Dallas Gym Owner Inspired By Muhammad Ali

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DALLAS (CBSDFW.COM) - For a ten-year-old boy living in The Netherlands, watching one Muhammad Ali fight on a small black-and-white television set would change his life.

"I had never see anything like that," said Arnie Verbeek, who at the time didn't even speak English. "I asked my dad who is that guy. He said Muhammad Ali – The Greatest."

Verbeek said the day after watching Ali knockout George Foreman in the 1974 fight famously known as the "Rumble in the Jungle", he went to the library to learn as much as he could about boxer and where he was from.

"I was like what a country this guy must live in," recalled Verbeek. "I want to go to that country where they produce people like that."

Years later Verbeek would fulfill his dream of coming to the United States, and after a career on Wall Street, he opened a gym on Maple Avenue in Dallas.

"It's bizarre, isn't it?," said the owner of Maple Avenue Boxing and Fitness. "The power of one guy to reach all the way across the ocean to speak to a ten-year-old boy who didn't know his language."

When Ali turned 70 years old, Verbeek had a chance to attend the boxer's birthday party in Louisville, Kentucky.

At the celebration, Verbeek said he had the opportunity to tell The Greatest how he was his great inspiration.

"It was as if my life came full circle," he said. "I would not be here if not for Ali."

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