In boxing’s long history of fights nobody wanted, the February 1976 contest between heavyweight champion Muhammad Ali and Belgium’s Jean-Pierre Coopman would rank near the top. Of course, mismatches were nothing new in boxing. They weren’t even new to Ali. But something about this one, perhaps because Ali’s stature was at its highest, left people perplexed (Visit The Ring's archive to find coverage in the May issue of that year).

Even Ali admitted the event was nothing more than an easy moneymaker. When critics addressed the great gap in talent between the champion and challenger, a gap Evel Knievel couldn’t have jumped with a rocket, Ali shut them down.

“They want me to fight all my fights like I’m fighting for my life,” Ali said. “I have a right to take a few easy ones.”

Ali had a point. Though his fame was at its zenith, with his name and face known around the world in a way unthinkable for any previous athlete, Ali was less than five months removed from the grueling “Thrilla in Manila.” At the end of that historic bout, where he’d scored a 15th-round TKO of his rival, Joe Frazier, Ali was exhausted to his bones. The Manila bout was so physically taxing that Ali might’ve been excused for fighting a collection of high-school hall monitors. But in Coopman, it appeared promoter Don King had reached too low to find Ali’s next opponent. Coopman’s estimation of his chances only made things worse.

“I am beat before I start,” Coopman said through a translator. His candor was poignant, but bad for selling a championship fight.

The initial press conference took place at Mama Leone’s, a mammoth Italian restaurant on New York’s West Side. Before a crowd of wildly effusive Ali supporters, all howling and slapping their knees at his every wisecrack, the champion bragged about earning a million dollars for what stood to be easy work. Coopman was suitably wide-eyed, having been jerked from European obscurity to share Ali’s spotlight. Even when Ali playfully patted him on the head and called him “sweet,” the so-called “Lion of Flanders” only smiled.

“He wants the glory of fighting for the title,” Ali said, “even if it means getting whupped.”

Coopman kept smiling. Later, Ali handed Coopman a copy of his recent autobiography. Coopman skimmed a few pages, though he didn’t know the language. Then again, Ali admitted he hadn’t really written the book and didn’t know what it said. It was a weird moment — a man admitting his personal memoir had been written by someone else while another man who spoke no English pretended to read it. This was a reasonable symbol for the emptiness at the heart of Ali-Coopman.

Though details were still being discussed, King had secured San Juan, Puerto Rico, as the bout’s location, making it the first heavyweight championship fight held on the island. This continued Ali’s reputation as a globetrotter, but it was hard to imagine Coopman’s name on the marquee at any American venue anyway.

Still, even if Ali-Coopman was destined to be a stinker, CBS picked up the broadcast rights for a million bucks, a price the other main networks were unwilling to match. Not to miss out on the ongoing Ali hoopla, ABC would schedule a Wide World of Sports program that featured Ali and Howard Cosell commenting on footage of past heavyweight champions to run the weekend before the fight. ABC’s message was clear: They’d be better served by Ali and Cosell gabbing than by investing in the Coopman debacle. NBC also cashed in on the Ali mania, offering the Dean Martin Celebrity Roast of Ali the night before the bout.

If Coopman knew he was a subject of derision — one columnist described the bout as part of a sophisticated plot “to kill off boxing on home TV once and for all,” while the European Boxing Union threatened to ban the fight because Coopman stood no chance — he didn’t show it. He grinned throughout the fight’s buildup, looking like a man who had won tickets to the governor’s ball and was determined to have a good time, even if he had nothing nice to wear.

Previously a stonecutter carving out religious figures in his own shop, Coopman was a 29-year-old unranked heavyweight whose record was 24-3 with 14 KOs. Though he had developed a small following, Belgium’s interest in boxing was meager. Coopman’s highest hope was to perhaps fight Joe Bugner someday. The opportunity to fight Ali, as flukish as it may have been, was the sort of happening that could alter a man’s existence.

“That fight changed my life,” Coopman later told author Stephen Brunt. “It was the defining moment not only of my career, but of my life.”

When the fight was proposed, however, Coopman’s manager, Karel de Jager, called several boxing insiders to see if they thought it was a good idea for his fighter to face Ali. They assured him that Ali was a humanitarian and would probably go easy on Coopman. Once Jager felt sure that Coopman would survive, the fight was on.

Ali had greater concerns than the quality of his next opponent. He was busy juggling his wife, Khalilah (formerly Belinda), and his steady girlfriend of recent times, Veronica Porche. The champion also had a second wife, 20-year-old Wanda Bolton, whom he’d recently married in a secret Islamic ceremony. Though his Muslim faith allowed a man to have more than one wife, the arrangement was never legally recognized; most of Ali’s private life remained under the radar. Still, one wonders how the American public would’ve reacted to Ali and his growing harem. There were also a handful of women, from camp followers to track star Wilma Rudolph, claiming they’d had children by Ali and were demanding financial support.

Ali’s finances were also a problem. He was making more money than any athlete in the world, but it kept disappearing. The “business partners” who came in and out of his circle through a revolving door were not helping.

Rather than keep track of his money, Ali decided to just make more of it, which led to a series of endorsement deals, everything from d-CON roach spray and Brut aftershave to a line of Muhammad Ali bedsheets. If the cheesy commercial spots weren’t enough, Ali also signed a contract with Mego toys to market a doll in his likeness. Fittingly, Mego was the same company that had created figures of Cher and The Fonz. In a way, that’s exactly what Ali had become, a sort of one-named super celebrity: Ali.

As Ali’s fame soared, his trainer, Angelo Dundee, noticed troubling signs. Ali was gaining more weight in between fights, and when he sparred, his movements were stiff, not fluid. Also, he was sometimes difficult to understand.

In public, his voice was still clear, but in private he’d begun speaking in a whisper. Ali was only 34, but he was an old 34. Yet Dundee did what he could to promote the upcoming fight. He even gave Coopman the benefit of the doubt.

“Listen,” Dundee told one syndicated columnist, “no fight is easy. If a guy swings, you got the potential for trouble.”

He added that his spies in Europe had provided him with a full dossier on Coopman. Despite Dundee’s efforts, the press found little to write about. They had to make do with Coopman, who briefly livened things up when he consulted with a Puerto Rican witch. She’d sprinkled him with magic oil for protection and saw in her crystal ball a Coopman victory.

Meanwhile, a fire in the hotel kitchen purportedly filled Ali’s side of the building with smoke, though reports of this incident were probably exaggerated. Anything to fill out column inches was better than nothing.

Since the gathering at Mama Leone’s, Ali had been subdued. Why talk trash when your opponent didn’t understand you? As unusual as it seemed, Ali offered nothing to the press or the fans for this, the fifth defense of his second title reign. Aside from a recent speeding ticket in Michigan — he was clocked driving his Rolls-Royce convertible at 109 mph — there was little from Ali in the way of headlines or pre-fight bravado.

When he arrived in San Juan, the reason behind Ali’s silence was revealed: He was suffering with a nasty, rasping cough. Had his opponent been anyone else but Coopman, the fight would’ve been postponed. Rumors spread that Ali’s cold had kept him from training and that he weighed more than 230 pounds. Between Ali being ill and that so little was known about the challenger, there were murmurs among the press that maybe Coopman’s witch was onto something.

At the weigh-in, Ali came in at 226. He was still coughing. “He’s ready,” Dundee said. Coopman weighed 206. He was still smiling. The Roberto Clemente Coliseum was nearly at capacity for the bout. The undercard included Puerto Rican favorite Alfredo Escalera, the WBC junior lightweight titlist, who scored a 13th-round TKO of Jose Fernandez, as well as future titleholders Wilfredo Gomez and, in his pro debut, Ossie Ocasio.

Also on the undercard was heavyweight contender Jimmy Young, who won a sleepy 10-round decision over Jose Roman. Though the United Press called the bout a “bleak disappointment,” Young was already penciled in as Ali’s next challenger. In two months, Young would extend Ali through 15 dull rounds, proving Ali clearly wasn’t the fighter he’d once been. But that was in the future. On February 20, 1976, the story involved Ali against an unknown Flemish challenger, a young man who had been grinning nonstop since December.

“Until the bell sounded, I thought I could win,” Coopman said in Stephen Brunt’s 2005 book, Facing Ali. “But two seconds after the bell sounded, he knew I was nothing more than a fly. I wanted to spend four or five rounds just putting on the pressure and blocking the shots. But against Ali it didn’t work.” Ali’s punches, Coopman recalled, “came from all sides, from all angles.”

Ali established his superiority in the opening round, landing hard jabs and right leads, rarely missing as Coopman came straight to him, face first, his hands low. Coopman was the sort of opponent Ali devoured, shorter at 5-foot-11 and a plodder. Now and then, Ali would wiggle his ass to amuse the crowd or lay on the ropes for a “rope-a-dope” moment. In the second, Ali landed a flurry of bolo punches and slaps that froze Coopman in mid-ring.

Perhaps trying to stretch out the evening for CBS’ sake, Ali eased up in Rounds 3 and 4. The Puerto Rican fans, estimated at 11,500 or so, began whistling and jeering. Coopman, a purplish lump forming under his left eye, could only shamble across the ring after Ali, an obedient draft horse trudging in the mud.

In the fifth, Ali got up on his toes and started circling his opponent, sticking his jab into Coopman’s face. Ali was heavy and some of his gracefulness was gone, but this added movement seemed to invigorate him. After landing about 15 consecutive jabs, Ali battered Coopman with an eight-punch combination — left-right, left-right, left-right, left-right, blindingly quick, the final punch connecting on Coopman’s temple — followed by a dismissive shove, as if to say, “I’m done with you.”

Faster than you could say “Karl Mildenberger," Coopman was on his knees being counted out. Coopman said after the fight, “It felt like 500 pounds fell on my head.”

The end was so sudden that people may not have appreciated the absolute beauty of it. It was nearly vintage Ali, a brief summoning of the old brilliance, the final right hand thrown like he was christening a yacht. Bored, sick and fat, the champion was still too quick and clever for the likes of Coopman.

Ali patted Coopman’s back as the defeated challenger was led to his corner. While the ring filled up with police officers, photographers, broadcast people and members of both camps, Ali sauntered through the mob, stood in his own corner and ... yawned. As if the fight had kept him up past his bedtime.

Ali praised Coopman as a “nice man” and said, “I’m sorry we had to fight.” When a CBS commentator asked Ali about his ever-growing fame, Ali was blasé. “It’s all good while it lasts,” he said, “but you can’t let it go to your head.”

Coopman sat quietly next to Ali at the post-fight press gathering. His big night was over. The witch had failed him.

Though he would return to Belgium and face criticism for the way he lost, Coopman enjoyed a kind of celebrity, as all fighters did when they faced Ali, as if his fame was so large that it could only rub off on them. Though he was recognized briefly as the heavyweight champion of Europe, Coopman spun off in the usual direction of faded boxers: running around with beautiful women, making bad investments, losing fights. Aside from a gimmicky bout in 1999 — a six-round draw with Freddy De Kerpel when both were in their 50s — he put boxing aside and returned to his artwork, which is probably where he’d always belonged. Coopman’s final record was 36-16-2.

Strangely, the biggest take from the fight was a rumor that Coopman drank champagne between rounds. He denied it, saying he was only rinsing his mouth with it. He did swallow some by the final round, Coopman said, just to give himself a boost, what he called “euphoria.” Whether he was the least qualified man to challenge for the heavyweight championship is hard to say, but regarding the champagne story, Coopman gave new meaning to the term “punch drunk.”

Sportswriters dismissed the fight as a farce and forgot about it. A few newspapers dubbed it “The Yawn in San Juan.” CBS, though, was happy. The network’s fight coverage finished 12th in the week’s Nielsen ratings, just behind Happy Days and Baretta but ahead of The Waltons and Kojak. Most impressive was the 10-10:30 p.m. slot that aired the fight and drew a staggering 45% share of the national audience. The number was remarkable for a fight no one wanted, proof that Ali was not a mere athlete but a pop culture institution.

As for Ali, he left Puerto Rico and resumed his chaotic personal life. There were taxes, expenses, wives and girlfriends, along with the not-so-small matter of his skills and his health slipping away. The Coopman fight notwithstanding, the remainder of his career would be unimaginably hard.

Three days after the fight, Ali was in Manhattan again for another press conference. This time, he was announcing the new Ali doll. When asked about his future, he said he would fight a few more times and retire.

“I’m going out on top,” Ali said, claiming he would “buy a bowtie and a briefcase and go lecture in the colleges.”

It was a fine plan. But not one he followed.