It was nearing lunchtime in Dublin on July 19, 1972. The boxers had all weighed in, and the ring — acquired from an amateur boxing club in the town of Edenderry – had been erected.Muhammad Ali was going to take on Al ‘Blue’ Lewis at Croke Park, a venue more famous as the home of Gaelic games but now hosting a major boxing match for the first time in its storied history.Both men were shortly due to be ferried to the stadium from their hotels when a pertinent question was raised: Where were the gloves?A rather essential part of a fight night was nowhere to be seen. Nobody had sorted them. And, to make matters worse, there were no gloves of sufficient quality anywhere to be found in the Irish capital.A call had to be made to London, to the headquarters of the British Boxing Board of Control, to see if they had any lying around. They were in luck. The gloves were sent immediately to the airport to be flown to Dublin.The fight started late, but Croke Park did ultimately get its big night with Muhammad Ali.Muhammad Ali in action against Al ‘Blue’ Lewis in July 1972 (Don Morley/Allsport/Getty Images)The 82,000-capacity stadium has not hosted a bout since, but today Katie Taylor brings down the curtain on her remarkable career by following in the footsteps of Ali when she takes on Flora Pili of France.It will be an emotional night, and a fitting send-off for a woman who has changed the face of her sport, but it will need to be very special to eclipse Croke Park’s previous dalliance with boxing in the week Ireland and Muhammad Ali enjoyed a whirlwind romance.It was at an Irish pub in Shepherd’s Bush, west London, where the first discussions took place about bringing the most famous sportsmen on the planet to Ireland for a fight.In his book, The Big Fight: When Ali Conquered Ireland, Dave Hannigan writes about how Kerry-born Michael ‘Butty’ Sugrue, a circus strongman and London publican, met with Ali’s promoter, Harold Conrad.Conrad had dealt with many people who thought they could bring Ali to their country or city. Initially, he felt Sugrue was another man making promises he couldn’t deliver.However, Ali was not averse to boxing abroad. He was in the middle of rebuilding his career after his defeat by Joe Frazier and chasing a rematch with his great foe. At 30, he had lost just once but this was before ‘The Rumble in the Jungle’ and ‘The Thrilla in Manilla’, and his reputation in the U.S. was bruised by his refusal to be drafted into the military for the Vietnam War.In the end, the deal got done: Sugrue put up $300,000 to secure Ali, and on July 11, the US fighter arrived on Irish soil. He was handed a shillelagh – a traditional walking stick also used for fighting – and his Eire love affair began.Michael ‘Butty’ Sugrue paid Ali $300,000 to come to Ireland (Evening Standard/Hulton Archive/Getty Images)“Muhammad couldn’t wait to get to Ireland,” Gene Kilroy, Ali’s former business manager, nicknamed ‘The Facilitator’, tells The Athletic from his home in Las Vegas. “His great-grandfather was a man called Abe Grady (who hailed from Ennis in County Clare before emigrating to the U.S.), so he thought it was special.“I got some of the team to wear green jackets when we stepped off the plane. That was my idea and the people loved it.”