Muhammad Ali

gigatos | February 10, 2022

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Summary

Muhammad Ali (originally Cassius Marcellus Clay Jr., January 17, 1942 Louisville, Kentucky – June 3, 2016) was an American heavyweight boxer. Ali was a three-time world professional heavyweight champion, widely regarded as one of the greatest boxers and most outstanding athletes of all time. He adopted the name Muhammad Ali in 1964 after converting to Islam, but also went by the name Cassius X before that.

As an amateur boxer, Ali won gold in the heavy middleweight division at the 1960 Rome Olympics. After turning professional, he held the world heavyweight title on three occasions. He won his first world title with a technical knockout of Sonny Liston in 1964. However, he lost the title in 1967 after refusing to take part in the Vietnam War. Ali also lost his boxing licence, which meant that he did not fight again until 1970. After his return, he won the world title back from George Foreman in 1974. He became the first heavyweight world champion since Floyd Patterson to win back a title he once lost. In 1978 he lost his title to Leon Spinks, but won it back in a rematch, after which he announced his retirement from boxing. However, he made a comeback and lost the 1980 world title fight to Larry Holmes.

Ali was known as a boxer especially for his speed, which he used to make up for his technical deficiencies. Early in his career, Ali often dropped his guard and fought with his hands down, trying to dodge his opponent”s punches. Later in his career, he relied heavily on his punching power. After his career, Ali was diagnosed with Parkinson”s disease, but there is no certainty about the impact of his boxing background on the disease.

Muhammad Ali has been honoured in many ways since his career: he was rated “best boxer” and “best fighter” by The Ring in 1997. Sports Illustrated voted him “Sportsman of the Century” in 1999. In the same year, the French newspaper L”Équipe ranked Ali second, the Finnish newspaper Helsingin Sanomat third and the Swedish newspaper Dagens Nyheter seventh on its list of the greatest sportsmen of the century. He lit the Olympic flame in Atlanta in 1996 and was named boxing king by the WBC in 2012.

Cassius Marcellus Clay Jr. was born on 17 January 1942 in Louisville, Kentucky. According to a memoir published in 1975, after giving birth, Odessa”s mother was initially delivered of the wrong baby, which she noticed on the name tag. She called the nurses, who soon brought the real baby to her: ”I knew right away that something was wrong because the other baby was so quiet and kind. As soon as Cassius came, he cried so loudly that he made all the babies in the ward cry,” Odessa later said.

Cassius Clay”s family included his father Cassius Marcellus Clay Senior, who supported the family by working as a sign painter, and his younger brother Rudolph (later Rahaman Ali). Cassius Sr. considered himself an artist and also painted murals for Louisville Baptist churches. The family lived on the west side of town. According to Cassius Sr., their home was in the best neighborhood he could afford. His father”s profession provided the family with a reasonable standard of living, although Ali claimed in his 1975 memoirs that he grew up poor and specifically denied that his family belonged to the so-called ”black middle class”.

According to Rahaman, racism was commonplace in Louisville, but despite this, the boys only faced racism when moving around certain areas of the city. At the time, segregation was still allowed in Kentucky. At the age of 13, Clay saw a picture on the cover of Life magazine of a 14-year-old black boy who had been murdered for whistling at white girls. The memory of the picture haunted him for years.

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First contact with boxing

Cassius Clay Sr. often used to take his son to see the lamppost on which former heavyweight world champion Joe Louis was said to have leaned when talking to people on the street. On one occasion, the father asked his son Cassius to touch the pole, after which his talking is said to have increased. The verbal irritation of an opponent (trash talk in sporting terms) later became an essential part of Clay”s boxing career.

Martin taught Clay how to box, but Clay also occasionally trained with black trainer Fred Stoner. Stoner, who owned the boxing gym, taught Clay to move in the ring like a dancer.

According to Chuck Bodak, an amateur promoter, Clay made an immediate impression on him when he saw the young boxer fight for the first time at the National Golden Gloves Tournament in Chicago: ”You had to be blind not to see the boy”s talent”. Bob Surkein, who judged for the Amateur Association, had the same thing to say about Clay”s talent: “After watching him in the ring a few times, I knew there was something special about this young man.”

Future World Heavyweight Champion Jimmy Ellis, from Louisville, became friends with Clay during his amateur career. According to him, Clay never behaved aggressively outside the ring, although he was already prone to loud defiance and self-loathing. According to Ellis, Clay took his training seriously.

In September 1958, Clay began attending Lousville Central High School. He graduated in June 1960 with low grades and finished at the bottom of his class. In fact, he was the 376th highest-graded student in his class out of 391. Clay received above average marks only for his health.

Expectations were rewarded, as Clay won the Olympic gold medal in the heavy middleweight division. He won his first three fights, two of them by points and one by knockout in the second round. Clay emerged as one of the tournament favourites after defeating the reigning Olympic middleweight champion, Soviet Gennady Satkov, by a landslide. In the final, he defeated the experienced Polish boxer Zbigniew Pietrzykowski, a three-time European boxing champion. Clay”s victory did not receive much attention in the US media, but he became a well-known figure in the Olympic village, where he used to shake hands and get to know other athletes as he passed by.

Clay was so proud of his medal that he kept it around his neck at all times. He walked the streets of Rome with it and on his return to the United States he wore it around his neck as he stepped off the plane. “I didn”t take it off for 48 hours. I even wore it in bed. I didn”t sleep very well because I had to sleep on my back so the medal wouldn”t cut me. But I didn”t care, I was an Olympic champion,” said Clay. When a Soviet journalist asked Clay how he felt about winning a medal in a country where he couldn”t go to all the restaurants because of the colour of his skin, Clay replied: “Tell your readers that qualified experts are working on that problem right now, and I”m not worried about the outcome. The United States is better than any other country in the world, including yours.” Later, in his 1975 biography, Ali claimed he threw his medal into the Ohio River when a Louisville restaurant refused to serve him because of racial segregation. Ali later said he lost the medal or someone stole it.

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Starting a professional career and gathering influencers

The group of investors was known as the Louisville Sponsoring Group and consisted of eleven white men, ten of whom were millionaires. All the partners in the company, except Faversham, invested $2,800. Faversham paid $1,400 less because he had worked to organise the company. Clay earned a signing bonus of $10 000. In addition to other bonuses, Clay was guaranteed a monthly salary of $333. For the first four years, profits were split equally, but after that, under the agreement, Clay would receive 60% and investors 40% of his profits. The deal was considered fair in its day, and was equal to that offered by Reynolds.

Just three days after signing the contract on October 29, 1960, Clay fought his first professional fight. He defeated Tunney Hunsaker, a police officer, in a six-round bout on points. Clay trained for the fight under Fred Stoner, but Clay”s backers wanted someone more experienced to replace him and chose boxer Archie Moore. The business group sent their investment to a training camp run by boxer Moore in California near San Diego. The camp was colloquially known as the ”salt mines” and Dick Sadler (who later rose to fame as George Foreman”s manager) was to act as assistant trainer. Clay did not like the primitive camp and left after getting tired of scrubbing floors and washing dishes. According to coach Angelo Dundee, the turning point was when Moore told Clay to clean the kitchen. Clay refused because, in his own words, he wouldn”t even help his own mother in the kitchen. According to Moore, he did not have the resources to provide staff to take care of the chores at the training camp, so each camper had to take turns doing their share of the housework. “I tried to push him to be disciplined, but that was something that Ali would never accept: he was always trying to boss his superiors, the people he worked with. Frankly, the kid needed a good spanking, but I don”t know who would have given him one.”

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Clay won his next two matches and faced Duke Sabedong in Las Vegas in the seventh match of his professional career. There Clay met show wrestler Gorgeous George, who was a guest on the same radio show. Gorgeous George threatened to “destroy” his opponent in his next fight. “I had never been shy in my speeches, but then I realised that if I made any more threats, people would pay anything to see me,” recalled Ali Hauser in a biography written by Ali Hauser. Coach Dundee helped Clay in the media game by pointing him to the right journalists to help the young boxer”s career progress.

After Miteff, Clay faced Willi Besmanoff, and promised before the fight that “Besmanoff will be knocked out in the seventh round”. Besmanoff tired early in the fight and, according to biographer Thomas Hauser, Clay had to postpone the fight because of his promise to the media. Coach Dundee didn”t like his fighter”s “antics”, but the incident boosted Clay”s reputation to such an extent that Madison Square Garden decided to take him on as a fighter. His opponent was Sonny Banks, whom Clay promised to knock out in the fourth round. On February 10, 1962, Cassius Clay faced Sonny Banks, whose punch knocked him to the canvas for the first time in his professional career in the first round of the fight. However, Clay recovered quickly and won the fight by technical knockout in the fourth round. On 28 February 1962, Clay fought Don Warner and knocked out his experienced opponent in the fourth round. Before the fight, however, Clay had promised to knock Warner out in the fifth round. When reporters asked Clay why the “prediction” did not come true, he said he was angry because Warner did not shake his hand before the fight. According to Angelo Dundee, Clay claimed that he was reduced one round because of unsportsmanlike conduct. Clay then won on April 23, 1963, by knocking out George Logan in Los Angeles. On the same trip, Clay met photographer Howard Bingham, who was working as a freelance photographer for Life and Sports Illustrated magazines. He became a good friend of Clay”s and over the next few decades took over five hundred thousand photographs of her.

After Logan, Clay beat Billy Daniels in New York and Alejando Lavorante in Los Angeles. At this point, Clay”s backers decided that their protégé was ready to face the experienced Archie Moore, who had previously trained Clay. According to biographer Thomas Hauser, it was a typical fight between a rising star and a well-known boxer who had seen his prime. Clay had only fought fifteen fights as a professional, while Moore had more than two hundred fights under his belt. The fight took place on 15 November 1962. Before the fight, Clay announced in rhyme that he would knock Moore out in the fourth round. Moore had earlier in August expressed his desire to gag Clay. Moore”s tactic was to strike as many blows to the body as possible. He tried to wear Clay down by moving, but the speed of his opponent forced Moore to tie up, leaving his head exposed. Clay knocked Moore out in the fourth round. The fight was watched by 16 200 spectators. Former world heavyweight champion Jack Dempsey was also present. After the fight, Dempsey told the press that he didn”t care whether Clay could box or not because he made things “great again”.

Two months later, Clay knocked out Charlie Powell in Pittsburgh. He then fought Doug Jones in New York, where a newspaper strike made it difficult to promote the fight. Without newspapers, Clay had to promote the fight not only through TV interviews but also by visiting public places such as nightclubs and bowling alleys. Despite the newspaper blackout, the match was a success, as the Garden was exceptionally sold out. According to journalist A. J. Liebling, he had not seen anything like it since Joe Louis and Rocky Marciano faced each other in the same arena in 1951. Clay had promised to knock Jones out in the fourth round, but the fight went the full round and ended in a points victory for Clay. During the fight, the public turned against Clay and soon afterwards the local newspapers began to criticise his personality. “The very nice and well-liked Clay has damaged his public image with endless rhetoric, and it”s high time he changed his style,” wrote Arthur Daley of the New York Times.

First world championship

On 25 September 1962, Cassius Clay travelled to Chicago to watch the world championship match between champion Floyd Patterson and challenger Sonny Liston. Liston defeated Patterson in two minutes. After the fight, Clay got in the ring and challenged the newly crowned champion to a title shot. Liston next decided to face Patterson in a rematch, which took place in Las Vegas. Clay was also there and continued his teasing. After defeating Patterson for the second time, Liston accepted Clay”s challenge. The contract for the fight was signed on November 5, 1963. Gordon Davidson, a lawyer who was part of Clay”s sponsorship team, said at the press conference following the signing that the decision to go to the fight came from Clay himself. From the sponsoring company”s point of view, the world title fight came too soon, but the fighter refused to listen to their views: ”We came to the conclusion that Cassius didn”t even want to develop into the best boxer in the world. He just wants to get rich. Whether it”s wise or not, it”s his career and he”s made his choice.”

Cassius Clay was only 22 years old and had only fought 19 professional fights when he fought for the first time for the world heavyweight boxing championship on February 25, 1964 in Miami Beach. During his short professional career, Clay had twice been on the canvas against boxers considered mediocre and the Liston fight was expected to be one-sided. Boxing experts generally did not believe in the challenger”s chances and the odds were 7-1 in favour of Liston. According to Las Vegas bookmakers, only one in five bettors were betting on the winner of the fight and the rest were betting on which round Liston would knock Clay out. Many were also amused by Clay”s extraordinary confidence. She declared early on that she was the next heavyweight champion of the world, describing herself as “I am the greatest, I am the most beautiful!” Liston said she was only worried about her fist getting stuck in the challenger”s big mouth.

When asked by a journalist if he was afraid of Liston, Clay replied: “Blacks are much more afraid of whites than blacks”. Clay later admitted that he considered Liston a formidable opponent. In preparation for the fight, Clay studied Liston”s fighting style and observed his movements outside the ring. He wanted to confuse the world champion and insulted his opponent in order to anger him. “I thought that was the way to make him mad: in the fight he would just want to beat me up and forget how to fight.” Before the fight, Clay started calling Liston an “ugly bear”. He also attracted attention by barging into Liston”s gym and even his home in Denver. On the latter occasion, Clay called every Denver newspaper and television station from a phone booth. She posed as an old lady and told Cassius Clay that she was going to “break into Liston”s den at night.” Clay took a bear claw and a fur coat and went into Liston”s yard, but Liston, armed with a poker, told him to leave. The police arrived before the situation escalated.

In the first round of the match, Clay avoided the aggressive Liston and dodged his solid blows. By the start of the third round, Clay was leading the fight and had Liston”s eyebrows bleeding. The most dramatic moment of the fight came after the fourth round when Clay”s eye started to show symptoms. He returned to his corner and claimed he couldn”t see anything. It is not known for sure what caused the loss of vision, but Angelo Dundee believes that Liston”s shoulder cream got into his eyes through Clay”s own gloves. Clay was leading the fight by a large margin on points, but was nevertheless ready to quit. However, Dundee refused to stop the fight and rinsed Clay”s reddening eyes and urged him to continue. By the middle of the fifth round, his eyes were fine again and in the sixth round, Clay took a clear victory. At the start of the seventh round, Liston never left his corner and Cassius Clay was declared the new heavyweight champion of the world. The reason for Liston”s retirement was a sore shoulder. The fight was tied at the end of the round according to the scores of the ring referee and the judges.

After winning the world championship, Clay boasted that he had shaken the world and asked the crowd, shouting, who is the greatest now. As the result of the match was surprising, rumours of a betting scam organised by the Liston camp began to circulate in the press. However, Las Vegas bookmakers confirmed that no suspiciously large sums of money had been bet on Clay.

The match took place on 25 May 1965. The fight was more straightforward than the previous one, but also more controversial, as Ali beat Liston by knockout in the first round. During the fight Ali hit Liston with three powerful shots, the last of which was a right straight to the face that sent Liston to the canvas. After the knockdown, however, Ali did not go into a neutral corner but stayed beside his beaten opponent and defied him. Ring referee Jersey Joe Walcott was so surprised by the situation that he forgot to start the count. Walcott tried to push Ali away from Liston when he should have refused to start the count until the champion had gone to a neutral corner. After 17 seconds in the canvas, Liston got up and the fight continued for a while until Ring magazine publisher Nat Fleischer shouted that Liston had been knocked out. After a discussion, Walcott declared Ali the winner of the fight by knockout. Two years after the fight, Liston explained that he did not get up from the canvas because Ali remained standing next to him: “Everyone knows Ali is a nutter. You can predict the movements of a normal person, but you never know about a madman”. Liston had again been the bookies” favourite.

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Defending the championship

Muhammad Ali defended his title against two-time world champion Floyd Patterson, 30, at the Las Vegas Convention Hall on 22 November 1965. The marketing of the match took a nasty turn when Patterson announced his intention to “return the championship belt to the American people”. Patterson wrote an article in Sports Illustrated magazine in which he expressed his contempt for the Nation of Islam and said that the ”black Muslim” world champion was disgracing both his country and his sport with his speeches. Ali had no respect for Patterson, who he said had betrayed his race by moving to an ethnically white neighbourhood.

Relations between the fighters became even more strained when Patterson continued to use the name Cassius Clay. Ali could not tolerate Patterson”s behaviour as he had insisted that everyone call him by his new name. A week before the fight, Ali threatened to punish Patterson for the allegations he made in his letter, saying he would hit him “so hard he”d need a shoe horn to put his hat on”. Ali continued to taunt Patterson throughout the long fight, which ended in Ali”s favour in the 12th round with a technical knockout. It has been suggested that Ali was deliberately prolonging the fight rather than trying to get a quick knockout win. The media didn”t like the fight, with New York Times editor Robert Lipsyte likening Ali to a little boy who rips the wings off a butterfly one by one.

Next, Ali had to face Ernie Terrell, who held the WBA world title that was stolen from Ali. However, the fight, originally scheduled to take place in Chicago, had to be cancelled. Ali defended his title in Toronto on 29 March 1966 when he defeated Canadian George Chuvalo on points. After the fight, Ali”s military service controversy continued to escalate and his next three fights were decided to take place in Europe. Challenger Henry Cooper was knocked out in the sixth round by Ali Ali defeated Karl Mildenberger by a 10th round knockout on 10 September 1966 in Frankfurt am Main. Mildenberger was the first southpaw challenger in boxing history, and his style caused Ali some problems. Ali faced his next two challengers in Houston. On 14 November 1966 he knocked out Cleveland Williams in the 3rd round. Ali”s backers would not have wanted him to fight Williams, known for his powerful punches, but Ali said he could not consider himself a champion if he did not beat Williams. Williams, however, was a shadow of his former self, having suffered a gunshot wound a few years earlier and undergone four operations. According to sports journalist Jerry Izenberg, Ali knew Williams was in bad shape and had his own doubts about the fight. Izenberg urged Ali to knock Williams out as quickly as possible. The fight was watched by 35 460 people, a record for an indoor boxing match in its day. After the fight, Ali expressed his desire to end his career after defeating his next opponent, WBA world champion Ernie Terrell. After his retirement, he intended to dedicate his life to the Nation of Islam.

Ali defended his title for the ninth and last time against Zora Folley on 22 March 1967 in New York. For the first two rounds, Ali watched his opponent and studied his movements, then dominated the fight. Folley managed to hit Ali more times than any of her previous opponents. Ali knocked his opponent out in the seventh round, after which Folley”s young son was brought into the ring to watch his father. Seeing the downcast look on the boy”s face, Ali told him to be proud of his father for putting on a great fight.

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Loss of championship and withdrawal of licence

At the summoning ceremony on 28 April 1967, Ali refused three times to answer the summoning authorities” roll call, and was warned that he would be punished if he refused. When Ali failed to respond on the fourth occasion, he was arrested. Ali was released after posting bail of $5,000 on condition that he not leave the United States. Just hours after the call-up, the New York Athletic Commission revoked Ali”s boxing licence and refused to recognise him as world champion. Other states followed suit and Ali lost his world title. Later in June, Ali was sentenced to five years in prison and fined ten thousand dollars, the maximum sentence possible. The confiscation of his passport effectively ended Ali”s boxing career, as the boxing commissions in his home country would not issue him a permit to fight. He was forced to take a three-year break from boxing. Ali was released on bail.

Ali”s biographer Jonathan Eig has concluded that the fear of the phenomenon escalating was behind Ali”s unusually harsh treatment. Authorities feared that if Ali had been granted an exemption from service, it might have encouraged other blacks to join the Nation of Islam. He has used old FBI documents dealing with Ali as his source.

Another World Championship: the Rumble in the Jungle

The match between Ali and George Foreman took place in the historic African capital of Zaire, Kinshasa, on 30 October 1974. The fight was advertised as Rumble in the Jungle, a name coined by the fight”s promoter Don King, who was at the time a relatively unknown name in the boxing world. King promised Ali and Foreman a five million dollar purse for the fight, but had to find an outside backer because he himself was broke. Zaire”s President Mobutu Sese Seko announced that he would guarantee the money and provide an outdoor arena for 60 000 spectators, as he wanted Zaire to be the first country to sponsor a major boxing match in Africa.

Ali was again a challenger and an underdog, and no one believed in his chances of winning a second title. Foreman went into the match as the clear favourite. Younger and bigger than Ali (190 cm and 100 kg), Foreman”s dominance was also reflected in the fact that he had previously only needed two rounds to knock out Joe Frazier and Ken Norton. Ali had lost once to each of them, and all their encounters had been very evenly matched. “Everyone assumes this guy will crush me, but ten years ago they said the same thing about Sonny Liston,” Ali said before the fight. The pre-fight marketing was also reminiscent of the Ali-Liston fight. Ali publicly called his opponent a slow mummy and bragged that the world champion had no chance against him. Foreman, on the other hand, was malicious and blunt.

The match had to be postponed for six weeks because Foreman suffered an open wound in his eye while sparring. The injury even led to rumours that the match would be cancelled and privately Ali was already looking forward to returning to the US. In public, however, he continued to praise Zaire and its people. According to Ali”s doctor, Ferdie Pacheco, Ali was thoroughly enjoying his time in Africa, where the people adored him. Foreman did not adapt to Zaire as Ali did, but was annoyed to remain there as a “political prisoner”. His training camp was also located in an old army base.

In the first round of the match, Ali fought in the traditional way, moving a lot and hitting confident shots. But he soon realised that he could not beat the stronger Foreman with that style. He changed his tactics and started taking a lot of body and arm shots while lying on the ring ropes, causing Foreman, known as a powerful puncher, to run out of steam. While lying on the ropes, he was constantly insulting and annoying Foreman. In the 8th round of the fight, Ali managed to knock out a tired Foreman, becoming the first boxing world champion since Floyd Patterson to win the title again after losing it once. Ali had also managed to win over the majority of Zairean supporters before the fight. The crowd chanted throughout the match “Ali, boma ye!” (Ali, kill him) and cheered when Ali beat Foreman.

After the match, Foreman, who had never lost a match in his professional career, denied the integrity of the match. Over the years, he said his defeat was due to such things as the heavy African air, drinking water poisoned with a narcotic, Angelo Dundee”s loose body language and the referee”s too quick count. Foreman”s mental recovery from the defeat took a long time, but he eventually learned to grudgingly accept his loss to “the best man who ever lived in the boxing ring”. Ali, for his part, has said that Foreman was the most powerful puncher he had ever faced. Later, Foreman and Ali were good friends. Foreman has said that the fight taught him humility and that he was proud of his role as an important chapter in Ali”s career.

Thrilla in Manila

Ali defended his new title for the first time against the unknown Chuck Wepner, who became the fourth fighter to use Ali in a cage. Ali defeated Wepner by knockout in the 15th round. Ali next faced Joe Bugner in Kuala Lumpur on 1 July 1975 and beat the Englishman on points. Ali then boxed one of the most famous fights of his career when he faced Joe Frazier for the third time. The fight took place in warm conditions in Manila, Philippines on 1 October 1975 and is known by the name Thrilla in Manila, coined by promoter Don King. Ali was paid $4.5 million and Frazier $3.5 million for the encounter.

Thrilla in Manila received a lot of attention before the match started, when Ali publicly called Frazier illiterate and called him a “gorilla”. Frazier took each insult personally, as his children were being bullied for them, deepening the hatred between the opponents that had already blossomed in previous fights. Ali has subsequently defended himself, saying his statements were merely marketing the fight. The match”s visibility only increased when, during a visit to the President of the Philippines, Ali brought with him to the reception a model called Veronica Porche, who had been hired by Don King to promote the match. The President thought she was Ali”s wife and said she was beautiful. Ali didn”t even try to correct the mistake. The furore forced him to hold a press conference in which he said he was only responsible for his girlfriend to his wife Belinda and no one else. Later, Belinda travelled to Manila to meet her husband and during the one-day meeting, Belinda, according to many sources, attacked Ali. However, the altercation did not distract Ali from the fight, which took place at an agreed time.

Ali dominated the start of the match, although he didn”t move as much as in his previous matches. In his memoirs he said that he would never have lasted the 15-round fight against Frazier if he had moved more; he also says that his assistant Dick Sadler (George Foreman”s former manager) had helped him with the strength training, and that less movement is part of power boxing. Halfway through the fight Frazier managed to take control of the fight. Ali then tried to keep hitting Frazier in the face, which caused Frazier”s eyes to swell in the 11th round. In the final 13th and 14th rounds of the fight, he could no longer see anything. Ali won the fight with a technical knockout when Frazier”s trainer Eddie Futch threw in the towel during the break between the 14th and 15th rounds. Ali said Frazier gave up just before he did: “I didn”t think I could have continued the fight.” After his victory, Ali got up from his chair to show his jubilation, but he was exhausted by the heat of the fight and fell into the arms of his assistant.

The final encounter between Ali and Frazier is considered one of the most famous boxing matches of all time: it was named Match of the Year by The Ring magazine and was first on Time magazine”s list of the “Top 10 Boxing Matches”. After the fight Ali said Joe Frazier was “the best boxer in the world after me”, described him as his toughest opponent and said he had been “closer to death than ever” during the fight.

Muhammad Ali is thought to have suffered serious injuries during the physically demanding Thrilla In Manila, which may have affected the rest of his career. For example, Ali did not attend the press conference immediately after the fight and his assistants had to inform the champion that he was too tired. When he finally turned up for the press conference, he did not talk as much as before.

Second championship defences

However, Ali did not stop his career just yet and defended his title by knocking out Jean-Pierre Coopman of Belgium in February 1976. Ali then fought Jimmy Young. Young fought defensively and Ali, who weighed 104 kg, was in no fit condition to fight. Ali won the fight on points, but trainer Angelo Dundee criticised his protégé”s performance, calling it the worst of his career. Less than a month later, he defeated Englishman Richard Dunn by a fifth round knockout, the last knockout win of Ali”s career.

Ali next fought in Japan in what was billed as a “martial arts championship match” against Antonio Inoki, a freestyle wrestler. The main motivator for the fight was money: Ali was promised $6 million for the fight, but ended up with only $2.2 million. The rules of the match required Ali to box and Inoki to wrestle, which meant that Ali”s opponent stayed on the ground throughout the match and focused on kicking Ali”s legs. Ali only landed six punches and landed two punches. In the end, the 15 round match was declared a draw. After the match, Ali”s left leg swelled due to a blood blister that, despite medical advice, was not properly treated.

Ali fought Ken Norton for the third time in September 1976. Norton dominated the early part of the fight, but Ali managed to take the win with a last round clincher that finally turned the judges in his favour. Norton did not swallow the verdict but was disappointed that the judges “gave the win to Ali because he made the boxing industry a lot of money.” Ali won by scores of 8-7, 8-7, 8-6-1. After the fight, Sports Illustrated”s Mark Kram opined that Ali would no longer be the “people”s champion” he had been marketed as after this fight. He also believed that Ali”s career had now come to an end: “This time, it was only raw experience that saved him from defeat”. Seven months later, Ali defeated the inexperienced Alfredo Evangelista on points.

On 29 September 1977, Ali defended his title against Earnie Shavers, considered the hardest hitter in the world after George Foreman. Ali won the 15-round bout at Madison Square Garden on a points decision. Shavers described Ali after the fight as a bad champion who was just “posturing and not fighting well”. His trainer Frank Luca said the judges had also robbed his protégé of the title, as they had done earlier in the fight between Ali and Norton.

Third World Championship: matches against Spinks

In the championship fight in Las Vegas on February 15, 1978, Ali lost his title by points to Leon Spinks, the gold medalist of the Montreal Olympics, who had only eight professional fights (7 wins, 1 draw), in a fight that is considered one of the biggest surprises in boxing history. Ali had originally not even wanted to face the inexperienced Spinks for fear of being ridiculed. Spinks” only merit was an Olympic gold medal and as a professional he was not even ranked among the top ten boxers in the world. However, he agreed after Spinks had first fought Scott LeDoux to a draw. The contract was worth 3.5 million to Ali and only 320 000 to Spinks.

Despite Ali”s presence, the fight was a tough sell, as only CBS television was interested in the rights. The marketing of the fight was also hampered by Ali”s “confidentiality pledge”. He had initially tried to sell the fight to the public as a “gold medal fight”, since the boxers he had beaten, Patterson, Frazier and Foreman, had also won Olympic gold. When this failed to generate the desired interest, Ali decided to hold a public school of silence, because threatening to beat Spinks would have made him look ridiculous. Not believing in his opponent”s chances of victory, Ali cut back on training, sparring only twenty rounds against training opponents.

Ali started the match as usual by dancing around his opponent and throwing a few punches. Halfway through the match he decided to try his rope-a-dope tactics and was left lying on the ropes. Spinks didn”t start punching Ali in the body, however, but tried to hit him in the shoulders and biceps every chance he got, to render Ali”s dreaded jab ineffective. In the last five rounds, Spinks was able to attack directly towards Ali”s punches, which, according to a Sports Illustrated reporter, resembled “more pushing than punching”. By the eighth round, Ali had already told his coach that his opponent was too young. After his defeat, he admitted that he had taken a bad punch, although he did not want to belittle Spinks” abilities. Ali said Spinks made “me and a lot of other guys look like dummies”. “Of all the fights I lost, the loss to Spinks hurt the most because it was entirely my own fault. Leon fought clean, he did his best. But it was humiliating to lose to such an inexperienced boxer,” Ali told his biographer years later. He felt he could not have ended his career after such a loss.

Spinks agreed to face Ali in the first rematch, which prompted another major boxing federation, the WBC, to strip him of the title, as Ken Norton was listed as the first challenger on their list. Ali therefore fought Spinks only for the WBA world title. The rematch took place on 15 September 1978 in New Orleans and grossed $4 806 675 for the promoters, breaking the record set by Jack Dempsey and Gene Tunney years earlier. This time Ali was well prepared. He had trained harder than he had in years and said publicly that the fight would be the last of his career. The 36-year-old Ali beat Spinks by a wide margin, becoming the first boxer to win the world heavyweight title three times. The fight itself has been described as slow-paced. TV journalist Howard Cosell called it unworthy: “Ali won by unanimous decision of the judges and neither man even boxed properly.”

In the eyes of posterity, Ali”s defeat to Spinks has been justified by underestimating his opponent and also by a momentary indifference. It has also been claimed that the match was a foregone conclusion, as the subsequent rematch earned the promoters almost five million dollars.

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One last comeback and two defeats

After his Spinks victory, Ali”s retirement seemed very likely. He didn”t officially announce it until nine months after the fight on 26 June 1979. According to WBA rules, Ali would have had to defend his title by September or relinquish it. “Everybody gets old sometimes. I want to focus on my family, my children and my achievements. It would be foolish to continue boxing,” Ali explained his decision. According to rumours, promoter Bob Arum paid him $300,000 to quit. Ali has denied this, but Arum has said he paid the money directly to Ali”s manager. The payment was also widely reported in the US.

However, on 5 November 1980, it was announced that Muhammad Ali was to challenge John Tate for the world heavyweight title. The fight was due to take place in June, but just three days after the announcement, plans suddenly changed when Ali suffered a sparring injury to his upper lip tissue. Ten stitches were needed to repair the wound. Later in March, Tate lost his world title to Mike Weaver, who was also being considered as Ali”s next opponent. However, attention soon turned to Larry Holmes, who was widely regarded as the true world heavyweight champion. Holmes and Ali knew each other from the past, as Holmes had sparred with Ali from 1973-1975.

Two years after his last fight in October 1980, Ali returned to the ring. At stake was Holmes” WBC world heavyweight title and Ali”s goal of becoming the first four-time world heavyweight champion in history. The fight was billed as The Last Hurrah. The fight contract guaranteed Al eight million dollars and world champion Holmes five million dollars. The world title fight was attended by more than 24,000 spectators at the Caesar”s Palace in Las Vegas on October 2, 1980, and grossed a record $5,766,125 at the box office. When he entered the ring, Ali weighed 98 kilos, less than at any time since the Rumble in the Jungle. Ali had dyed his greying hair darker and threatened to knock out Holmes. His apparent youth and confidence meant that the betting odds were only 13-10 in favour of Holmes in the end. However, the match turned out to be a disaster for Ali. The younger Holmes dominated the ring events and undermined Al in the ninth round. After the tenth round, coach Angelo Dundee asked the referee to stop the fight. “After the first round I realized I was in trouble. I was tired; I just couldn”t do it,” Ali told his biographer. But he didn”t want to stop the fight. “But I think he (Angelo) was probably right, because in the end I probably would have just hurt myself even more,” Ali said. After the fight, Holmes went into Ali”s dressing room and said he was really sorry for beating him up and that he loved him. Despite his victory, Holmes was depressed and later said he was more proud of sparring with young Ali than beating old Ali.

Ali wanted to end his career as a winner and blamed the Holmes defeat on poor medication. This time, however, the Nevada Athletic Commission refused to grant Ali a licence to fight, so the fight between him and Trevor Berbick took place in Nassau, Bahamas. On 11 December 1981, Berbick was clearly more active than Ali. Ali lost the last fight of his career by unanimous points. At a press conference after the match, the 40-year-old Ali announced the end of his career. He said he was pleased not to have been beaten in his last match. “I know this is it: I”m not an idiot. After Holmes, I made up all sorts of excuses. I was too light, I wasn”t breathing properly. Now the excuses don”t work anymore.”

During his professional career, Muhammad Ali won 56 fights, 37 of them by knockout. He lost only 5 fights, three of them in his last five fights. In addition, Ali had managed to win three rematches against opponents he had lost to in the first round.

Muhammad Ali has been called the most famous man in the world. He was known as a charismatic entertainer. In addition to his skills, he is remembered for his trash talk and confident quotes. He famously called himself ”I Am The Greatest” and said he ”moved like a butterfly and stung like a wasp”. Ali”s deliberately arrogant style not only appealed to the public, but also differed from previous black sports stars who had appeared in public with restraint.

Ali”s reputation changed dramatically during his lifetime, partly reflecting the political climate in the United States. When he announced that he had joined the Nation of Islam and refused to join the armed forces in 1965, he is said to have been the most hated man in the United States, or at least in ”white America”. At the time, the vast majority of Americans still supported the Vietnam War. According to biographer Thomas Hauser, Ali”s public image before his conversion ”appealed to the white population of the country”. Also, according to boxing promoter Harold Conrad, Ali was once known as a “good black man” who could be encouraged by whites. After the announcement of the membership and the name change, sports journalist Jimmy Cannon wrote that he “despised” Ali and was “horrified” by what he stood for. Promoter Harry Markson, for his part, deplored Ali”s antics: “We”ve done a tremendous amount of work to get rid of racial barriers, so it”s a shame to see a heavyweight champion preaching for the white frog.” Some spectators came to his fights only to see him lose.

By the 1970s, public opinion in the United States had turned against the Vietnam War. Ali had lost three and a half years of his career and estimated millions of dollars in match fees. According to biographer Jonathan Eig, people at the time began to see Ali as a martyr when he returned in 1971 and lost to Joe Frazier. In 1974, Ali”s second world title was greeted with enthusiasm. Ten years earlier, young Ali had been seen as a poor role model for young people, but now he was beginning to be recognised for his skills. Sports journalist Maury Allen compared Ali to larger-than-life sports heroes such as Joe Louis and Jackie Robinson, calling him a national hero. President Gerald Ford also invited him to visit the White House. Ford”s invitation was an effort to heal a country divided by the Vietnam War and the Watergate scandal.

At least after his career, Ali was widely seen as a much loved and respected figure. In his later years, Ali suffered from Parkinson”s syndrome and often appeared fragile in public, which, according to biographer Jonathan Eig, certainly contributed to his after-image. In Eig”s view, the ageing and ailing Ali was seen by people as a victim and a kind of martyr, whose every public appearance was seen as a kind of bravery. However, Eig found it problematic to elevate Ali to the status of a saint, because he was, after all, a human being.

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Converting to Muslim and changing your name

Muhammad Ali”s mother was a Baptist and his father a Methodist, but the children were raised Baptist like their mother. According to Ali, his mother took him to church every Sunday and taught him Christian values, such as that hate and prejudice are wrong. Ali himself said in his biography that after converting to Islam he changed his religion and some of his beliefs, but still believed in the same God as his mother.

Ali told several different versions of what led him to convert to Islam during his lifetime. In a letter to his second wife sometime in the late 1960s, he said he had been reading Muhammad Speaks, a magazine published by the Nation of Islam, and described a cartoon that appeared in the December 1961 issue of the magazine. In the cartoon, black slaves were forced to abandon their original religion and worship Jesus. “I liked the cartoon. It did something for me. And it made sense,” Ali wrote. Ali later told his biographer: “I happened to glance at the NOI newspaper before I went to the Olympics. I didn”t pay much attention to it at the time, but all sorts of things started to go through my mind”.

Cassius Clay first went to a mosque in 1961 in Overtown, Miami, at the invitation of Sam Saxon (later Adbul Rahama), a member of the Nation of Islam (the so-called Black Muslims). Clay was impressed by what he saw and heard. According to the organization”s Muslim missionaries, Christianity was a white religion forced by slave owners on their black slaves, whose original religion was Islam. After that, Clay regularly read the organisation”s magazine and began attending its meetings.

In 1962, Saxon invited Clay and his Rudolph brothers to a gathering in Detroit, where Clay met Malcolm X for the first time. According to Malcolm X”s widow, Betty Shabazz, Malcolm loved Clay like a brother and taught him self-respect. The friends later drifted apart over differences between Elijah Muhammad and Malcolm X, with the young world champion deciding to succeed Elijah Muhammad. According to biographer Jonathan Eig, Ali”s attitude towards Malcolm turned cold after this and he had said he “deserved to die”. Nevertheless, when Malcolm X was assassinated in 1965, Ali regretted that they never patched things up.

Clay kept his membership a secret for three years before the World Cup because both the Nation of Islam and Clay himself knew that membership could interfere with the title match. Rumours of Clay”s membership started even before the first Liston match. In 1963, the Philadelphia Daily News was the first to report that Clay had attended a protest organised by the Nation of Islam in Philadelphia. The news received little attention because at this point Clay had not yet fought Liston and the Nation of Islam was not well known. The issue became more controversial when Clay was a speaker at a meeting of the organisation on 21 January 1964 in New York, where he travelled with Malcolm X. After the meeting, Clay admitted to the Louisville Courier-Journal that he had been involved with and liked the Muslim organisation, but would not comment on his own religious beliefs. However, reporter Pat Putnam learned from Clay”s father that his son has converted to Muslimism and plans to change his name after the title fight. Putnam claimed to have received death threats because of the story he wrote. Bill MacDonald, the promoter of the first Liston fight, threatened to cancel the whole fight because of the rumours if Clay did not renounce the Nation of Islam, which Clay refused to do. The dispute was finally resolved when Malcolm X agreed to leave Miami for the time before the fight to calm things down.

Just one day after his championship match, Clay announced that he had joined the organisation and would give up his name, which he called “slave name”. He announced that he had changed his name to Cassius X. On 6 March 1964, Nation of Islam leader Elijah Muhammad announced on the radio that the name Cassius Clay had no sacred meaning and gave him the new name Muhammad Ali. Muhammad meant “worthy of praise” and Ali in turn was a reference to the Prophet Muhammad”s cousin, Caliph Ali ibn Abi Talib, Ali explained his name to his biographer. He himself regarded the name change as one of the most significant turning points in his life.

Ali also began to make statements to the press which revealed that he had adopted the radical racial views of the Nation of Islam. He believed that the integration of blacks and whites was wrong and did not approve of mixed marriages. He also said that he supported the creation of a separate state for blacks. During the first trip of his life to Africa, Ali, visiting Ghana, said everything in America was so white that he was happy “to be here with my true people”. According to sociologist Harry Edwards, it was understandable that Ali was attracted to the radical teachings of the Nation of Islam at a time when black self-esteem was growing. According to Edwards, the mainstream demanded that blacks believe in a constitution and an administration that did not work for them. “If you must have faith, at least have faith in something that supports you,” Edwards summarised. After the championship, Nation of Islam leader Elijah Muhammad”s attitude towards Clay also became more positive. He had previously accused those involved in Clay”s conversion of “messing with boxers” and urged Malcolm X to distance himself from Clay because he believed Liston would win the fight. Two days after Clay”s victory, Elijah Muhammad touted Clay”s achievement at the Nation of Islam”s annual convention in Chicago.

The name change was not received with understanding either, as most of the media and some public figures refused to use the new name. The major newspapers mainly called Ali Clay for six years after the name change. Robert Lipsyte, a boxing journalist working for the New York Times at the time, said this was because the paper”s editors did not want to use the new name until he had officially changed it. However, Ali never had to officially change his name in his lifetime, because as recently as 1964 in the US a person could simply adopt a new name without any official process. Lipsyte has later called the official line of the New York Times editors of the time embarrassing: ”Nobody asked John Wayne and Rock Hudson what their real names were”.

During his ban, Muhammad Ali became disillusioned with the Nation of Islam, from which he received little support during his difficult years. On April 4, 1969, Elijah Muhammad announced in the Nation of Islam newspaper that he had expelled Ali from the organization and banned him from using the name Muhammad Ali again. The reason given was that Ali ”wants glory in the sporting world”, and thus wants to act ”contrary to the injunctions of the Holy Qur”an”.

Over time, Ali”s religious views softened. When Elijah Muhammad died on February 25, 1975, the Nation of Islam was led by his son Wallace. Under his leadership, the organisation rejected Elijah”s radical racial views. “Previously, it had seemed as if Ali was arguing with his audience about whether or not white people were truly evil. Now Ali could say openly, ”I don”t hate white people. Things have changed,”” Herbert Muhammad told biographer Hauser. Ali”s religious views were then beginning to shift towards Sunniism Ali himself did not consider himself a true believer until 1983, after the peak years of his career and “chasing women” were behind him. In his later years he studied Sufism.

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Health

Towards the end of Muhammad Ali”s boxing career, his rhythm of speech began to slow down and he started to fade. In 2017, an extensive study by Arizona State University found that this began in 1978, when Ali was 36 years old. The study found a marked difference in Ali”s speech before and after a fight against Earnie Shavers. Ali absorbed 266 punches during the 15-round bout, more than at any time in his career, and after the fight his speech was found to have slowed by 16%. Ali”s long-time doctor Ferdie Pacheco had also noticed Ali”s speech slowing and slurring in 1978. Two years later the same was publicly noted by Ali”s father and promoter Bob Arum.

Ferdie Paccheco has repeated in various sources that he wished Ali had ended his career after Thrilla in Manila. After seeing the lab results taken from Ali by the New York Boxing Commission after the Shavers fight, Pacheco discovered that Ali”s kidneys were in very poor condition. Concerned, he wrote a letter and sent it to Ali, his manager, his wife and his trainer, but received no reply. However, he was promised that after Shavers Ali would only fight easy opponents. Exceptionally, a Madison Square Garden representative announced at a press conference after the Shavers fight that it would no longer arrange any more fights for Ali, citing the fighter”s age and the risks involved. A week later, Pacheco also quit, concerned about the world champion”s health.

When Muhammad Ali faced Larry Holmes in 1980, one of the conditions for being allowed to fight was a two-day medical examination, to which Ali was sent on 23 June 1980. The Mayo Clinic”s assessment was submitted to the Nevada Athletic Commission, which granted Ali a license. The decision was criticised by, among others, Ali”s former doctor Ferdie Pacheco. No damage to Ali”s kidneys was found, but neurological examinations revealed mild problems in the areas of speech, memory and, to some extent, coordination. A few weeks before the fight, Ali visited Herbert Muhammad”s personal physician Charles Williams. He diagnosed Ali as suffering from hypothyroidism and prescribed a course of thyroxine for treatment. The treatment accelerated Ali”s metabolism, caused him to lose weight, and led to dehydration and an increased need to urinate. The medication caused Ali”s body”s cooling mechanisms to stop working and he felt tired from the first round of the match. As a result, his body temperature rose and developed into heat stroke. According to biographer Thomas Hauser, the medication combined with the stress of the fight could have killed Ali. However, according to the doctors, the thyroxine treatment did not leave Ali with any permanent damage.

Muhammad Ali was diagnosed with mild symptoms of Parkinson”s syndrome in 1984. He himself had gone to hospital because of fatigue, hand tremors and slurred speech. After an eight-day examination, the doctor who examined Ali made it clear in a press release that he had not been diagnosed with Parkinson”s disease. He also found no evidence that the blows to her head had caused her brain damage (dementia pugilistica). The symptoms were not life-threatening and were limited to Al”s motor functions such as movement, speech and facial expressions. The physical symptoms slowed Ali”s activities, but his intelligence and memory were considered to be functioning normally. After the illness became public, Ali briefly considered a medical procedure to implant adrenal tissue in his brain. Initially he accepted the proposal, but eventually decided to abandon the plans. The probability of death from the operation would have been ten percent.

Ferdie Pacheco, Ali”s doctor for many years, believes Ali was injured because he continued boxing for too long. Dennis Cope, who examined Ali several times, and Stanley Fahn, who examined Ali in 1984, have also attributed Ali”s neurological symptoms to his boxing career. Apart from Parkinson”s syndrome, the doctors who treated Ali described his health as good in a biography published in 1991. Ali himself has said of his illness, “He (God) gave me Parkinson”s to show me that He is bigger than me and I am weak like other people.”

In February 2013, the British newspaper The Sun reported that Ali”s brother Rahman had said Ali was in particularly poor health and suspected he would die in the next few days. However, Ali”s family quickly refuted the newspaper”s claims as untrue.

Muhammad Ali died on 3 June 2016 in a hospital in Scottsdale, Arizona, where he had been taken the day before due to breathing problems. The cause of death was diagnosed as bacterial septic shock. He was buried on 10 June in his hometown of Louisville, Kentucky.

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Ali earned more money in his professional career in match fees alone than all previous world heavyweight champions combined. At best, he was paid several million for individual fights.

After winning an Olympic medal, Cassius Clay returned to Louisville with the intention of turning professional. He negotiated a sponsorship deal with Billy Reynolds, the vice president in charge of Reynolds Metals Company, but the negotiations broke down when Clay”s father intervened. Reynolds had suggested that Clay”s former coach, policeman Joe E. Martin, could be involved in his coaching, but the cop-hating Cassius Clay Sr. refused. Clay eventually made a deal with a group of investors led by Bill Faversham. Faversham was an avid boxing follower who had first noticed Clay when he won the amateur Golden Gloves in the heavyweight division in 1960. He decided to put together a group of eleven investors to support the young professional after hearing that negotiations with Billy Reynolds had broken down. The group of investors was known as the Louisville Sponsoring Group and consisted of eleven white men, ten of whom were millionaires. All the partners in the company, except Faversham, invested $2 800. Faversham paid $1,400 less because he had worked to organise the company. Clay earned a signing bonus of $10 000. In addition to other bonuses, Clay was guaranteed a monthly salary of $333. For the first four years, profits were split equally, but after that, under the agreement, Clay would receive 60% and investors 40% of his profits. The deal was considered fair in its day, and was equal to that offered by Reynolds.

In 1966, the contract between Ali and the millionaires of the Loewillows expired. The reason for the expiry of the contract has been attributed to Ali”s membership of the Nation of Islam, which the old businessmen probably found difficult to tolerate. Ali”s new manager was Jabir Herbert Muhammad, son of Nation of Islam leader Elijah Muhammad. Herbert Muhammad negotiated all of Ali”s sponsorship deals for 25 years, in addition to match contracts. Perceptions of Herbert”s professionalism vary.

Despite his great achievements, Ali”s financial situation was surprisingly poor in 1979, when he announced his retirement after the second Spinks match. Most of it had been spent on a lavish lifestyle, but the money had also been sunk in the exploitation of those around Ali and in bad contracts. Ali had signed contracts that were not favourable to him. For example, Ali did not control all the rights to use his own name. For example, he had given the rights to his name to a man called Harold Smith, who had used them on behalf of two amateur boxing organisations. It later emerged that Smith had embezzled more than $21 million from Wells Fargo Bank through the organisations. In what was the largest bank fraud in US history, Smith was sentenced to five years in prison. The ensuing furore tarnished Ali”s reputation, even though, according to the special prosecutor, he was not aware of the crimes. He did not suffer directly from the crime either, but the ensuing furore meant that the financial exploitation of him could no longer be concealed.

A 1991 biography by Thomas Hauser reported that Ali was living a financially stable life, but his situation could have been better. At that time, the family”s finances were being managed by his wife Lonnie, who had a degree in economics from the University of California. Lonnie told USA Today in 2010 that she was initially surprised by the state of her husband”s finances: “Given who he was – and those he cared about – it was understandable.”

On 17 August 1967, Ali married 17-year-old Belinda Boyd (later Khalilah Camacho-Ali), who worked in one of the Nation of Islam”s bakeries. They had four children during their marriage. During their marriage, Ali was unfaithful, which Belinda initially overlooked. “I chased women all the time. I”m not saying it was right, but the temptations were so overwhelming,” Ali told his biographer Ali met his third wife Veronica Porche after she was chosen as the poster girl for Ali and Foreman”s match. Belinda also surprised her husband Veronica at a hotel in Zaire. Porche then accompanied Ali on trips where she was claimed to be a cousin or nanny The final twist came during Ali and Frazier”s Thrilla in Manila third encounter in Manila, Philippines, where Ali and Porche attended a banquet dinner together with President Ferdinand Marcos. There were also journalists present who heard Marcos call Porche Ali”s wife without Ali correcting him. A furore ensued. Ali commented to reporters, saying he only answered for his actions to Belinda, who travelled to Manila, where they had a big fight. Belinda filed for divorce on 2 September 1976. Ali and Veronica Porche married on 19 June 1977. The couple”s first child had been born ten months earlier. They had two children during their marriage. Ali and Porche officially divorced in the summer of 1986.

On 19 November 1986, Ali married Yolanda “Lonnie” Ali, whom he had first met at the age of 21 when she was six. They were married until Ali”s death. Lonnie was a Roman Catholic in her youth, but converted to Islam at the age of 20. Ali”s daughter Laila Ali (born 30 December 1977) also began her career as a boxer. Lonnie Ali has said that before starting her career she was worried about Muhammad”s reaction to seeing her daughter in the ring.

Muhammad Ali lived his last years in Arizona and spent his time praying and reading the Koran. He spread his faith by signing several religious pamphlets for daily delivery around the world. In an interview in 2007, Lonnie Ali said the hatred of Islam that followed the September 11 attacks saddened him because he felt that hatred solved nothing.

Alin”s boxing technique was original. He often fought with his hands down and left his guard down completely, which created difficulties for his opponents. His speed allowed him to dodge punches, which often caused his opponents to lose their balance, allowing him to retaliate with his own punches. Ali didn”t care about guarding because he relied on his speed and his ability to dodge punches rather than block them. Indeed, Ali has been described as a technically poor heavyweight boxer with the speed of a welterweight boxer. “People thought I kept my hands too low and did other things wrong, but when I was younger my legs worked as a defence,” Ali told his biographer. When Ali had dodged a punch from his opponent, they often lost their balance and were left open to his precise counter-strikes.

Even as an amateur, the young Ali had the same reflexes he later became known for: ”Cassius just stood still, moved his head a few centimetres, turned his body slightly and slid past the blow. It was just unbelievable,” said Bob Surkein, an Amateur Association judge. According to coach Angelo Dundee, the style was typical of Ali, whose experiments with traditional guarding in early professional fights had not gone particularly well. Boxing coach Eddie Futch has said that Ali has perfected his own fighting style and used his strengths to his advantage. Despite his success, according to Coach Dundee, many people criticised Ali”s boxing style early in his career because they believed he could not punch. Sportswriter Billy Conn continued to criticise Ali”s boxing style in 1965, by which time Ali had become world heavyweight champion. Ali responded to the criticism by referring to his achievements. I can”t punch, I keep my guard too low, I lean backwards. But I”m still here”. World heavyweight champion Larry Holmes, who was Ali”s training partner and fought him once in 1981, described Ali as a great man but an overrated boxer. He has said Ali punched “like a butterfly”. “Joe Louis hit harder, but so did a lot of fighters who lost to Al in the ring,” noted boxing promoter Al Bernstein.

As a boxer and athlete

Ali”s reputation as a boxer and athlete remained high even after his career was over. Muhammad Ali was rated “Best Boxer” and “Best Fighter” by the prestigious martial arts magazine The Ring in 1997 and Sports Illustrated voted him “Sportsman of the Century” in 1999. When Ali took to the stage to accept the award from Illustrated at a ceremony at Madison Square Garden, seemingly awkward and moving slowly, the audience of prominent athletes began to applaud and chant his name. In 1999, L”Equipe ranked Ali second, Helsingin Sanomat third and Dagens Nyheter seventh in its list of athletes of the century. In 1999, the International Council of Sports Directors chose him as the best athlete of the century. In 2007, ESPN ranked him third on its list of the best North American athletes of the 20th century, with only Michael Jordan and baseball player Babe Ruth ranking further behind him.

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A symbol of the civil rights struggle

The meaning of Al is often seen as broader than boxing. According to sports journalist Bert Sugar, Ali was the first top American athlete to become an international superstar outside the United States. He has said that Ali represents an entire era in American history because he dared to speak his mind. He highlights Ali”s decision to refuse to enter the draft, which is seen as having cost him the peak years of his youth. “He wanted to use his talents for more than just beating people up. According to sports sociologist and civil rights activist Harry Edwards, Ali was one of the most remarkable athletes of the 20th century because he overturned traditional prejudices against black athletes. “Sports have always played a major role in American society, and Ali”s actions inspired millions of black people across the United States,” Edwards concluded.

Basketball coach John Thompson, Ali”s role model, says Ali provided a new role model for black people. Thompson says he was talented and confident, ready to stand up for his ideals when needed, which was different from previous black sports stars who had learned to appear humble in public. Civil rights activist Al Sharpton has also said that Ali provided a new role model for black athletes. He says the fact that the world heavyweight champion dared to risk his career for his own beliefs gave credibility to the whole movement. “He knew he was going to jail, and he did it willingly,” said Sharpton. Baseball star Reggie Jackson called Ali the king of top athletes and said he was in the same league as Jim Brown, Bill Russell, Wayne Gretzky, Jack Nicklaus, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Michael Jordan and Willie Mays. “These are all men who at one time dominated their sport in the same way Ali dominated the boxing ring. Even with these men, Ali would still be king. He grew up to be a bigger phenomenon than boxing. He represented much more than just the sport.” “When you talk about sport, when you talk about history, you can”t leave out Muhammad Ali. In schools, children should be taught how Ali always stood behind his ideals. He was a person everyone can be proud of, regardless of the colour of their skin or where they were born,” said baseball star Hank Aaron.

Film

Oliver Stone had already planned a film about Ali in the late 1980s, but the project never materialised. After that, the film was planned by several big-name directors, including Barry Sonnenfeld and Spike Lee, but the final director was Michael Mann. The film stars Will Smith as Ali, who spent a year preparing for his role by boxing, exercising his muscles and studying Islamic culture. Ali has said that Smith is “the only person in the world who could look like me and play me”. The final film Ali premiered on 25 December 2001. The film begins with Ali”s first encounter with Sonny Liston, tells the story of his ban from fighting and culminates with the Rumble in the Jungle match and a second world title fight for Sonny Liston.

The film was a financial disappointment, as its profits did not even cover production costs. However, the acting was praised, and at the 2002 Oscars Will Smith and Jon Voight, who played TV journalist Howard Cosell, were nominated for Best Actor and Best Supporting Actor. The film also received 22 other nominations and won seven of them, including the MTV Movie Awards for Best Actor in a Leading Role for Will Smith.

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Other performances

In 1978, the DC Comics comic book publishing house published the story Superman vs Muhammad Ali. In it, the Scrubs” space race invades Earth and threatens to destroy it if the planet”s best fighter cannot defeat their champion. Both Superman and Muhammad Ali volunteer, and the champion of Earth is decided in a match between them. In a break from tradition, Ali”s character also learned Superman”s secret identity in the story.

In 1995, EA Sports released a boxing game called Foes of Ali. No sequel was made, but since then Ali has appeared in the EA Sports-produced Knockout Kings and Fight Night boxing games.

In 1978, even before Ali had retired, the school board of his hometown of Louisville proposed that Jefferson County Public School be renamed after Ali. The idea failed to gain support, but later that year, after much debate, the city council decided to rename Walnut Street as Muhammad Ali Boulevard. The city commissioned 70 street signs to do so, twelve of which were stolen during the first week. In 2005, the Muhammad Ali Center, dedicated to reconciliation and world peace, opened in Louisville. In 2009, Ali was named an honorary citizen of the Irish town of Ennis because his grandfather”s father, Abe O”Grady, was from the town. O”Grady had emigrated to the United States and married a slave.

In 1970, after fighting in a boxing ring for the first time in three and a half years, Ali was awarded the Martin Luther King Freedom Medal. In presenting the award, Martin Luther King”s widow Coretta Scott King said that Ali was not only a champion of boxing, but also of peace and unity. In 2005, Ali was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President George W. Bush, the highest decoration awarded to a civilian by the US administration.

Muhammad Ali”s jacket and gloves, which he had worn in 1975, were donated to the Smithsonian Institution”s collections in 1976. At the donation ceremony, Ali said that his Everlast gloves would probably become the most famous attraction in the exhibition. In 2002, he received his own star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. The tribute was based on his life, which was “living theatre”. The star is the only plaque on the Hollywood Walk of Fame that is not placed on the pavement but on the wall of the Dolby Theatre – Ali did not want anyone to walk over it.

Sources