a lady, I look at her as a fighter," he said. "She's mean and she's tough. She's not in it just for the money; she wants to be a champion."

Also in Laila's corner is her boyfriend, Johnny McClain, a boxer himself. Like the elder Ali, he's not thrilled with Laila's choice.

"I hate it. It's real hard for me to watch every day," he said. "I never wanted her to do it, but since she's going to, I've got to give her as much knowledge as I have and support her the best that I can."