He was Muhammad Ali’s number one fan

The death of former world heavyweight champion Muhammad Ali last Saturday brought back memories of a fascinating era of a two-decade-long friendship between the celebrated American boxer and a sleek and flamboyant Soweto taxi driver called Phillip Dlamini, aka Joe Jones.

Popularly known among his peers in the pioneering days of the then budding Soweto/Joburg taxi business industry in the early ’70s, Joe Jones became a township legend when he financed his trip to then Zaire from his taxi business to watch Muhammad Ali’s world heavyweight title fight against fellow American George Foreman in Kinshasa, Zaire in 1974.

Once in Kinshasa, the Orlando East taxi driver managed to sneak through the hotel’s tight security and ended up in Ali’s section where he introduced himself to the boxer’s entourage. He told Ali’s team how he had battled through the country’s repressive bureaucratic laws against blacks to travel halfway across the continent to watch Ali win against Foreman.

So impressed was Muhammad Ali with the Soweto taxi driver’s patronage that the two men soon struck up a close relationship which immediately earned Dlamini a comfortable ringside view of the fight that ended with Ali winning on a TKO. This was the beginning of the bond that was to span over two decades between a Soweto taxi driver and Muhammad Ali, who died at the age of 74 last Saturday morning.

Three months later, after the Kinshasa fight, the Soweto-born taxi driver with his wife and their two young children were on an all-expenses-paid return trip to the US as guests of Muhammad Ali.

Meanwhile, in Soweto, Dlamini’s name soon catapulted him into instant celebrity status among his peers and admirers in the sprawling Joburg townships. Photos of him at the home of his boxing idol in the US saw Dlamini’s popularity rise beyond expectations. And in response, the Orlando East taxi driver Dlamini grasped the opportunity by offering passengers free rides in his taxi each time Ali won a boxing match.

However, the fame also brought with it many negative effects. Soon, Dlamini found himself being surrounded by many female admirers, most of whom were quite willing to take their admiration to the next level and this brought unnecessary stress to his family life.

Soon Dlamini’s life was weighed down by the extra social baggage he had gathered on his road to fame. And soon, it all blew up in his face when he showed up uninvited and drunk out of his mind at the Johannesburg hotel where Ali and his entourage were staying during his visit to South Africa in 2003.

A staunch Muslim who abhorred alcohol, Ali refused to have anything to do with the inebriated Soweto taxi driver and instructed his entourage to kick Dlamini out of the hotel.

Shunned, disgraced and embarrassed by his “childish” behaviour”, Joe Jones, whose life was already fraught with domestic disputes over his infidelity, began to sink deeper and deeper into his favourite status whisky, Jack Daniels.

And when that became too expensive to afford, Dlamini lowered his standards and drank just about anything liquid and intoxicating to keep the fading memories of his own fame and lost fortunes alive.

Phillip Dlamini, aka Joe Jones, died a broke and penniless hobo a few years later, following a perilous domestic life, but his adventures remain one of the many untold tales about our lokshin legends who took the wrong turn in life.