Throughout the course of an hour-long conversation with moderator and Phillips Lytle LLP partner Greg Peterson and fellow guest Jonathan Eig, author of the 2017 book, “Ali: A Life,” Mesi was obliged to reference some of the famous films that have helped imprint boxing on American culture.

The allusions ranged from the obvious (1976’s “Rocky”), to the classic (1962’s “Requiem for a Heavyweight”), to the modern (2010’s “The Fighter”), but all served to make the same point–that boxing and drama are one in the same.

For Mesi, who ended his career with a staggering 36-0 record while fighting professionally over the course of 10 years, the politics of the sport tell a different story than the expansive biographical work that is presented in Eig’s portrait of Muhammad Ali, the most famous athlete of the 20th century.

While in the ring in 2004 at the Mandalay Bay Resort, Mesi earned his 29th career win via a 10-round unanimous decision victory over Olympic gold medalist Vassiliy Jirov.

Long-time boxing promoter Don Elbaum makes a point at the Robert H. Jackson Center on Tuesday morning. P-J photo by Scott Kindberg

Everything was looking up from there.

“All I wanted in boxing was a world title opportunity, that was my goal,” Mesi recalled.

After flying back from Nevada to his home in Western New York, Mesi was diagnosed with a subdural hematoma that would eventually change the rest of his life.

While a variety of doctors would go on to clear Mesi to continue his boxing career, which may have been on a collision course with the likes of Mike Tyson, the rising contender was deemed unfit to box by the Nevada State Athletic Commission after his medical condition was illegitimately leaked. What ensued was a years-long legal battle that bears testimony to the dark side of boxing politics.

“Every doctor that I saw said that I was capable of fighting and continuing my career,” Mesi said. “All of these doctors examined me and took more scans and blood tests, and they all said, ‘You’re fine to fight, you are at no greater risk than any other boxer.'”

Moderator Greg Peterson, left, and Ronald Zoeller, founder and CEO of Meritain Health, shake hands at the completion of their conversation Tuesday. P-J photo by Scott Kindberg

Mesi would go on to fight seven more bouts, winning them all, overseas and in smaller markets that had not joined Nevada in deciding to blacklist the Western New York star.

“The rule, the law, needs a lot of tightening. It’s my opinion but it’s not an opinion, it’s a fact. Every boxer that has boxed at my level has suffered a subdural hematoma,” Mesi said. “That’s not a ‘fact’ because fighters don’t get tested when they exit the ring, they get tested before they go in the ring, and only once a year, for an MRI. Rules need to be changed, laws need to be changed, because what is happening right now is not appropriate.”

Much like Mesi, Ali was also prevented from boxing in his prime for reasons that have now become hallmarks of American history, including his conversion to Islam and his opposition to the Vietnam War.

But a lesser-known era of the career of “The Greatest,” bears an interesting reflection to that of “Baby” Joe.

One of the parallels that stood out to Eig when listening to how Mesi fell victim to the whims of the Nevada Commission comes from Ali’s later years in the ring.

Former undefeated heavyweight boxer Joe Mesi makes a point during the session that was entitled “Shadowboxing With History.” It was part of Continuing Legal Education Day at the Jamestown venue. P-J photo by Scott Kindberg

“We were able to see that in the second half of his career he was getting hit more than he was hitting his opponents,” said Eig. “At the end of his career, he was even asking people about the concern that his speech rate was slowing down,” added the author, who worked with speech scientists to track the degradation of Ali’s vocal ability over the course of the 1970s. “He keeps retiring and coming back. He says (Leon) Spinks is going to be his last fight, he loses and he has to fight Spinks again. That is going to be his last fight, but then he wins. In his last fight against Larry Holmes, there were a lot of questions about whether he should be licensed to fight, and that fight was in Nevada. They sent him to the Mayo Clinic for a complete workup, and the neurologists at the Mayo Clinic said he had difficulty standing on one foot, and had difficulty successfully touching his finger to his nose repeatedly.”

In the end, Ali was allowed the Holmes fight in Nevada despite his neurological condition.

While the minutiae of boxing politics forced Mesi to end his career unceremoniously, the same flighty decisions may have also contributed to an equally uncharitable end to Ali’s career.

The greatest of all time was forced to finish out his career in the Bahamas, seeking one last payday after no American athletic commissions would sanction a final fight

For both men, the seasoned advice of trainers and doctors was dismissed in favor of following the tide of boxing politics.

For Mesi, it comes as no surprise that the question he is asked most often is, “Do you miss it?”

“I can’t be that guy,” Mesi said to Tuesday’s audience, referencing the lessons of Anthony Quinn’s character in “Requiem For a Heavyweight.” “It happened and it’s over, that’s the guy I am. I’ve got a million dreams going on in my head, so in a sense it’s over, and it happened the way that it happened.”

The careers of Mesi and Ali may both offer examples of things that ought to be changed in boxing, but in a more personal sense they also offer incite into what makes fighters truly special.

Growing up and attending Sweet Home High School in Amherst, Mesi was never the athlete to jump out at those watching from the stands. In attendance at the Jackson Center was Mesi’s father, Jack, who recalled that his son may not have been the most athletically gifted, but he was always willing to out-work and out-grind his opponents.

Over the course of 800 interviews and four years of work on his critically acclaimed book, Eig surprisingly uncovered some of the same traits in Ali.

While the man formerly known as Cassius Clay may have displayed unparalleled agility and boxing acumen in his early years, the champ would struggle to catch a ball and somehow was equally not at home on the dance floor, despite his footwork after the bell rang.

And while both men may not have been born with the all the skill of their opponents, both were masters of working with what was given to them–especially when it came to promotion.

While Mesi brushed elbows with the likes of Sugar Ray Leonard and Don King in his career, he and his team always knew that there was something unmatched about the crowds that they were able to draw in Buffalo.

Recalled Mesi: “My father said that our primary focus is going to be doing fights in Western New York, and Don (King) looked at him like, ‘You’re crazy, you can’t do anything in Buffalo, there is nothing in Buffalo but the Bills, stay away from Buffalo.’ A few years later after we sold 18,000 seats, Don called us and said, “Do you need any help? Is there anything I can do for you guys?’

“These people here are special, they love their own. They came for one reason. It wasn’t boxing, it was because I’m from Tonawanda, New York. This is a unique community in this sense.”

All great boxers are able to find their niche, their selling point that no one else is able to match when it comes to promoting a fight, and for Mesi that sticking point has been his loyalty to his community.

For Ali, the selling point was, well, Ali.

“I don’t think he needed much help from anybody,” replied Eig when asked who was responsible for Ali’s rise to international fame. “One of my favorite stories about young Cassius Clay was he is 14 years old, he’s boxing in Louisville, and once a week the fights are televised. And when the fights were televised, each fighter would get five bucks. Ali would go around knocking on doors telling people, ‘I’m going to be on TV Friday night,'” said Eig.

At one point the young Clay arrived at his trainer’s house, where it was explained to him that he would only be paid five dollars no matter how many people watched him fight on television.

“Yeah,” Eig said was the young boxer’s response, “but I just want everybody to see me.”

Those in attendance had plenty to see and listen to during Tuesday’s continuing legal education seminar, which included presentations by Alan J. Bozer, a partner at Phillips Lytle LLP and a former intramural boxing co-champion in the middleweight division at Harvard University, on the fiduciarys account; Don Elbaum, a long-standing and successful boxing promoter, on his experiences with Ali, Sugar Ray Robinson and Don King; Nicolas J. Rotsko, senior associate with Phillips Lytle LLP, and Elbaum on the making of the Tony Tubbs vs. Greg Page match at War Memorial Auditorium in Buffalo in April 1985; and Ronald Zoeller, the founder and former CEO of Meritain Health on details of his recently released memoir, “All In.”

“I know the most fearful thing is leaving the dressing room and walking into the ring,” Elbaum said. “Let me tell you, when that bell rings it’s a whole different ballgame, man. There’s no drug that can make you that high.”