ReviewUp Close: The TAG Heuer Carrera Caliber 5 Ring Master ‘Muhammad Ali’

“I hated every minute of training, but I said: Don’t quit. Suffer now and live the rest of your life as a champion.” Rephrase that today and you’ll probably say “Don’t crack under pressure”.
Muhammad Ali was not just one of the greatest heavyweight boxers of all time, he was also one of the most decorated personalities of the 20th century. A vocal civil rights activist with a legendary never-back-down attitude, his demise left many of his fans in tears earlier this year. However, at a charity boxing event hosted in October, TAG Heuer found the perfect way to pay tribute to the legend.

Held at Gleason’s Gym – Brooklyn’s legendary boxing club and Ali’s old stomping ground, TAG Heuer unveiled a collection of special edition steel watches in honor of the most decorated sportsperson in history. Inspired by the brand’s first watch made for boxing in the 1950s, we got a chance to take a closer look at TAG Heuer’s tribute to the great man, and the new member of the Carrera Caliber 5 family – the Ring Master Muhammad Ali. Hit or a miss? Let’s find out:

Design – Inspired by TAG’s first boxing stopwatch:

The design of the watch is inspired a lot by TAG’s very first stopwatch called the “Heuer Ring Master” – a stopwatch that showed different increments of time on the inner bezel itself. Of course, they discontinued it after a few years and only a handful of examples exist of this stopwatch today (if you happen to own one, keep it safe).

Now you might ask what do the patterned colors on the dial signify and how does this watch work? But before we explain that to you, let’s give you a crash course in how heavyweight boxing is timed:

Boxing bouts (or matches), back in the days used to consist of 15 rounds of 3 minutes each, with a one-minute break at the end of every round. Therefore each bout would be 15 X 4 = 60 minutes long. And that’s exactly what you see on the coloured inner bezel – 15 rounds divided into 4 minutes each.

How it works:
Therefore, timing each round on the Ring Master is extremely simple. All the wearer has to do is rotate the inner bezel by using a special crown at 10 o’clock, and line the ‘Round’ number with the minute hand. The watch would then automatically give the wearer accurate timings of each round without hassle.

However we see not one, but two sets of inner bezels. That’s because most amateur boxing and women’s boxing bouts have two-minute rounds instead of three – therefore this watch can time either competition. Markings in cream have 2-minute segments with a one-minute break in black, while the red markings denote three-minute rounds with a one-minute break also in black.

Though bouts today are only 12 rounds short, TAG still went ahead with the ‘15’ round original layout on the Muhammad Ali watch.

Signature Carrera Case with a Special Caseback:

Apart from the overall ‘boxing – stopwatch’ theme, the case design is straight out of TAG’s iconic Carrera collection – featuring a 43mm stainless steel case with long, straight lugs and a perfectly round bezel. Of course, the obvious addition to the case was the crown at 10, but apart from that, the hands and indices are in line with what we’ve seen on the Carrera for so many years.

Running this watch is also one of Carrera’s most celebrated movements: the Calibre 5 – a Swiss Made automatic calibre having an accuracy of 28,800 vph and a decent power reserve of 38 hours. The Calibre 5 is protected by a very special portrait of Muhammad Ali engraved on the case-back.

Point of debate: Was TAG too early to launch this partnership?

The biggest talking point of this launch was the timing of this partnership. People obviously were quick to criticise TAG Heuer for this release that wasn’t far (at least a couple of years) away from the great man’s passing, but we feel that’s being too harsh on the brand.

This partnership was, in fact, penned prior to his demise by Jean-Claude Biver, who is a boxing enthusiast and a great admirer of Ali himself. The watch was intended to be released in front of the great man’s eyes, but they obviously hadn’t foreseen the unfortunate future. TAG had even decided to delay the launch indefinitely after his passing, but they found the right time to release this watch by auctioning a few watches to raise funds for Muhammad Ali’s trust.

Love it or hate it, the Ring Master is going to be more of a hit than a miss among watch collectors and particularly Muhammad Ali fans.

Price and Availability:

The TAG Heuer Muhammad Ali watch is priced at INR 204,400 in India and is available in limited quantities at Ethos Watch Boutiques.

Would you have this watch in your collection? Let us know in the comments section below!

(Image Courtesy: TAG Heuer)