Summary

Muhammad Ali (originally Cassius Marcellus Clay Jr., 17 January 1942 Louisville, Kentucky, United States - 3 June 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 because he refused 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 again in a rematch. He then announced his retirement from boxing. However, Ali 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 in an attempt to avoid 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 as to the impact of his boxing background on the disease.

In addition to boxing, Ali worked as an actor, recorded music and starred in a musical. His fight against George Foreman, known as Rumble in the Jungle, was the subject of a 1997 documentary film, The Ring Kings, which won the Academy Award for Best Documentary. In 2001, the film Ali, about Muhammad Ali's life, was released, starring Will Smith. It was nominated for two Academy Awards and many other film industry awards.

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 most important 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 mother Odessa, 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'.

Father Cassius got into a few scuffles with the police for disruptive behaviour, selling mortgaged property and for assault. The parents often quarreled with each other over Cassius Sr's womanising adventures, and the father is known to have sometimes behaved violently when drunk. Cassius Sr. was the victim of drinking companions as well as his wife and sometimes his sons. Ali refused to discuss these matters with his biographer.

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.

First contact with boxing

Clay got into boxing at the age of 12 when his bicycle was stolen. In October 1954, Clay pedalled with a friend to a black rally, but on the way home Clay discovered that his bike had been stolen. He reported the incident to police officer Joe E. Martin, who was coaching young boxers in the basement of the market. According to Martin, a crying Clay was furious and wanted to beat up the bike thieves, prompting Martin to advise that he should learn to fight first. At first Martin didn't think Clay was anything special, but after a year of training he began to see the young boy's skills as remarkable. Martin attributed this to Clay's determination and motivation. "The boy was prepared to make the sacrifices required of a successful athlete and was almost impossible to discourage. Of all the youngsters I coached, he was by far the hardest worker. Clay, in his own words, trained six days a week and, thanks to boxing, stayed off drugs for the most part. Boxing fuelled Clay's ambition. Ali later said in an interview that even at the age of 12, he wanted to be famous: "I wanted to be free. I wanted to say what I wanted... I wanted to say what I wanted to say, to go where I wanted to go. I wanted to say what I wanted to say, to do what I wanted to do."

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.

Amateur boxing

After Cassius Clay fought his first fight as an amateur, his father declared that his son would be the next heavyweight champion of the world and the "new Joe Louis". In his amateur career, Clay fought 108 fights, winning 100 of them. Clay's accomplishments as an amateur include six Kentucky Golden Gloves championships in various divisions, two national middleweight Golden Gloves championships and the AAU middleweight US championship.

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 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 his studies at Louisville 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.

After graduating, Clay participated in the 1960 Rome Olympics. According to Joe Martin, Clay would not have wanted to go because he was afraid of flying. At the last minute, Clay tried to cancel the whole trip. However, Martin convinced Clay that winning the gold medal would help him become world heavyweight champion. Before the race, the US sports magazine Sports Illustrated named Clay the country's top gold medal hopeful.

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.

Starting a professional career and gathering influencers

After winning an Olympic medal, Clay returned to Louisville with the intention of turning professional. He negotiated a sponsorship deal with Billy Reynolds, 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. However, the cop-hating Cassius Clay Sr. could not agree to this. 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.

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."

After an unsuccessful training trip, Faversham called Madison Square Garden and asked Harry Markson, its boxing director, for recommendations on trainers. Markson recommended Angelo Dundee. Dundee had met Clay for the first time back in 1957 while training Willie Pastrano and for the second time in 1959, when the 17-year-old Clay had requested permission to spar against Pastrano and won a bout against the future world heavy middleweight champion. Dundee agreed, and Clay arrived shortly after signing the contract on December 19 to train at Dundee's gym in Miami, Florida. Just eight days later, Clay won the second fight of his professional career by knocking out Herb Siler in the fourth round.

At the beginning of Clay's career, Angelo Dundee tried to choose opponents who were not too far ahead of his protégé in terms of maturity, strength or speed. In his third fight, Clay knocked out Tony Espert in the third round, then Jim Robinson in the first. Around the same time, Clay was sparring with former world heavyweight champion Ingemar Johansson, who was in Miami training for his fight against Floyd Patterson. According to promoter Harald Conrad, Clay danced around Johansson, who moved awkwardly in the ring, and called him a "coward": "I'm the one who should be fighting Patterson, not you". The training session was stopped after the second round when Johansson tired himself out. Sports Illustrated editor Gilbert Rogin had also watched Clay and Johansson spar and was so impressed with the young boxer's skills that on his return to New York he praised Clay, who had only won four professional fights, to the magazine's editor as a future world champion.

Rise to challenge the world champion

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.

Clay had his first televised fight on July 22, 1961 against Alonzo Johnson. Although Clay won the ten-round bout on points, his style was criticized by sportswriters. According to Clay, he was said to be "jumping around too much for a heavyweight". In response to the criticism, Dundee advised Clay to knock out his next opponent Alex Miteff in the first round. The fight ended with Clay winning by technical knockout in the sixth round when Miteff had trouble staying on his feet. Although Miteff didn't go down in the canvas at the start of the fight, Clay's displays were enough for Sports Illustrated's Rogin to declare him a boxing "prodigy" in the magazine's pages.

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 23 April 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.

Clay had his last match before the world championship against Henry Cooper. A few days earlier, Clay had said Cooper was just a warm-up for Liston and promised to knock out his opponent in the fifth round. Clay entered the ring wearing a crown and a cape with the words "Cassius the Great" on the back. He again predicted the outcome of the fight, and promised to knock Cooper out in the fifth round. Clay began the fight in his typical probing manner. He was constantly on the move, jabbing Cooper in the face. After three rounds, Cooper was knocked out and Clay's vigilance waned. He was determined to knock his opponent out as promised only in the fifth round, so he put his hands down and danced. The behaviour irritated Clay's sponsoring company director William Faversham. Clay kept his hands down in a close fight, prompting Cooper to land a furious left hook to Clay's face. Clay fell to the canvas as the bell announced the end of the fourth round and he staggered back to his corner. During the batch break, a hole was discovered in Clay's gloves, and Coach Dundee came up with the idea to enlarge it so that Clay would have to find new gloves, giving him time to recover a little longer. "It was probably about an extra minute or so, but it was enough for him," Dundee estimates. In the end, the match went ahead despite the broken glove. In the fifth round, Clay attacked Cooper in earnest and the referee had to stop the fight at 2 minutes and 15 seconds. After the fight Ali said he underestimated Cooper, calling him the toughest opponent he had ever faced and said he considered him his first challenger.

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 did not 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 pundits 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.

Clay continued his harassment at the pre-fight weigh-in, where he shouted that he would knock Liston out in the eighth round. He arrived wearing a jacket with the words "Bear Hunter" on the back. Six men had to hold Clay down when Liston arrived at the weigh-in. Clay's heart rate was elevated. The doctor, Alexander Robbins, found Clay to be mentally unbalanced and frightened, and many others present interpreted Clay's behaviour as fear. The Miami Boxing Commission fined Clay $2,500 for his behaviour at the weigh-in.

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 instead 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.

On 19 June 1964, Ali, who changed his name, lost one of the world championship belts he held when the WBA refused to accept his decision to agree to a rematch against Liston. After the first fight, Ali's weight had risen to 105 kilos and he had to work hard to get in shape for the fight. With training, Ali's weight dropped by ten kilos and his biceps girth increased by several centimetres. The fight was scheduled for November 16, 1964, but three days before the scheduled bout, Ali suffered a medical attack due to a congenital strained inguinal hernia. Ali immediately underwent surgery, which meant that the World Cup match had to be postponed for six months. The venue also had to be changed from Boston, Massachusetts to Lewiston, Maine.

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 next to 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.

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.

In 1966, the contract between Ali and the Louisville millionaires who were his managers 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. Ali had met his future manager for the first time in 1964 after his World Cup match when he visited a shop in Chicago to have his photograph taken. Ali was impressed by Herbert Muhammad's business acumen and understanding of the boxer's ambition, and the deal was struck. Herbert Muhammad paid Ali's training expenses and received 40% of the profits from the fights.

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 match, 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.

After Sonny Liston, Terrel was considered the toughest opponent Ali had faced in his career up to that point. Despite this, Ali was the favourite to win the fight. On 6 February 1967, Ali finally faced Terrell. The match decided the WBA world title, which, if won, would make Ali the undisputed champion of his weight class. The match will be remembered in particular for the way Terrell persisted in calling Ali Cassius Clay. Ali was angered by the name-calling and the fight turned brutal. Ali couldn't knock Terrell out, but punched him in the face, causing a large gash to open above his left eye in the 6th round. After that Terrel didn't attack as aggressively. In the 8th round, Ali began to annoy the injured Terrel by shouting from range, "What's my name?" During the last round, he knocked Terrel down once, which clinched a clear points victory for him. Even before the match, Ali had given a forewarning of what was to come: "I'm going to keep on grumbling and humiliating him, and at the same time I'm going to let my mouth run. Bang! I will ask him over and over again what my name is. Pam! I will keep doing this until he calls me Muhammad Ali. I want him in the ring. He doesn't deserve a clean knockout." Terrell, who knew Ali from his amateur days, has later said he called Ali Clay by accident at first and then continued to do so just to entertain the crowd.

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.

Loss of championship and withdrawal of licence

Ali, 18 years old, had registered for the military draft in Louisville on April 18, 1960, and on March 9, 1962, he was deemed eligible for the draft. On January 24, 1964, he was ordered to take the military qualifying examination, which he failed. He also failed a retest two months later, supervised by three army psychologists. On 26 March 1964, Mr Ali was classified as a fitness category 1 Y, which meant that he was disqualified from military service. Ali's enlistment record was then transferred from Louisville to Houston, where on 17 February 1966 the authorities changed his fitness rating to 1A because the protraction of the Vietnam War had forced them to compromise the criteria for selecting soldiers. Ali's lawyer pleaded racial discrimination, and the champion himself asked for a reprieve on the grounds of his religion, since the Koran states that a Muslim may not participate in war unless it is the will of God or his messenger (by which Ali was referring to Elijah Muhammad, the leader of the Nation of Islam). However, the decision was not reversed and Ali was ordered to attend the convocation in Houston. A few hours after the order, Ali made several statements to the media. The most famous of these was Ali's response when asked by a journalist how he felt about the Viet Cong, to which Ali replied that he had no grudge against the Viet Cong. Because of his anti-war and unpatriotic statements, Ali was called for a public apology. However, he stood by his opinions and said he only regretted having expressed them to the press.

On 17 March 1966, Mr Ali applied to the draft board for exemption from military service, citing the financial difficulties that service would cause him and his family, and his religious beliefs. The petition was rejected. Mr Ali appealed against the decision. At a special session of the Appeals Board, Mr Ali justified his religious beliefs in a 21-page memorandum, which convinced the officer in charge of the session that Mr Ali was sincere in his conscientious objection. He recommended Ali's discharge from the service, but the Justice Department opposed the recommendation, citing FBI investigations that found that Ali's anti-war sentiments were based on political and racial views and that religion was a pretext.

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.

When Ali made his first comments on the Viet Cong, the United States had not yet turned against the war in general. Many people and organizations took a stand against Ali's decision. Former world boxing champion Billy Conn called Ali a disgrace to the boxing world. Pennsylvania Representative Frank Clark said he found Ali disgusting. The Chicago Tribune mounted a fierce campaign to have Clay's fight against Ernie Terrell moved out of Chicago. Governor Otto Kerney ordered the boxing commission to investigate and when Ali refused to apologize for his Viet Cong statements, Attorney General William Clark banned the fight, citing vague state sports laws. Attempts were made to move the match to Louisville, Miami, Pittsburgh and several other cities, but everywhere local politicians blocked the event. Eventually Terrell pulled out of the fight and Ali was forced to fight George Chuvalo in Toronto, Canada. As Ali's conviction was also seen as a religious issue, many Muslims came out in support of him. For example, an entourage of Cairo officials petitioned President Lyndon B. Johnson to express their hope that Ali would be released from service. Three days before the call-up, Ali called his situation God's way of testing the faith of his supporters: "Allah wants to test me. If I pass the test, I will be stronger than ever."

Ali's biographer Jonathan Eig has concluded that the fear of the phenomenon escalating was behind Ali's unusually harsh treatment. The authorities feared that if Ali had been granted exemption from service, other blacks might have joined the Nation of Islam as a result. He has used old FBI documents dealing with Ali as his source.

Time suspended 1967-1970

During his suspension, Ali delved deeper into the teachings of Elijah Muhammad, attended Nation of Islam events and visited mosques across the country. He earned his living by making television commercials, lecturing at colleges and appearing on television talk shows. He also signed a $225,000 deal for the rights to his biography and starred in the Broadway musical Buck White. The musical premiered on 2 December 1969 at the George Abbot Theatre, but was only performed for four days before it was cancelled. source? Ali was also involved in the making of the documentary about his life, A.K.A. Cassius Clay. The film was released shortly before the end of the ban.

After getting married, Ali announced that he would quit boxing and become a Muslim nun, but he tried to get his license back several more times until 1970, when he announced that he would quit boxing for good.

During the ban, Ali agreed to a computer match against retired Rocky Marciano. The fight was promoted by Murray Woroner, who had previously "hosted" computer-planned boxing matches on his well-known radio show. Woroner had fed his computer information on sixteen world heavyweight champions and used it to create a tournament which Marciano won, while Ali lost to James J. Jeffries. Because of the result, one of Ali's lawyers threatened to sue Woroner, which gave Woroner the idea of a staged fight. Ali earned ten thousand dollars and a share of the proceeds from the fight. The fight pitted the world's only undefeated heavyweight champions of the world against each other. The fight was called The Super Fight. Hundreds of sports reporters and former boxers provided information on the characteristics of each fighter, such as speed and power, for the fight. The information was fed into a computer and the machine calculated a model of how the fight could have gone.

Woroner had created the idea for radio, but he decided to take it a step further and make a film of the match. Ali and Marciano sparred against each other in the ring, showing every possible punch and set; all possible decisions (knockout, technical knockout, score and draw) were also filmed. Marciano died in a plane crash in 1969 and did not live to see the film, which premiered on 20 January 1970 in 850 cinemas in the United States. The computer-planned match was kept a big secret until the film's premiere. According to the US results, Marciano was knocked out by Ali in the 13th round after Ali had been on the canvas three times before, but in the European version Ali won. This was because, according to sports journalist and historian Bert Sugar, 'the Europeans were furious' at Marciano's victory, which is why the BBC broadcast a version in England a week after the premiere in which Ali defeated Marciano by technical knockout.

Paluu ja vuosisadan taistelu

Despite his words, Ali did not end his career, but returned to the ring even before his conviction was overturned. As there was no boxing commission in the state of Georgia, he was able to fight there without a licence. The fight in Atlanta was the result of a lengthy effort by promoter Harold Conrad, who had been trying to get Ali to fight again for three years in 22 different states. According to him, it took "nothing but money, political gamesmanship and three years of work".

Ali faced Jerry Quarry, the second challenger to world champion Joe Frazier, in his return fight in Atlanta on 26 October 1970. Ali defeated him by technical knockout in the third round. In the third round of the fight, Quarry suffered a cut on the corner of his eye. He would have liked to continue, but referee Tony Perez decided to stop the fight. Six weeks later, he faced Oscar Bonavena of Argentina in New York. The fight in New York was made possible by a court order because the NAACP had filed a federal court challenge claiming that the ban violated Ali's constitutional rights. As evidence, Ali's lawyers presented a list of 90 people who had been allowed to fight despite criminal convictions (including murder, rape, child abuse and refusal to carry a gun). In its ruling, the court found that the decision of the sports commission was deliberate, unjustified and discriminatory against the person concerned, namely Ali. On 7 December 1970, Ali defeated Bonavena at Madison Square Garden by a fifteenth round knockout. Bonavena forced Ali to chase him around the ring and managed to land more punches than any boxer who had ever fought Ali before. In the final round, however, Ali turned the fight around and used Bonavena three times in the canvas.

The first encounter between Muhammad Ali and Joe Frazier was called the Fight of the Century and took place at New York's Madison Square Garden on 8 March 1971. The fight between the two undefeated world champions attracted unprecedented attention. Tickets for the match cost $150 each, but despite the high price, they sold out a month before the match. Both fighters were guaranteed a record $2.5 million purse for the fight. It generated a profit of almost $23 million, of which ticket sales accounted for more than a million. The fight was televised in 35 countries outside the United States.

Frazier wanted to confront Ali because he felt it was the only way to gain public acceptance for his championship. During the ban, Frazier had supported Al and had participated in several publicity stunts to keep him in the limelight. He was also sympathetic to Ali's decision to refuse military service. In promoting the fight, Ali derisively referred to Frazier as "Uncle Tom", which meant a white submissive black man. Frazier didn't understand this, and despite good intentions, a feud began to develop between the pair. Using the media, Ali managed to shape the images of the fighters to reflect popular opinion: Ali represented a young, anti-war, black nation, while Frazier was the conservative, patriotic, white front-runner. The match was seen as a battle between black and white Americans, although according to Ali's biographer Thomas Hauser, Frazier was more representative of the average African-American than Ali. Frazier didn't like Ali's way of bringing things into the fight that weren't part of it, but they made it more interesting.

The match started evenly. However, Ali lost points by repeatedly leaning on the ropes and taking punches from Frazier. In the eleventh round of the fight Frazier hit Ali with a hard hook that wobbled the challenger. In the final round Ali was tired and Frazier managed to use him in the canvas. He won the fight unanimously on the judges' scorecards. Before the fight Frazier had said Ali was good, but not good enough to "escape". This was true, as Frazier stayed close to Ali throughout the fight and slowed him down with body shots. Ali was used to hitting his opponents from a distance, but Frazier stayed close to him and prevented him from using his reach. Instead of his usual jab, Ali was forced to hit Frazier with hooks that made his face swell, but were not powerful enough to win the fight. Shortly after the fight, Ali claimed that he had lost the fight by a "white man's decision" and had actually beaten Frazier on points.

At the same time, public opinion in the United States had begun to turn against the Vietnam War, and on 28 June 1971, the US Supreme Court unanimously overturned Ali's conviction. The decision ruled that Ali had refused to serve on the grounds of conscience and religion and that the sentence could not be considered reasonable. For other crimes, such as rape or murder, witness testimony showed that there were no difficulties like Ali's in obtaining a boxing licence. The decision also appealed to conservative members of the Supreme Court because its reasoning meant that the court did not have to grant conscientious objector status to all members of the Nation of Islam.

The title hunt continues

Despite the disappointment of the world title fight, Ali continued his career and defeated Jimmy Ellis by technical knockout in the 12th round of the July 26 fight at the Houston Astrodome. The fight was marketed as an "inevitable" fight because Ali and Ellis were childhood friends and knew each other well. For the first time in ten years, coach Angelo Dundee was not in Ali's corner to support him. He was Ellis's manager and coach, and with Ali's permission was allowed to work behind him in the fight. At the end of 1971, he beat Buster Mathis by a landslide on points. Promoting the fight was difficult, as the fighters got along well. Ali was considered to have let Mathis off the hook and after the fight he was criticised by the press for his compassion. Six weeks later, Ali knocked out West German Jürgen Blin in Switzerland. In 1972 he beat Mac Foster on points and then faced George Chuvalo and Jerry Quarry in a rematch, which he also won. He then fought Al Lewis in Ireland.

On 20 September, Ali faced Floyd Patterson in a rematch at New York's Madison Square Garden and knocked him out in the seventh round. Ali was next scheduled to face Al Jones in Johannesburg, South Africa in November 1972, but the fight was cancelled due to the promoter's unreliable credit record. Ali's manager Herbert Muhammad defended the decision to fight in apartheid South Africa, saying that "in the United States, black people face the same kind of crime". The cancellation meant that Ali faced Bob Foster in November 1972. Ali knocked Foster out in the eighth round, but he left Ali with a visible cut on the corner of his eye during the fight, the first of his career. Although Ali managed to win the fight by knockout, he said after the fight that he had "proved his humanity" and admitted that Foster had been a good opponent. Before his Las Vegas fight against Joe Bugner, the 'King of Rock and Roll' Elvis Presley visited Ali and gave him a match jacket to wear as he entered the ring. The glittering robe was inscribed with the words "People's Champion". Ali beat Bugner by 12 points after 12 rounds.

After ten consecutive victories, Ali's next title fight was beginning to look certain, but his chase took an unexpected step backwards when he suffered only his second career defeat to Ken Norton on 31 March 1973. Ali had trained for the fight for only three weeks, while Norton had been developing his skills by sparring with Joe Frazier. His coach, Eddie Futch, taught Norton to break down Ali's weak defence with his jab. The match will be remembered in particular for Norton's successful break of Ali's jaw. Muhammad Ali himself has said that he noticed the fracture after the second round, where Norton had managed to land a powerful hook through his guard. However, Ali continued to fight, believing he could still win, but his evasion and jaw protection cost him the fight in the end. After a six-month layoff, Ali faced Norton again in a rematch. This time Ali was well prepared, but it was still a close fight. Norton's defensive style of fighting gave Ali problems and he only managed to secure victory in the final round, which both fighters had entered on level points.

Ali fought one more fight against Rudi Lubbers before he and Frazier met for the second time in a fight known as Super Fight II on January 29, 1974. Five days before the fight, Ali and Frazier were on the ABC channel commentating on a rebroadcast of their previous fight when an argument broke out between the pair, which escalated into a scuffle. The incident received a lot of newspaper coverage and both fighters were fined $5,000 by the New York Sports Commission for their actions. The fight, like the previous two encounters, generated over $20 million for the organisers.

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, appeared vicious and blunt.

The match had to be postponed for six weeks because Foreman suffered an open wound in his eye while sparring. The injury was even rumoured to have led to the cancellation of the match 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 come to 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.

Ali also expressed his desire to quit boxing in a post-fight interview, saying, "It's too painful, too much work."

Second championship defences

However, Ali did not stop there 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 landed only 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 up 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 eventually swayed 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 a lot of money for boxing." 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 years-old record set by the Jack Dempsey-Gene Tunney fight. 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. Television 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.

One last comeback and two defeats

After his Spinks victory, Ali's retirement seemed very likely. He did not officially announce his decision 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. The 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 aimed at healing 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.

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 due to disagreements 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, Ali ibn Abi Talib, Ali explained his name in his biography. 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 his first trip to Africa in his life, Ali said when visiting Ghana that 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 late as 1964 in the US a person could simply adopt a new name without any formal process. Lipsyte has later called the line taken by the New York Times editors at 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.

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 Ali's former doctor, Ferdie Pacheco, among others. 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 in 1984 with mild symptoms of Parkinson's disease. 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 his head had caused 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 into 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.

Wealth

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 Louisville millionaires expired. The reason for the expiry of the contract has been attributed to Ali's membership of the Nation of Islam, which was probably difficult for the old businessmen 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 high earnings, Ali's financial situation was surprisingly poor in 1979, when he announced his retirement after the second Spinks match. Most of his money had been spent on a lavish lifestyle, but it had also been sunk in the exploitation of those around him and in bad deals. 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 unaware of the crimes. He also did not suffer directly from the crime, 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: "Considering who he was-and those he cared about-it was understandable."

Marriages and children

Ali was married four times and had nine recognised children.

On 3 July 1964, Ali met Sonji Roi, who worked as a waitress and photographic model, and married her two weeks later on 21 August 1964. According to Roi, Ali proposed to her during their first meeting. The marriage ended in divorce after only eleven months. Ali filed a complaint in Dade County Court in Florida, alleging, among other things, that Roi had refused to abide by the Nation of Islam's rules, which she had sworn to uphold at the start of the marriage. For example, Roi refused to abide by the organization's dress code. The final divorce took effect on 10 January 1966. Ali was ordered to pay Roi $15 000 a year for 10 years and to pay $22 500 in legal costs. Before the divorce took effect, Ali sent a message to Roi telling her that she had traded heaven for hell. Later, Roi described Ali as an "excellent husband" and said the divorce was because he questioned Elijah Muhammad's teachings and refused to obey the Muslim leaders who influenced Ali.

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, something Boyd 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. Boyd surprised her husband with Veronica at a hotel in Zaire. Porche then accompanied Ali on trips during which she was alleged to be Ali's cousin or nanny The final twist came at the third meeting of Ali and Frazier's Thrilla in Manila in Manila, Philippines, where Ali and Porche attended a banquet together with President Ferdinand Marcos. Journalists were also present and 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 Boyd, who travelled to Manila, where they had a big fight. Boyd 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 years old. They were married until Ali's death. Lonnie was a young Catholic but converted to Islam at the age of 20. Ali's daughter Laila Ali (b. 1977) began her career as a boxer. Lonnie Ali said that at the beginning of her career she was worried about how her father would react to seeing her 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 that 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 did not go 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 already 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.

After returning to the boxing ring after his suspension, Ali had increased his punching power but his speed had slowed down. According to doctor Ferdie Pacheco, "Ali lost his legs during the suspension" and as a result began to rely more on his punching power. Ali's trainer Angelo Dundee and the fighters who fought Ali both before and after the ban, Floyd Patterson and George Chuvalo, have said that Ali was a better fighter before the ban. Dundee has also regretted that the three-year ban meant that the best years of Ali's career were missed. Ali himself reckons that in the ring, the younger Ali would have been quicker to beat up the older Ali while the older version would have concentrated on defending himself against the ropes while looking for a knockout. As the older Ali began to use the rope-a-dope tactics he had developed against powerful boxers. Instead of trying to run away, he would lean on the ropes, protecting his head while taking most of the blows to his body. He took advantage of his toughness and famously used this tactic in his fight against George Foreman.

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 awkwardly and slowly moving, 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.

Both BBC (2005) and ESPN (2009) editors have ranked Muhammad Ali as the second best boxer of all time after Sugar Ray Robinson. In 2012, a special committee assembled by the WBC named Ali boxing king at the 50th anniversary of the WBC. His wife, Lonnie Ali, gave the keynote speech on his behalf.

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.

Lighting the Olympic flame

Ali was chosen in 1996 to light the Olympic flame for the Atlanta Olympics. Billy Payne, chairman of the Atlanta Organising Committee, would have preferred Evander Holyfield, but NBC's Dick Ebersol insisted on Ali, justifying his choice on the grounds of his supranational popularity: 'Muhammad Ali may well be the most beloved figure in the world after the Pope. In the Third World, he is a hero. In the Muslim world, he is a hero and a fellow pilgrim. To all young people - more or less - in the United States, he is a man of principle who was prepared to go to jail."

The night before the fire, Ali had been awake for several hours with a torch in his hand. His wife Lonnie said that "Ali felt like he had won the World Cup title for the fourth time". While holding the torch, Ali, who has Parkinson's syndrome, was visibly shaking but still managed to light the fire as the crowd applauded. The moment has been called touching and iconic.

Ali made a few more public appearances at the Atlanta Olympics after this. At half-time of the basketball match between the United States and Yugoslavia, the President of the International Olympic Committee, Juan Antonio Samaranch, presented him with a new gold medal to replace the one he had won at the 1960 Rome Olympics. Ali had previously claimed to have thrown the original medal into the river in anger at racial discrimination in the United States, but later admitted he had lost it. He was then seen watching the boxing finals at the Games.

My work

Ali also performed as a singer and actor. As early as 1963, Ali recorded the LP I Am the Greatest under the name Cassius Clay, which featured monologues and poems, as well as cover versions of songs such as Ben E. King's "Stand By Me" and Sam Cooke's "The Gang's All Here". In his monologues, Clay poked fun at his future opponent, then heavyweight champion Sonny Liston. Writer Tom Wolfe wrote of the album in Esquire magazine in October 1963: "It doesn't seem special to say that a boxer should see sport as entertainment, but few could do it properly before Ali." The album's title track was nominated for a Grammy for Best Comedy Performance. Later in 1976, Ali received his second Grammy nomination when his album The Adventures Of Ali And His Gang Vs. Mr. Tooth Decay was nominated for Best Children's Album.

In 1969, during his suspension, Ali appeared in the Broadway musical Buck White, which premiered on December 2, 1969. The musical, which dealt with current affairs, was set at a gathering of a group of militant blacks. The production, which received poor reviews, was shut down just four days after its premiere. In 1972, Ali was in negotiations with Warner Bros. Studios for the lead role in Heaven Can Wait, which would have been a remake of the 1941 film A Spirit in Search of a Home. In the film, Ali would have played a deceased boxer who is resurrected and wins the world heavyweight championship again. The original script was written by Francis Ford Coppola. However, the project was scuppered by Elijah Muhammad, who considered the reincarnation element of the film's plot to be contrary to Islamic teachings. In 1977, Ali voiced a character playing himself in the NBC-produced animated series I Am the Greatest, which ran for 13 episodes. Ali also played himself in the first film about his life, The Greatest (1977), for which he is also credited as co-writer. The film traces Ali's career from his gold medal at the Rome Olympics to the Rumble in the Jungle and his rematch for the title. In 1979, Ali played Gideon Jackson in the TV movie The Freedom Fighter. Kris Kristofferson played the other lead role.

On 26 September 1997, the acclaimed documentary film When We Were Kings, about the Rumble in the Jungle, was premiered, which not only tells the story of the fight, but also of Ali and Foreman's training for the encounter, and analyses of the fight. The Ring Kings won the Academy Award for Best Documentary, which was picked up not only by the filmmakers but also by Ali and Foreman.

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.

Other performances

In 1978, the DC Comics comic book publishing house published the story Superman vs Muhammad Ali. In it, the Scrubbies' space race invades Earth and threatens to destroy it if the best fighter on the planet 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 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

1. Muhammad Ali
2. Muhammad Ali
3. Vuosisatamme kronikka, s. 572.
4. ^ These records are shared with Joe Louis and José Napoles, respectively. Both these records were eventually beaten by Wladimir Klitschko.
5. ^ Some sources claim that Joe Louis has actually defeated 22 fighters for the world heavyweight title; that would make Louis the sole holder of the eventually broken record.
6. «Mohamed Ali: la gloria del converso al islam que se casó cuatro veces, tuvo diez hijos y murió de Parkinson». elmundo.es.
7. Панчерами называют боксёров, которые делают ставку на силу своих ударов. Чаще такие спортсмены надеются на один мощный удар, нежели на проведение комбинаций.