Hollander, since you posted this, I'll post about an encounter I had with another former heavyweight champ:

I had an early morning business meeting in LIsle, ILL, outside Chicago, in '87. I was waiting at O'Hare for my return flight to Newark in the early p.m. I looked up and, standing less than 100 feet from where I was sitting, was Muhammed Ali. He had quit boxing more than five years earlier, but he was still one of the most famous men in the world, and certainly the most recognizable American. And yet, there he was, standing stock-still, all by himself--no entourage, no bodyguards, no fans. From that distance he looked great--he hadn't gone to fat like most former heavyweights, no gray in his hair, face unmarked, nose not flattened. But he looked completely lost--a million miles away. After a couple of minutes, a little middle-aged woman showed up, took him by his wrist and elbow, and turned him in another direction. Just then, a few little kids spotted him and came running. A ghost of a smile crossed Ali's face, but he still looked a million miles away.

He'd been diagnosed with Parkinson's by then, and "Mask Face" is one of Parkinson's symptoms. But that lost look--that seeming helplessness--was a sad reminder of all the blows he'd absorbed during his career.