The ring was set up in a sandlot baseball stadium, surrounded by rickety bleachers and folding chairs.

Someone had forgotten the bell, so they rang a cowbell to begin and end rounds. Someone else had forgotten the key to the padlock for the gate, so the crowd waited two hours to get in.

It was Dec. 11, 1981, a quarter-century ago.

And Muhammad Ali was in denial.

``I'm going to dance all night,'' he said.

The site was the Bahamas, where Ali had been lured by a promoter with shady connections who was promising him US$6 million to resurrect his career. Being on the road, though, was nothing new because Ali had travelled the world engaging in epic fights.

But the Rumble in the Jungle and Thrilla in Manila now seemed a million miles away.

He was once _ and would later be _ The Greatest. But now he was a 39-year-old who couldn't run more than three kilometres and whose once-bombastic voice had been reduced to almost a mumble.

Trevor Berbick was in the ring with him. His real opponent was Father Time.

Ali's wife and mother had urged him not to fight. So, in a way, did the television networks who refused to show it and the various boxing commissions who forced the fight out of the country.

But the money was good, and Ali couldn't live with the thought that he was going to be remembered last for the beating he took at the hands of Larry Holmes a little more than a year earlier.

``He wanted to go out on top,'' longtime confidante Gene Kilroy said. ``He had so much pride, so much class.''

What Ali didn't have was anything left.

The body had gone soft, and the reflexes had slowed. Worse yet, there were concerns about both his health and his brain.

A doctor in England claimed that an analysis of samples of Ali's voice over the years showed a deterioration in brain cells. When he talked, Ali sounded at times like he was speaking through a mouthful of oatmeal.

``I'm tired,'' Ali acknowledged. ``This is hard work for somebody my age. Naturally, I talk slower when I'm tired. But I still make sense, don't I? I'm not one of them punch-drunk fighters. My face is still pretty, no marks on it. Besides, I went to some white doctors, so white people would believe me. Went to the Mayo Clinic. Went to Columbia, S.C. Went to New York. Went to UCLA. You can't get better than that, can you?''

Promoters released copies of a medical exam Ali took at UCLA after Holmes beat him to show he was well enough to fight. A pathologist who was introduced to Ali by actor Clint Eastwood examined him and was on hand at a workout to say everything was OK.

``There is no evidence of any damage to any vital organ or system,'' the doctor said.

Ali, though, knew what people were thinking.

``You listen to me talk,'' he told reporters. ``Do I sound like I have brain damage?''

The beating he had taken from Holmes under the lights in a parking lot at Caesars Palace 14 months earlier was still fresh in the minds of most. None more than Ali, who didn't want the last image of himself in the ring to be one of sitting on his stool in a corner after Holmes was through with him.

Ali came into the ring against Holmes weighing 217 pounds and looking like he had peeled 10 years off his body. He later blamed problems on taking thyroid medicine that allowed him to drop 36 pounds for that fight.

Ali was always the master of illusion. But on this stormy night in the Bahamas, he would weigh 236\, the heaviest fighting weight of his career.

The bag of tricks had run empty.

Holmes was among those watching the fight on closed circuit in Pennsylvania. He was once Ali's sparring partner, and even when the two fought he did his best not to hurt Ali too badly.

``I had feelings for him. I had love in my heart,'' Holmes said. ``I didn't try to hurt or kill him, but Berbick had none of that.''

Berbick was young, and he was strong. Ali would tell Kilroy later that he knew it was over early when the two men went into a clinch.

``When my body went against his, mine was so soft and his so hard,'' Ali said.

The fight was billed as the ``Drama in Bahama,'' but there was no drama on this night.

Ali lasted the 10 rounds, but he paid the price. Berbick was unskilled but still able to land hard punches to his body and head. He pushed Ali around the ring, and walked through his efforts to clinch and hold.

At the beginning of the 10th round, somebody yelled out, ``This is the last round of his life.''

When the last cowbell rang, Berbick had won an easy 10-round decision.

The man who had defeated the fearsome Sonny Liston and the awesome George Foreman was done. Even The Greatest couldn't beat his biggest enemy, Father Time.

``I did good for a 40-year-old,'' a subdued Ali said. ``He was too strong. I could feel the youth. Age is slipping up on me.''

Later, Ali sat with his 13-year-old daughter, Maryum, on his lap. She was in tears as reporters asked Ali what he would tell her.

``I'd tell her it could have been worse,'' Ali said. ``I just couldn't do what I wanted to do.''

Twenty-one years after he won a gold medal in the 1960 Olympics in Rome, it was finally over. He had begun his career as a brash young heavyweight named Cassius Clay who promised to shock the world.

He did shock the world, beating Liston not once but twice. Then he made the world fall in love with him, and became the most recognized athlete ever.

But now, Ali knew the time had come.

``This is it,'' he sighed. ``I don't think I'll change my mind.''