At first, he was just a commotion, far down State Street.
This was Chicago, circa 1968, while Ali was suspended for refusing to enter the military draft, uttering the famous line, “I ain’t got no quarrel against them Vietcong.”
I remember it as a sunny midday in Chicago, one of his cities — heck, a lot of cities were his in those heightened times — and perhaps the Champ was just out for a stroll, as I was, a young baseball writer in town with the Yanks, or maybe it was the Mets.
I had never seen Ali in person, but geez he was beautiful, big and limber and smiling, and it didn’t look like he had much else to do but walk down State Street, collecting black people and white people and brown people and young people and old people, surely not everybody in America, for he was a draft dodger and a Muslim and whatever else you wanted to call him, but he was the champion of State Street that day, the once and future champ.
That was Ali in America in the late ’60s, a lot of things wrapped up in one graceful, complicated package.
Later I got to watch him fall apart, and know him just a little bit, and once I jogged with him for, oh, maybe half a mile. These stories come back to me as I mourn Muhammad Ali.
Ali told the crowd who the little man was — Galenge Mbangu, 22, the pilot of the Air Zaire DC-10 that had flown Ali before he came home with his championship belt.
Ali told the crowd who the little man was — Galenge Mbangu, 22, the pilot of the Air Zaire DC-10 that had flown Ali before he came home with his championship belt.
“He didn’t have no blond hair and blue eyes, but we made it anyway,” Ali told the crowd, like it was still the ’60s and there were lessons to be taught.
His next fight was Trevor Berbick in the Bahamas. I was sent down to cover it, and wangled a chance to jog with Ali in the traditional predawn training regimen. Always before dawn. I was a five-mile runner in those days, and looked forward to jogging alongside the champ, who was meek and sweet now, no trace of the vitriol that Floyd Patterson and Joe Frazier had felt so viscerally.
My wife flew down a few days before the fight. The camp was highly informal, and by now, I knew everybody in the entourage. Boxing is like that. I ushered my wife into the midday alleged sparring session and was told the champ was resting on the training table, so I ushered her to the inner sanctum where Ali looked like an ancient African prince on his deathbed.
“Champ,” I said, “I’d like you to meet my wife,” and he whispered something, with barely enough energy to speak, and I motioned for Marianne to move closer, and he said something to her, and she laughed, very sweetly. What he said was, “You can do better.” (People told me it was his stock line. No matter. She was charmed. Plus, he was probably right.)
“Champ,” I said, “I’d like you to meet my wife,” and he whispered something, with barely enough energy to speak, and I motioned for Marianne to move closer, and he said something to her, and she laughed, very sweetly. What he said was, “You can do better.” (People told me it was his stock line. No matter. She was charmed. Plus, he was probably right.)
They were America, as much as anybody — race playing out between two boxers, one from a Gullah section of South Carolina, one with white roots from Kentucky.
The Champ lived a long time after that, three and a half decades, many things to many people. I would see him at banquets or sports events, escorted by his lovely wife, Lonnie. He was in there, whispering to people he knew well – Dick Schaap, Howard Cosell, Dave Anderson, Bingham — the mother wit, the intelligence that no I.Q. test could ever measure. In his later decades, he was a gentle soul, courtesy of boxing’s ravages.
He was America’s broken prince, one of our princes, anyway, and when I saw him shuffling, I always remembered the erect beautiful prince striding down State Street as the crowd chanted, yes: “Muhammad Ali is our champ! Muhammad Ali is our champ!”
*****
Muhammad Ali (
;
[5] born
Cassius Marcellus Clay, Jr., January 17, 1942 – June 3, 2016) was an American professional boxer. Early in his career, Ali was known for being an inspiring, controversial and polarizing figure both inside and outside the boxing ring.
[6][7]
Clay was born in Louisville, Kentucky, and he began training when he was 12 years old. At 22, he won the
world heavyweight championship from
Sonny Liston in
an upset in 1964. Shortly after that, Clay converted to Islam, changed his "slave" name to Ali, and gave a message of racial pride for African Americans and resistance to white domination.
[8][9]
In 1966, two years after winning the heavyweight title, Ali further antagonized the white establishment by refusing to be conscripted into the U.S. military, citing his religious beliefs and opposition to American involvement in the Vietnam War.
[8] He was eventually arrested and found guilty of draft evasion charges and stripped of his boxing titles, which he successfully
appealed in the U.S. Supreme Court where, in 1971, his conviction was overturned. Due to this hiatus, he had not fought again for nearly four years—losing a time of peak performance as an athlete. Ali's actions as a
conscientious objector to the war made him an icon for the larger counterculture generation.
[10][11]
Ali remains the only three-time
lineal world heavyweight champion; he won the title in 1964, 1974, and 1978. Between February 25, 1964, and September 19, 1964, Ali reigned as the
heavyweight boxing champion. Nicknamed "The Greatest", he was involved in several historic boxing matches.
[12] Notable among these were the first Liston fight, three with rival
Joe Frazier, and "
The Rumble in the Jungle" with
George Foreman, in which he regained titles he had been stripped of seven years earlier.
At a time when most fighters let their managers do the talking, Ali, inspired by professional wrestler
"Gorgeous George" Wagner, thrived in—and indeed craved—the spotlight, where he was often provocative and outlandish.
[13][14][15]
Ancestry, early life, and amateur career
Cassius Marcellus Clay Jr. was born on January 17, 1942, in Louisville, Kentucky.
[16] He had a sister and four brothers, including Nathaniel Clay.
[17][18] He was named for his father,
Cassius Marcellus Clay Sr., who himself was named in honor of the 19th-century Republican politician and staunch abolitionist,
Cassius Marcellus Clay, also from the state of Kentucky. Clay's paternal grandparents were John Clay and Sallie Anne Clay; Clay's sister Eva claimed that Sallie was a native of Madagascar.
[19] He was a descendant of pre-civil war era American slaves in the American South, and was predominantly of African descent, with Irish
[20] and English heritage.
[21][22][23] His father painted billboards and signs,
[16] and his mother,
Odessa O'Grady Clay, was a household domestic. Although Cassius Sr. was a Methodist, he allowed Odessa to bring up both Cassius and his younger brother
Rudolph "Rudy" Clay (later renamed Rahman Ali) as Baptists.
[24] He grew up in racial segregation with his mother recalling one occasion where he was denied a drink of water at a store, "they wouldn't give him one because of his color. That really affected him."
[8]
He was first directed toward boxing by Louisville police officer and boxing coach
Joe E. Martin,
[25] who encountered the 12-year-old fuming over a thief taking his bicycle. He told the officer he was going to "whup" the thief. The officer told him he had better learn how to box first.
[26]For the last four years of Clay's amateur career he was trained by boxing
cutman Chuck Bodak.
[27]
Clay made his amateur boxing debut in 1954.
[28] He won six Kentucky
Golden Gloves titles, two national Golden Gloves titles, an
Amateur Athletic Union national title, and the
Light Heavyweight gold medal in the
1960 Summer Olympics in Rome.
[29] Clay's amateur record was 100 wins with five losses. Ali claimed in his 1975 autobiography that shortly after his return from the Rome Olympics he threw his gold medal into the Ohio River after he and a friend were refused service at a "whites-only" restaurant and fought with a white gang. The story has since been disputed and several of Ali's friends, including
Bundini Brown and photographer
Howard Bingham, have denied it. Brown told
Sports Illustrated writer Mark Kram, "
Honkies sure bought into that one!"
Thomas Hauser's biography of Ali stated that Ali was refused service at the diner but that he lost his medal a year after he won it.
[30] Ali received a replacement medal at a basketball intermission during the
1996 Olympics in Atlanta, where he lit the torch to start the games.
Professional boxing
Early career
Clay made his professional debut on October 29, 1960, winning a six-round decision over
Tunney Hunsaker. From then until the end of 1963, Clay amassed a record of 19–0 with 15 wins by knockout. He defeated boxers including Tony Esperti,
Jim Robinson, Donnie Fleeman, Alonzo Johnson, George Logan, Willi Besmanoff, Lamar Clark,
Doug Jones and
Henry Cooper. Clay also beat his former trainer and veteran boxer
Archie Moore in a 1962 match.
These early fights were not without trials. Clay was knocked down both by
Sonny Banks and Cooper. In the Cooper fight, Clay was floored by a left hook at the end of round four and was saved by the bell. The fight with Doug Jones on March 13, 1963, was Clay's toughest fight during this stretch. The number-two and -three heavyweight contenders respectively, Clay and Jones fought on Jones' home turf at New York's Madison Square Garden. Jones staggered Clay in the first round, and the unanimous decision for Clay was greeted by boos and a rain of debris thrown into the ring (watching on closed-circuit TV, heavyweight champ Sonny Liston quipped that if he fought Clay he might get locked up for murder). The fight was later named "Fight of the Year".
In each of these fights, Clay vocally belittled his opponents and vaunted his abilities. Jones was "an ugly little man" and Cooper was a "bum". He was embarrassed to get in the ring with Alex Miteff. Madison Square Garden was "too small for me".
[31] Clay's behavior provoked the ire of many boxing fans.
[32]
After Clay left Moore's camp in 1960, partially due to Clay's refusing to do chores such as dish-washing and sweeping, he hired
Angelo Dundee, whom he had met in February 1957 during Ali's amateur career,
[33] to be his trainer. Around this time, Clay sought longtime idol
Sugar Ray Robinson to be his manager, but was rebuffed.
[34]
Heavyweight champion
By late 1963, Clay had become the top contender for Sonny Liston's title. The fight was set for February 25, 1964, in Miami. Liston was an intimidating personality, a dominating fighter with a criminal past and ties to the mob. Based on Clay's uninspired performance against Jones and Cooper in his previous two fights, and Liston's destruction of former heavyweight champion
Floyd Patterson in two first-round knock outs, Clay was a 7–1 underdog. Despite this, Clay taunted Liston during the pre-fight buildup, dubbing him "the big ugly bear". "Liston even smells like a bear", Clay said. "After I beat him I'm going to donate him to the zoo."
[35] Clay turned the pre-fight weigh-in into a circus, shouting at Liston that "someone is going to die at ringside tonight". Clay's pulse rate was measured at 120, more than double his normal 54.
[36] Many of those in attendance thought Clay's behavior stemmed from fear, and some commentators wondered if he would show up for the bout.
The outcome of the fight was a major upset. At the opening bell, Liston rushed at Clay, seemingly angry and looking for a quick knockout, but Clay's superior speed and mobility enabled him to elude Liston, making the champion miss and look awkward. At the end of the first round Clay opened up his attack and hit Liston repeatedly with jabs. Liston fought better in round two, but at the beginning of the third round Clay hit Liston with a combination that buckled his knees and opened a cut under his left eye. This was the first time Liston had ever been cut. At the end of round four, as Clay returned to his corner, he began experiencing blinding pain in his eyes and asked his trainer
Angelo Dundee to cut off his gloves. Dundee refused. It has been speculated that the problem was due to ointment used to seal Liston's cuts, perhaps deliberately applied by his corner to his gloves.
[36] Though unconfirmed,
Bert Sugar claimed that two of Liston's opponents also complained about their eyes "burning".
[37][38]
Despite Liston's attempts to knock out a blinded Clay, Clay was able to survive the fifth round until sweat and tears rinsed the irritation from his eyes. In the sixth, Clay dominated, hitting Liston repeatedly. Liston did not answer the bell for the seventh round, and Clay was declared the winner by
TKO. Liston stated that the reason he quit was an injured shoulder. Following the win, a triumphant Clay rushed to the edge of the ring and, pointing to the ringside press, shouted: "Eat your words!" He added, "I am the greatest! I shook up the world. I'm the prettiest thing that ever lived."
[39]
In winning this fight, Clay became at age 22 the youngest boxer to take the title from a reigning heavyweight champion, though
Floyd Patterson was the youngest to win the heavyweight championship at 21, during an elimination bout following
Rocky Marciano's retirement.
Mike Tyson broke both records in 1986 when he defeated
Trevor Berbick to win the heavyweight title at age 20.
Soon after the Liston fight, Clay changed his name to Muhammad Ali upon converting to Islam and affiliating with the
Nation of Islam. Ali then faced a rematch with Liston scheduled for May 1965 in Lewiston, Maine. It had been scheduled for Boston the previous November, but was postponed for six months due to Ali's emergency surgery for a hernia three days before.
[40] The fight was controversial. Midway through the first round, Liston was knocked down by a difficult-to-see blow the press dubbed a "phantom punch". Ali refused to retreat to a neutral corner, and referee
Jersey Joe Walcott did not begin the count. Liston rose after he had been down about 20 seconds, and the fight momentarily continued. But a few seconds later Walcott stopped the match, declaring Ali the winner by knockout. The entire fight lasted less than two minutes.
[41]
It has since been speculated that Liston dropped to the ground purposely. Proposed motivations include threats on his life from the Nation of Islam, that he had bet against himself and that he "took a dive" to pay off debts. Slow-motion replays show that Liston was jarred by a chopping right from Ali, although it is unclear whether the blow was a genuine knock-out punch.
[42]
Ali defended his title against former heavyweight champion
Floyd Patterson on November 22, 1965. Before the match, Ali mocked Patterson, who was widely known to call him by his former name Cassius Clay, as an "Uncle Tom", calling him "The Rabbit". Although Ali clearly had the better of Patterson, who appeared injured during the fight, the match lasted 12 rounds before being called on a technical knockout. Patterson later said he had strained his sacroiliac. Ali was criticized in the sports media for appearing to have toyed with Patterson during the fight.
[43]
Ali and then-
WBA heavyweight champion boxer
Ernie Terrell had agreed to meet for a bout in Chicago on March 29, 1966 (the WBA, one of two boxing associations, had stripped Ali of his title following his joining the Nation of Islam). But in February Ali was reclassified by the Louisville draft board as 1-A from 1-Y, and he indicated that he would refuse to serve, commenting to the press, "I ain't got nothing against no Viet Cong; no Viet Cong never called me nigger."
[44] Amidst the media and public outcry over Ali's stance, the Illinois Athletic Commission refused to sanction the fight, citing technicalities.
[45]
Ali returned to the United States to fight
Cleveland Williams in the Houston Astrodome on November 14, 1966. The bout drew a record-breaking indoor crowd of 35,460 people. Williams had once been considered among the hardest punchers in the heavyweight division, but in 1964 he had been shot at point-blank range by a Texas policeman, resulting in the loss of one kidney and 10 feet (3.0 m) of his small intestine. Ali dominated Williams, winning a third-round technical knockout in what some consider the finest performance of his career.
Ali fought Terrell in Houston on February 6, 1967. Terrell was billed as Ali's toughest opponent since Liston—unbeaten in five years and having defeated many of the boxers Ali had faced. Terrell was big, strong and had a three-inch reach advantage over Ali. During the lead up to the bout, Terrell repeatedly called Ali "Clay", much to Ali's annoyance (Ali called Cassius Clay his "slave name"). The two almost came to blows over the name issue in a pre-fight interview with
Howard Cosell. Ali seemed intent on humiliating Terrell. "I want to torture him", he said. "A clean knockout is too good for him."
[46] The fight was close until the seventh round when Ali bloodied Terrell and almost knocked him out. In the eighth round, Ali taunted Terrell, hitting him with jabs and shouting between punches, "What's my name, Uncle Tom... what's my name?" Ali won a unanimous 15-round decision. Terrell claimed that early in the fight Ali deliberately thumbed him in the eye—forcing Terrell to fight half-blind—and then, in a clinch, rubbed the wounded eye against the ropes. Because of Ali's apparent intent to prolong the fight to inflict maximum punishment, critics described the bout as "one of the ugliest boxing fights".
Tex Maule later wrote: "It was a wonderful demonstration of boxing skill and a barbarous display of cruelty." Ali denied the accusations of cruelty but, for Ali's critics, the fight provided more evidence of his arrogance.
After Ali's title defense against
Zora Folley on March 22, he was stripped of his title due to his refusal to be drafted to army service.
[16] His boxing license was also suspended by the state of New York. He was convicted of draft evasion on June 20 and sentenced to five years in prison and a $10,000 fine. He paid a bond and remained free while the verdict was being appealed.
Exile and comeback
In March of 1966, Ali refused to be inducted into the armed forces, stating that he had "no quarrel with them Vietcong".
[47] "My conscience won't let me go shoot my brother, or some darker people, or some poor hungry people in the mud for big powerful America. And shoot them for what? They never called me nigger, they never lynched me, they didn't put no dogs on me, they didn't rob me of my nationality, rape or kill my mother and father.... How can I shoot them poor people? Just take me to jail."
[48] He was systematically denied a boxing license in every state and stripped of his passport. As a result, he did not fight from March 1967 to October 1970—from ages 25 to almost 29—as his case worked its way through the appeals process. In 1971, the U.S. Supreme Court overturned his conviction in a unanimous
8–0 ruling (Thurgood Marshall recused himself, as he had been the U.S. Solicitor General at the time of Ali's conviction).
During this time of inactivity, as
opposition to the Vietnam War began to grow and Ali's stance gained sympathy, he spoke at colleges across the nation, criticizing the Vietnam War and advocating African American pride and racial justice.
On August 12, 1970, with his case still in appeal, Ali was granted a license to box by the City of Atlanta Athletic Commission, thanks to State Senator Leroy R. Johnson.
[49] Ali's first return bout was against
Jerry Quarry on October 26, resulting in a win after three rounds after Quarry was cut.
A month earlier, a victory in federal court forced the New York State Boxing Commission to reinstate Ali's license.
[50] He fought
Oscar Bonavena at Madison Square Garden in December, an uninspired performance that ended in a dramatic
TKO of Bonavena in the 15th round. The win left Ali as a top contender against heavyweight champion
Joe Frazier.
Ali and Frazier's first fight, held at the Garden on March 8, 1971, was nicknamed the "
Fight of the Century", due to the tremendous excitement surrounding a bout between two undefeated fighters, each with a legitimate claim as heavyweight champions. Veteran boxing writer John Condon called it "the greatest event I've ever worked on in my life". The bout was broadcast to 35 foreign countries; promoters granted 760 press passes.
[30]
Adding to the atmosphere were the considerable pre-fight theatrics and name calling. Ali portrayed Frazier as a "dumb tool of the white establishment". "Frazier is too ugly to be champ", Ali said. "Frazier is too dumb to be champ." Ali also frequently called Frazier an
Uncle Tom. Dave Wolf, who worked in Frazier's camp, recalled that, "Ali was saying 'the only people rooting for Joe Frazier are white people in suits, Alabama sheriffs, and members of the
Ku Klux Klan. I'm fighting for the little man in the ghetto.' Joe was sitting there, smashing his fist into the palm of his hand, saying, 'What the fuck does he know about the ghetto?'"
[30]
Ali began training at a farm near Reading, Pennsylvania, in 1971 and, finding the country setting to his liking, sought to develop a real training camp in the countryside. He found a five-acre site on a Pennsylvania country road in the village of
Deer Lake, On this site, Ali carved out what was to become his training camp, the camp where he lived and trained for all the many fights he had from 1972 on to the end of his career in the 1980s.
The Monday night fight lived up to its billing. In a preview of their two other fights, a crouching, bobbing and weaving Frazier constantly pressured Ali, getting hit regularly by Ali jabs and combinations, but relentlessly attacking and scoring repeatedly, especially to Ali's body. The fight was even in the early rounds, but Ali was taking more punishment than ever in his career. On several occasions in the early rounds he played to the crowd and shook his head "no" after he was hit. In the later rounds—in what was the first appearance of the "
rope-a-dope strategy"—Ali leaned against the ropes and absorbed punishment from Frazier, hoping to tire him. In the 11th round, Frazier connected with a left hook that wobbled Ali, but because it appeared that Ali might be clowning as he staggered backwards across the ring, Frazier hesitated to press his advantage, fearing an Ali counter-attack. In the final round, Frazier knocked Ali down with a vicious left hook, which referee Arthur Mercante said was as hard as a man can be hit. Ali was back on his feet in three seconds.
[30] Nevertheless, Ali lost by unanimous decision, his first professional defeat.
Ali's characterizations of Frazier during the lead-up to the fight cemented a personal animosity toward Ali by Frazier that lasted until Frazier's death.
[30] Frazier and his camp always considered Ali's words cruel and unfair, far beyond what was necessary to sell tickets. Shortly after the bout, in the TV studios of ABC's
Wide World of Sports during a nationally televised interview with the two boxers, Frazier rose from his chair and wrestled Ali to the floor after Ali called him ignorant.
In the same year basketball star
Wilt Chamberlain challenged Ali, and a fight was scheduled for July 26. Although the seven foot two inch tall Chamberlain had formidable physical advantages over Ali, weighing 60 pounds more and able to reach 14 inches further, Ali was able to intimidate Chamberlain into calling off the bout. This happened during a shared press conference with Chamberlain in which Ali repeatedly responded to reporters with the traditional lumberjack warning, "Timber", and said, "The tree will fall!" With these statements of confidence, Ali was able to unsettle his taller opponent into calling off the bout.
[51]
After the loss to Frazier, Ali fought Jerry Quarry, had a second bout with Floyd Patterson and faced
Bob Foster in 1972, winning a total of six fights that year. In 1973,
Ken Norton broke Ali's jaw while giving him the second loss of his career. After initially seeking retirement, Ali won a controversial decision against Norton in their second bout, leading to a rematch at Madison Square Garden on January 28, 1974, with Joe Frazier who had recently lost his title to George Foreman.
Ali was strong in the early rounds of the fight, and staggered Frazier in the second round (referee Tony Perez mistakenly thought he heard the bell ending the round and stepped between the two fighters as Ali was pressing his attack, giving Frazier time to recover). However, Frazier came on in the middle rounds, snapping Ali's head in round seven and driving him to the ropes at the end of round eight. The last four rounds saw round-to-round shifts in momentum between the two fighters. Throughout most of the bout, however, Ali was able to circle away from Frazier's dangerous left hook and to tie Frazier up when he was cornered, the latter a tactic that Frazier's camp complained of bitterly. Judges awarded Ali a unanimous decision.
Heavyweight champion (second tenure)
The defeat of Frazier set the stage for a title fight against heavyweight champion
George Foreman in
Kinshasa, Zaire, on October 30, 1974 — a bout nicknamed "
The Rumble in the Jungle". Foreman was considered one of the hardest punchers in heavyweight history. In assessing the fight, analysts pointed out that
Joe Frazier and
Ken Norton — who had given Ali four tough battles and won two of them—had been both devastated by Foreman in second round knockouts. Ali was 32 years old, and had clearly lost speed and reflexes since his twenties. Contrary to his later persona, Foreman was at the time a brooding and intimidating presence. Almost no one associated with the sport, not even Ali's long-time supporter
Howard Cosell, gave the former champion a chance of winning.
As usual, Ali was confident and colorful before the fight. He told interviewer
David Frost, "If you think the world was surprised when
Nixon resigned, wait 'til I whup Foreman's behind!"
[52]He told the press, "I've done something new for this fight. I done wrestled with an alligator, I done tussled with a whale; handcuffed lightning, thrown thunder in jail; only last week, I murdered a rock, injured a stone, hospitalized a brick; I'm so mean I make medicine sick."
[53] Ali was wildly popular in Zaire, with crowds chanting "Ali, bomaye" ("Ali, kill him") wherever he went.
Ali opened the fight moving and scoring with right crosses to Foreman's head. Then, beginning in the second round—and to the consternation of his corner—Ali retreated to the ropes and invited Foreman to hit him while covering up, clinching and counter-punching, all while verbally taunting Foreman. ("Is that all you got, George? They told me you could hit.") The move, which would later become known as the "
Rope-A-Dope", so violated conventional boxing wisdom—letting one of the hardest hitters in boxing strike at will—that at ringside writer George Plimpton thought the fight had to be fixed.
[30] Foreman, increasingly angered, threw punches that were deflected and did not land squarely. Midway through the fight, as Foreman began tiring, Ali countered more frequently and effectively with punches and flurries, which electrified the pro-Ali crowd. In the eighth round, Ali dropped an exhausted Foreman with a combination at center ring; Foreman failed to make the count. Against the odds, and amidst pandemonium in the ring, Ali had regained the title by knockout.
In reflecting on the fight, George Foreman later said: "I'll admit it. Muhammad outthought me and outfought me."
[30]
Ali's next opponents included
Chuck Wepner,
Ron Lyle, and
Joe Bugner. Wepner, a journeyman known as "The Bayonne Bleeder", stunned Ali with a knockdown in the ninth round; Ali would later say he tripped on Wepner's foot. It was a bout that would inspire
Sylvester Stallone to create the acclaimed film,
Rocky.
Ali then agreed to a third match with Joe Frazier in
Manila. The bout, known as the "
Thrilla in Manila", was held on October 1, 1975,
[16] in temperatures approaching 100 °F (38 °C). In the first rounds, Ali was aggressive, moving and exchanging blows with Frazier. However, Ali soon appeared to tire and adopted the "rope-a-dope" strategy, frequently resorting to clinches. During this part of the bout Ali did some effective counter-punching, but for the most part absorbed punishment from a relentlessly attacking Frazier. In the 12th round, Frazier began to tire, and Ali scored several sharp blows that closed Frazier's left eye and opened a cut over his right eye. With Frazier's vision now diminished, Ali dominated the 13th and 14th rounds, at times conducting what boxing historian Mike Silver called "target practice" on Frazier's head. The fight was stopped when Frazier's trainer, Eddie Futch, refused to allow Frazier to answer the bell for the 15th and final round, despite Frazier's protests. Frazier's eyes were both swollen shut. Ali, in his corner, winner by TKO, slumped on his stool, clearly spent.
An ailing Ali said afterwards that the fight "was the closest thing to dying that I know", and, when later asked if he had viewed the fight on videotape, reportedly said, "Why would I want to go back and see Hell?" After the fight he cited Frazier as "the greatest fighter of all times next to me".
Decline
Following the Manila bout, Ali fought
Jean-Pierre Coopman,
Jimmy Young, and
Richard Dunn, winning the last by knockout. Later in 1976, he participated in an exhibition bout in Tokyo against Japanese
professional wrestler and
martial artist Antonio Inoki(
Muhammad Ali vs. Antonio Inoki).
[54] Though the fight was a publicity stunt, Inoki's kicks caused bruises, two blood clots and an infection in Ali's legs.
[54] The fight was ultimately declared a draw.
[54] He fought Ken Norton for the third time at
Yankee Stadium in September 1976, where Ali won by a heavily contested decision, which was loudly booed by the audience. Afterwards, he announced he was retiring from boxing to practice his faith, having converted to
Sunni Islam after falling out with the
NOI the previous year.
[55]
After winning against
Alfredo Evangelista in May 1977, Ali struggled in his next fight against
Earnie Shavers that September, who pummeled him a few times with punches to the head. Ali won the fight by another unanimous decision, but the bout caused his longtime doctor
Ferdie Pacheco to quit after he was rebuffed for telling Ali he should retire. Pacheco was quoted as saying, "the New York State Athletic Commission gave me a report that showed Ali's kidneys were falling apart. I wrote to Angelo Dundee, Ali's trainer, his wife and Ali himself. I got nothing back in response. That's when I decided enough is enough."
[30]
In February 1978, Ali faced
Leon Spinks at the Hilton Hotel in
Las Vegas. At the time, Spinks had only seven professional fights to his credit, and had recently fought a draw with journeyman Scott LeDoux. Ali sparred less than two dozen rounds in preparation for the fight, and was seriously out of shape by the opening bell. He lost the title by split decision. A rematch followed shortly thereafter in New Orleans, which broke attendance records. Ali won a unanimous decision in an uninspiring fight, making him the first heavyweight champion to win the belt three times.
[56]
Following this win, on July 27, 1979, Ali announced his retirement from boxing. His retirement was short-lived, however; Ali announced his comeback to face
Larry Holmes for the WBC belt in an attempt to win the heavyweight championship an unprecedented fourth time. The fight was largely motivated by Ali's need for money. Boxing writer Richie Giachetti said, "Larry didn't want to fight Ali. He knew Ali had nothing left; he knew it would be a horror."
It was around this time that Ali started struggling with vocal stutters and trembling hands.
[57] The Nevada Athletic Commission (NAC) ordered that he undergo a complete physical in Las Vegas before being allowed to fight again. Ali chose instead to check into the
Mayo Clinic, who declared him fit to fight. Their opinion was accepted by the NAC on July 31, 1980, paving the way for Ali's return to the ring.
[58]
The fight took place on October 2, 1980, in
Las Vegas, with Holmes easily dominating Ali, who was weakened from thyroid medication he had taken to lose weight. Giachetti called the fight "awful... the worst sports event I ever had to cover". Actor
Sylvester Stallone at ringside said it was like watching an autopsy on a man who is still alive.
[30] Ali's trainer Angelo Dundee finally stopped the fight in the eleventh round, the only fight Ali lost by knockout. The Holmes fight is said to have contributed to Ali's
Parkinson's syndrome.
[59] Despite pleas to definitively retire, Ali fought one last time on December 11, 1981 in
Nassauagainst
Trevor Berbick, losing a ten-round decision.
[60][61][62]
Later years
On January 19, 1981, in Los Angeles, Ali talked a man down from jumping off a ninth-floor ledge, an event that made national news.
[63][64]
Around 1987, the California Bicentennial Foundation for the
U.S. Constitution selected Ali to personify the vitality of the U.S. Constitution and
Bill of Rights. Ali rode on a float at the following year's
Tournament of Roses Parade, launching the U.S. Constitution's 200th birthday commemoration.
Ali's bout with Parkinson's led to a gradual decline in Ali's health though he was still active into the early years of the millennium, even promoting his own biopic,
Ali, in 2001. Ali also contributed an on-camera segment to the
America: A Tribute to Heroes benefit concert.
On September 1, 2009, Ali visited
Ennis,
County Clare, Ireland, the home of his great-grandfather, Abe Grady, who emigrated to the U.S. in the 1860s, eventually settling in Kentucky.
[74] A crowd of 10,000 turned out for a civic reception, where Ali was made the first Honorary
Freeman of Ennis.
[75]
On July 27, 2012, Ali was a titular bearer of the
Olympic Flag during the
opening ceremonies of the
2012 Summer Olympics in London. He was helped to his feet by his wife Lonnie to stand before the flag due to his Parkinson's rendering him unable to carry it into the stadium.
[76]
Health issues and death
In February 2013, Ali's brother,
Rahman Ali, said Muhammad could no longer speak and could be dead within days.
[77] Ali's daughter, May May Ali, responded to the rumors, stating that she had talked to him on the phone the morning of February 3 and he was fine.
[78]
Ali was hospitalized in Scottsdale in June 2016, with a respiratory illness. Though his condition was initially described as "fair", his condition worsened and he died the following day aged 74. His death was attributed to
septic shock.
[83][84][85][86]
Personal life
Marriages and children
Ali was married four times and had seven daughters and two sons. Ali met his first wife,
cocktail waitress Sonji Roi, approximately one month before they married on August 14, 1964. Roi's objections to certain Muslim customs in regard to dress for women contributed to the breakup of their marriage. They divorced on January 10, 1966.
On August 17, 1967, Ali married
Belinda Boyd. After the wedding, she, like Ali, converted to Islam. She changed her name to Khalilah Ali, though she was still called Belinda by old friends and family. They had four children: Maryum (born 1968), twins Jamillah and Rasheda (born 1970), and Muhammad Ali, Jr. (born 1972).
[88] Maryum has a career as an author and rapper.
[89]
In 1975, Ali began an affair with
Veronica Porsche, an actress and model. By the summer of 1977, his second marriage was over and he had married Porsche.
[citation needed] At the time of their marriage, they had a baby girl, Hana, and Veronica was pregnant with their second child. Their second daughter,
Laila Ali, was born in December 1977. By 1986, Ali and Porsche were divorced.
[citation needed]
Laila became a boxer in 1999,
[90] despite her father's earlier comments against female boxing in 1978: "Women are not made to be hit in the breast, and face like that... the body's not made to be punched right here [patting his chest]. Get
hit in the breast...
hard... and all that."
[91]
On November 19, 1986, Ali married Yolanda ("Lonnie") Williams. They had been friends since 1964 in Louisville. They have one son, Asaad Amin, whom they adopted when Amin was five months old.
[88][92][93][94][95]
Religion and beliefs
Affiliation with the Nation of Islam
Ali said that he first heard of the
Nation of Islam (NOI) when he was fighting in the Golden Gloves tournament in Chicago in 1959, and attended his first NOI meeting in 1961. He continued to attend meetings, although keeping his involvement hidden from the public. In 1962, Clay met
Malcolm X, who soon became his spiritual and political mentor, and by the time of the first Liston fight NOI members, including Malcolm X, were visible in his entourage. This led to a story in
The Miami Herald just before the fight disclosing that Clay had joined the Nation, which nearly caused the bout to be canceled.
In fact, Clay was initially refused entry to the Nation of Islam (often called the Black Muslims at the time) due to his boxing career.
[102] However, after he won the championship from Liston in 1964, the Nation of Islam was more receptive and agreed to recruit him as a member.
[102] Shortly afterwards,
Elijah Muhammad recorded a statement that Clay would be renamed
Muhammad (one who is worthy of praise)
Ali(
Ali is the most important figure after Muhammad in
Shia view and fourth
rightly guided caliph in
Sunni view). Around that time Ali moved to the South Side of Chicago and lived in a series of houses, always near the NOI's
Mosque Maryam or Elijah Muhammad's residence. He stayed in Chicago for about 12 years.
[103]
Only a few journalists (most notably
Howard Cosell) accepted the new name at that time. Ali later announced: "Cassius Clay is my slave name."
[104] Ali's friendship with Malcolm X ended as Malcolm split with the NOI a couple of weeks after Ali joined, and Ali remained with the Nation.
[102][105] Ali later said that turning his back on Malcolm was one of the mistakes he regretted most in his life.
[106]Aligning himself with the Nation of Islam, its leader Elijah Muhammad, and a narrative that labeled the white race as the perpetrator of genocide against African Americans made Ali a target of public condemnation. The NOI was widely viewed by whites and even some African Americans as a black separatist "hate religion" with a propensity toward violence; Ali had few qualms about using his influential voice to speak NOI doctrine.[107] In a press conference articulating his opposition to the Vietnam War, Ali stated, "my enemy is the white people, not the Vietcong".[107] In relation to integration, he said: "We who follow the teachings of Elijah Muhammad don't want to be forced to integrate. Integration is wrong. We don't want to live with the white man; that's all."[108]And in relation to inter-racial marriage: "No intelligent black man or black woman in his or her right black mind wants white boys and white girls coming to their homes to marry their black sons and daughters."[108] Indeed, Ali's religious beliefs at the time included the notion that the white man was "the devil" and that white people were not "righteous".
Writer
Jerry Izenberg once noted that, "the Nation became Ali's family and Elijah Muhammad became his father. But there is an irony to the fact that while the Nation branded white people as devils, Ali had more white colleagues than most African American people did at that time in America, and continued to have them throughout his career."
[30]
Later beliefs
Ali converted from the Nation of Islam sect to mainstream
Sunni Islam in 1975. In a 2004 autobiography, written with daughter Hana Yasmeen Ali, he attributes his conversion to the shift toward Islam made by
Warith Deen Muhammad after he gained control of the Nation of Islam upon the death of
Elijah Muhammad in 1975. Later in his life, he embraced the spiritual teachings of
Universal Sufism founder
Inayat Khan.
[109]
Vietnam War and resistance to the draft
Ali registered for
the draft on his eighteenth birthday and was listed as
1-A in 1962.
[110] In 1964, he was reclassified as
1-Y (fit for service only in times of national emergency) after two mental tests found his
IQ was 78
[111] (16th
percentile), well below the
armed force's 30th-
percentile threshold.
[110] (He was quoted as saying, "I said I was the greatest, not the smartest!")
[110][111] By early 1966, the army lowered its standards to permit soldiers above the 15th percentile and Ali was again classified as 1-A.
[16][110][111] This classification meant he was now eligible for the draft and induction into the
United States Army during a time when the U.S. was involved in the
Vietnam War.
When notified of this status, Ali declared that he would refuse to serve in the army and publicly considered himself a
conscientious objector.
[16] Ali stated: "War is against the teachings of the
Holy Qur'an. I'm not trying to dodge the draft. We are not supposed to take part in no wars unless declared by
Allah or
The Messenger. We don't take part in Christian wars or wars of any unbelievers."
Appearing for his scheduled induction into the U.S. Armed Forces on April 28, 1967 in Houston, Ali refused three times to step forward at the call of his name. An officer warned him he was committing a felony punishable by five years in prison and a fine of $10,000. Once more, Ali refused to budge when his name was called. As a result, he was arrested. On the same day the
New York State Athletic Commission suspended his boxing license and stripped him of his title. Other boxing commissions followed suit. Ali would not be able to obtain a license to box in any state for over three years.
[112]
At the trial on June 20, 1967, after only 21 minutes of deliberation, the jury found Ali guilty.
[16] After a
Court of Appeals upheld the conviction, the case went to the U.S. Supreme Court.
In the years between the Appellate Court decision and the Supreme Court verdict, Ali remained free. As public opinion began turning against the war and the civil rights movement continued to gather momentum, Ali became a popular speaker at colleges and universities across the country, rare if not unprecedented for a boxer. At
Howard University, for example, he gave his popular "Black Is Best" speech to 4,000 cheering students and community intellectuals, after he was invited to speak by sociology professor
Nathan Hare on behalf of the Black Power Committee, a student protest group.
[113][114]
On June 28, 1971, the
Supreme Court in
Clay v. United States overturned Ali's conviction by a unanimous 8–0 decision (Justice
Thurgood Marshall did not participate).
[115] The decision was not based on, nor did it address, the merits of Ali's claims per se; rather, the Court held that since the Appeal Board gave no reason for the denial of a conscientious objector exemption to Ali, and that it was therefore impossible to determine which of the three basic tests for conscientious objector status offered in the Justice Department's brief that the Appeals Board relied on, Ali's conviction must be reversed.
[116]
Impact of Ali's stance
Ali's example inspired countless black Americans and others.
The New York Times columnist William Rhoden wrote, "Ali's actions changed my standard of what constituted an athlete's greatness. Possessing a killer jump shot or the ability to stop on a dime was no longer enough. What were you doing for the liberation of your people? What were you doing to help your country live up to the covenant of its founding principles?"
[11]
Recalling Ali's anti-war position,
Kareem Abdul-Jabbar said: "I remember the teachers at my high school didn't like Ali because he was so anti-establishment and he kind of thumbed his nose at authority and got away with it. The fact that he was proud to be a black man and that he had so much talent ... made some people think that he was dangerous. But for those very reasons I enjoyed him."
[117]
In speaking of the cost on Ali's career of his refusal to be drafted, his trainer Angelo Dundee said, "One thing must be taken into account when talking about Ali: He was robbed of his best years, his prime years."
[119]
NSA monitoring of Ali's communications
Boxing style
Ali had a highly unorthodox boxing style for a heavyweight, epitomized by his catchphrase "float like a butterfly, sting like a bee". Never an overpowering puncher, Ali relied early in his career on his superior hand speed, superb reflexes and constant movement, dancing and circling opponents for most of the fight, holding his hands low and lashing out with a quick, cutting left jab that he threw from unpredictable angles. His
footwork was so strong that it was extremely difficult for opponents to cut down the ring and corner Ali against the ropes.
One of Ali's greatest tricks was to make opponents overcommit by pulling straight backward from punches. Disciplined, world-class boxers chased Ali and threw themselves off balance attempting to hit him because he seemed to be an open target, only missing and leaving themselves exposed to Ali's counter punches, usually a chopping right.
[121] Slow motion replays show that this was precisely the way Sonny Liston was hit and apparently knocked out by Ali in their second fight.
[122] Ali often flaunted his movement and dancing with the "Ali Shuffle", a sort of center-ring jig.
[123]Ali's early style was so unusual that he was initially discounted because he reminded boxing writers of a lightweight, and it was assumed he would be vulnerable to big hitters like Sonny Liston.
Using a synchronizer, Jimmy Jacobs, who co-managed Mike Tyson, measured young Ali's punching speed versus Sugar Ray Robinson, a welter/middleweight, often considered the best pound-for-pound fighter in history. Ali was 25% faster than Robinson, even though Ali was 45–50 pounds heavier.
[124] Ali's punches produced approximately 1,000 pounds of force.
[125]"No matter what his opponents heard about him, they didn't realize how fast he was until they got in the ring with him", Jacobs said.
[126] The effect of Ali's punches was cumulative. Charlie Powell, who fought Ali early in Ali's career and was knocked out in the third round, said: "When he first hit me I said to myself, 'I can take two of these to get one in myself.' But in a little while I found myself getting dizzier and dizzier every time he hit me. He throws punches so easily that you don't realize how much they hurt you until it's too late."
[31]
Commenting on fighting the young Ali, George Chuvalo said: "He was just so damn fast. When he was young, he moved his legs and hands at the same time. He threw his punches when he was in motion. He'd be out of punching range, and as he moved into range he'd already begun to throw the punch. So if you waited until he got into range to punch back, he beat you every time."
[30]
Floyd Patterson said, "It's very hard to hit a moving target, and (Ali) moved all the time, with such grace, three minutes of every round for fifteen rounds. He never stopped. It was extraordinary."
[30]
Darrell Foster, who trained Will Smith for the movie
Ali, said: "Ali's signature punches were the left jab and the overhand right. But there were at least six different ways Ali used to jab. One was a jab that Ali called the 'snake lick', like cobra striking that comes from the floor almost, really low down. Then there was Ali's rapid-fire jab—three to five jabs in succession rapidly fired at his opponents' eyes to create a blur in his face so he wouldn't be able to see the right hand coming behind it."
[127]
In the opinion of many, Ali became a different fighter after the 3½-year layoff. Ferdie Pacheco, Ali's corner physician, noted that he had lost his ability to move and dance as before.
[30] This forced Ali to become more stationary and exchange punches more frequently, exposing him to more punishment while indirectly revealing his tremendous ability to take a punch. This physical change led in part to the "rope-a-dope" strategy, where Ali would lie back on the ropes, cover up to protect himself and conserve energy, and tempt opponents to punch themselves out. Ali often taunted opponents in the process and lashed back with sudden, unexpected combinations. The strategy was dramatically successful in the George Foreman fight, but less so in the first Joe Frazier bout when it was introduced.
Legacy
Muhammad Ali defeated every top heavyweight in his era, which has been called the golden age of heavyweight boxing. Ali was named "Fighter of the Year" by
Ring Magazine more times than any other fighter, and was involved in more
Ring Magazine"Fight of the Year" bouts than any other fighter. He was an inductee into the
International Boxing Hall of Fame and held wins over seven other Hall of Fame inductees. He was one of only three boxers to be named "
Sportsman of the Year" by
Sports Illustrated.
In 1978, three years before Ali's permanent retirement, the
Board of Aldermen in his hometown of
Louisville, Kentucky, voted 6–5 to rename Walnut Street to Muhammad Ali Boulevard. This was controversial at the time, as within a week 12 of the 70
street signs were
stolen. Earlier that year, a committee of the
Jefferson County Public Schools considered renaming
Central High School in his honor, but the motion failed to pass. At any rate, in time, Muhammad Ali Boulevard—and Ali himself—came to be well accepted in his hometown.
[131] In 1993, the
Associated Press reported that Ali was tied with
Babe Ruth as the most recognized athlete, out of over 800 dead or alive athletes, in America. The study found that over 97% of Americans over 12 years of age identified both Ali and Ruth.
[132] He was the recipient of the 1997
Arthur Ashe Courage Award. Two years later, in 1999, the
BBC produced a special version of its annual
BBC Sports Personality of the Year Award ceremony, and Ali was voted their Sports Personality of the Century,
[133] receiving more votes than the other four contenders combined. On September 13, 1999, Ali was named "Kentucky Athlete of the Century" by the Kentucky Athletic Hall of Fame in ceremonies at the
Galt House East.
[134]
Ali Mall, located in
Araneta Center,
Quezon City, Philippines, is named after him. Construction of the mall, the first of its kind in the Philippines, began shortly after Ali's victory in a match with Joe Frazier in nearby Araneta Coliseum in 1975. The mall opened in 1976 with Ali attending its opening.
[140]
Ali also influenced several elements of
hip hop music, as a "rhyming trickster" in the 1960s with "funky delivery, the boasts, the comical trash talk, the endless quotables".
[141]
Ranking in heavyweight history
Ali is generally considered one of the greatest heavyweights of all time by boxing commentators and historians.
Ring Magazine, a prominent boxing magazine, named him number 1 in a 1998 ranking of greatest heavyweights from all eras.
[142] Ali was named the second greatest fighter in boxing history by
ESPN.com behind only welterweight and middleweight great
Sugar Ray Robinson.
[143] In December 2007, ESPN listed Ali second in its choice of the greatest heavyweights of all time, behind
Joe Louis.
[144] The
Associated Press voted Ali the No. 1 heavyweight of the 20th century in 1999.
[145]
In the media and popular culture
As a world champion boxer and social activist, Ali has been the subject of numerous books, films and other creative works.
Ali had a cameo role in the 1962 film version of
Requiem for a Heavyweight, and during his exile, he starred in the short-lived Broadway musical,
Buck White (1969).
The film
Freedom Road, made in 1978, features Muhammad Ali in a rare acting role as Gideon Jackson, a former slave and
Union soldier in 1870s Virginia, who gets elected to the
U.S. Senate and battles other former slaves and white sharecroppers to keep the land they have tended all their lives. On the set of
Freedom Road Ali met Canadian singer-songwriter Michel, and subsequently helped create Michel's album entitled
The First Flight of the Gizzelda Dragon and the hour-long television show
With Love From Muhammad Ali.
He also wrote several best-selling books about his career, including
The Greatest: My Own Story and
The Soul of a Butterfly. The Muhammad Ali Effect, named after Ali, is a term that came into use in
psychology in the 1980s, as he stated in his autobiography
The Greatest: My Own Story: "I only said I was the greatest, not the smartest."
[149] According to this effect, when people are asked to rate their intelligence and moral behavior in comparison to others, people will rate themselves as more moral, but not more intelligent than others.
[151][152]
When We Were Kings, a 1996 documentary about the Rumble in the Jungle, won an
Academy Award,
[153] and the 2001 biopic
Ali garnered an Oscar nomination for
Will Smith's portrayal of the lead role.
[154] The latter film was directed by
Michael Mann, with mixed reviews, the positives given to Smith's portrayal of Ali. Prior to making the film, Smith rejected the role until Ali requested that he accept it. Smith said the first thing Ali told him was: "Man you're almost pretty enough to play me."
[155]
In 2002, for his contributions to the entertainment industry, Ali was honored with a star on the
Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6801
Hollywood Boulevard.
[156] His star is the only one to be mounted on a vertical surface, out of deference to his request that his name not be walked upon.
[157][158]
Awards and nominations
- Double Helix Medal
Quotes
- "I am America. I am the part you won't recognize. But get used to me. Black, confident, cocky; my name, not yours; my religion, not yours; my goals, my own; get used to me."[165]
*****
Muhammad Ali, original name
Cassius Marcellus Clay, Jr. (born
January 17, 1942,
Louisville,
Kentucky, U.S.—died
June 3, 2016, Phoenix, Arizona) American professional boxer and social activist. Ali was the first fighter to win the world
heavyweight championship on three separate occasions; he successfully defended this title 19 times.
Cassius Marcellus Clay, Jr., grew up in the American South in a time of segregated public facilities. His father, Cassius Marcellus Clay, Sr., supported a wife and two sons by painting billboards and signs. His mother, Odessa Grady Clay, worked as a household domestic.
When Clay was 12 years old, he took up
boxing under the tutelage of Louisville policeman Joe Martin. After advancing through the amateur ranks, he won a gold medal in the 175-pound division at the 1960
Olympic Games in
Rome and began a professional career under the guidance of the Louisville Sponsoring Group, a syndicate composed of 11 wealthy white men.
In his early bouts as a professional, Clay was more highly regarded for his charm and personality than for his ring skills. He sought to raise public interest in his fights by reading childlike poetry and spouting self-descriptive phrases such as “float like a butterfly, sting like a bee.” He told the world that he was “the Greatest,” but the hard realities of boxing seemed to indicate otherwise. Clay infuriated devotees of the sport as much as he impressed them. He held his hands unconventionally low, backed away from punches rather than bobbing and weaving out of danger, and appeared to lack true knockout power. The opponents he was besting were a mixture of veterans who were long past their prime and fighters who had never been more than mediocre. Thus, purists cringed when Clay predicted the round in which he intended to knock out an opponent, and they grimaced when he did so and bragged about each new conquest.
On February 25, 1964, Clay challenged
Sonny Liston for the heavyweight championship of the world. Liston was widely regarded as the most intimidating, powerful fighter of his era. Clay was a decided underdog. But in one of the most stunning upsets in
sports history, Liston retired to his corner after six rounds, and Clay became the new champion. Two days later Clay shocked the boxing establishment again by announcing that he had accepted the teachings of the
Nation of Islam. On March 6, 1964, he took the name
Muhammad Ali, which was given to him by his spiritual mentor,
Elijah Muhammad.
For the next three years, Ali dominated boxing as thoroughly and magnificently as any fighter ever had. In a May 25, 1965, rematch against Liston, he emerged with a first-round knockout victory. Triumphs over
Floyd Patterson,
George Chuvalo, Henry Cooper, Brian
London, and Karl Mildenberger followed. On November 14, 1966, Ali fought
Cleveland Williams. Over the course of three rounds, Ali landed more than 100 punches, scored four knockdowns, and was hit a total of three times. Ali’s triumph over Williams was succeeded by victories over
Ernie Terrell and Zora Folley.
Then, on April 28, 1967, citing his religious beliefs, Ali refused induction into the U.S. Army at the height of the
war in Vietnam. This refusal followed a blunt statement voiced by Ali 14 months earlier: “I ain’t got no quarrel with them Vietcong.” Many Americans vehemently condemned Ali’s stand. It came at a time when most people in the
United States still supported the war in Southeast Asia. Moreover, although exemptions from military service on religious grounds were available to qualifying conscientious objectors who were opposed to war in any form, Ali was not eligible for such an exemption, because he acknowledged that he would be willing to participate in an Islamic holy war.
li was stripped of his championship and precluded from fighting by every state athletic commission in the United States for three and a half years. In addition, he was criminally indicted and, on June 20, 1967, convicted of refusing induction into the U.S. armed forces and sentenced to five years in prison. Although he remained free on bail, four years passed before his conviction was unanimously overturned by the
U.S. Supreme Court on a narrow procedural ground.
Meanwhile, as the 1960s grew more tumultuous, Ali’s impact upon American society was growing, and he became a lightning rod for dissent. Ali’s message of black pride and black resistance to white domination was on the cutting edge of the
civil rights movement. Having refused induction into the U.S. Army, he also stood for the proposition that “unless you have a very good reason to kill, war is wrong.” As black activist
Julian Bond later observed, “When a figure as heroic and beloved as Muhammad Ali stood up and said, ‘No, I won’t go,’ it reverberated through the whole society.”
In October 1970, Ali was allowed to return to boxing, but his skills had eroded. The legs that had allowed him to “dance” for 15 rounds without stopping no longer carried him as surely around the ring. His reflexes, while still superb, were no longer as fast as they had once been. Ali prevailed in his first two comeback fights, against Jerry Quarry and Oscar Bonavena. Then, on March 8, 1971, he challenged
Joe Frazier, who had become heavyweight champion during Ali’s absence from the ring. It was a fight of historic proportions, billed as the “Fight of the Century.” Frazier won a unanimous 15-round decision.
Following his loss to Frazier, Ali won 10 fights in a row, 8 of them against world-class opponents. Then, on March 31, 1973, a little-known fighter named
Ken Norton broke Ali’s jaw in the second round en route to a 12-round upset decision. Ali defeated Norton in a rematch. After that he fought
Joe Frazier a second time and won a unanimous 12-round decision. From a technical point of view, the second Ali-Frazier bout was probably Ali’s best performance in the ring after his exile from boxing.
On October 30, 1974, Ali challenged
George Foreman, who had dethroned Frazier in 1973 to become heavyweight champion of the world. The bout (which Ali referred to as the “
Rumble in the Jungle”) took place in the unlikely location of Zaire (now the Democratic Republic of the Congo). Ali was received by the people of Zaire as a conquering hero, and he did his part by knocking out Foreman in the eighth round to regain the heavyweight title. It was in this fight that Ali employed a strategy once used by former boxing great
Archie Moore. Moore called the maneuver “the turtle” but Ali called it “
rope-a-dope.” The strategy was that, instead of moving around the ring, Ali chose to fight for extended periods of time leaning back into the ropes in order to avoid many of Foreman’s heaviest blows.
Over the next 30 months, at the peak of his popularity as champion, Ali fought nine times in bouts that showed him to be a courageous fighter but a fighter on the decline. The most notable of these bouts occurred on October 1, 1975, when Ali and Joe Frazier met in the
Philippines, 6 miles (9.5 km) outside Manila, to do battle for the third time. In what is regarded by many as the greatest prizefight of all time (the “
Thrilla in Manila”), Ali was declared the victor when Frazier’s corner called a halt to the bout after 14 brutal rounds.
The final performances of Ali’s ring career were sad to behold. In 1978 he lost his title to
Leon Spinks, a novice boxer with an Olympic gold medal but only seven professional fights to his credit. Seven months later Ali regained the championship with a 15-round victory over Spinks. Then he retired from boxing, but two years later he made an ill-advised comeback and suffered a horrible beating at the hands of
Larry Holmes in a bout that was stopped after 11 rounds. The final ring contest of Ali’s career was a loss by decision to
Trevor Berbick in 1981.
Ali’s place in boxing history as one of the greatest fighters ever is secure. His final record of 56 wins and 5 losses with 37 knockouts has been matched by others, but the quality of his opponents and the manner in which he dominated during his prime placed him on a plateau with boxing’s immortals. Ali’s most-tangible ring assets were speed, superb footwork, and the ability to take a punch. But perhaps more important, he had courage and all the other intangibles that go into making a great fighter.
Ali’s later years were marked by physical decline. Damage to his brain caused by blows to the head resulted in slurred speech, slowed movement, and other symptoms of
Parkinson syndrome. However, his condition differed from
chronic encephalopathy, or dementia pugilistica (which is commonly referred to as “punch drunk” in fighters), in that he did not suffer from injury-induced intellectual deficits.
Ali’s religious views also evolved over time. In the mid-1970s he began to study the Qurʾan seriously and turned to Orthodox
Islam. His earlier adherence to the teachings of
Elijah Muhammad (e.g., that white people are “devils” and there is no heaven or hell) were replaced by a spiritual embrace of all people and preparation for his own afterlife. In 1984 Ali spoke out publicly against the separatist doctrine of
Louis Farrakhan, declaring, “What he teaches is not at all what we believe in. He represents the time of our struggle in the dark and a time of confusion in us, and we don’t want to be associated with that at all.”
Ali married his fourth wife, Lonnie (née Yolanda Williams), in 1986. He had nine children, most of whom avoided the spotlight of which Ali was so fond. One of his daughters, however,
Laila Ali, pursued a career as a professional boxer. While her skills were limited, she benefited from the fact that the Ali name was still financially viable.
In 1996 Ali was chosen to light the Olympic flame at the start of the Games of the
XXVI Olympiad in
Atlanta,
Georgia. The outpouring of goodwill that accompanied his appearance confirmed his status as one of the most-beloved athletes in the world. His life story is told in the
documentary film I Am Ali(2014), which includes audio recordings that he made throughout his career and interviews with his intimates.
*****
Muhammad Ali (b. Cassius Marcellus Clay, Jr., January 17, 1942, Louisville, Kentucky — d. June 3, 2016, Phoenix, Arizona) was a professional boxer and social activist. Ali was the first fighter to win the world heavyweight championship on three separate occasions. He successfully defended this title 19 times.
Cassius Marcellus Clay, Jr., grew up in the American South in a time of segregated public facilities. His father, Cassius Marcellus Clay, Sr., supported a wife and two sons by painting billboards and signs. His mother, Odessa Grady Clay, worked as a household domestic.
When Clay was 12 years old, he took up boxing under the tutelage of Louisville policeman Joe Martin. After advancing through the amateur ranks, he won a gold medal in the 175-pound (light heavyweight) division at the 1960 Olympic Games in Rome and began a professional career under the guidance of the Louisville Sponsoring Group, a syndicate composed of 11 wealthy white men.
In his early bouts as a professional, Clay was more highly regarded for his charm and personality than for his ring skills. He sought to raise public interest in his fights by reading childlike poetry and spouting self-descriptive phrases such as “float like a butterfly, sting like a bee.” He told the world that he was “the Greatest,” but the hard realities of boxing seemed to indicate otherwise. Clay infuriated devotees of the sport as much as he impressed them. He held his hands unconventionally low, backed away from punches rather than bobbing and weaving out of danger, and appeared to lack true knockout power. The opponents he was besting were a mixture of veterans who were long past their prime and fighters who had never been more than mediocre. Thus, purists cringed when Clay predicted the round in which he intended to knock out an opponent, and they grimaced when he did so and bragged about each new conquest.
On February 25, 1964, Clay challenged Sonny Liston for the heavyweight championship of the world. Liston was widely regarded as the most intimidating, powerful fighter of his era. Clay was a decided underdog. But in one of the most stunning upsets in sports history, Liston retired to his corner after six rounds, and Clay became the new champion. Two days later Clay shocked the boxing establishment again by announcing that he had accepted the teachings of the Nation of Islam. On March 6, 1964, he took the name Muhammad Ali, which was given to him by his spiritual mentor, Elijah Muhammad.
For the next three years, Ali dominated boxing as thoroughly and magnificently as any fighter ever had. In a May 25, 1965, rematch against Liston, he emerged with a first-round knockout victory. Triumphs over Floyd Patterson, George Chuvalo, Henry Cooper, Brian London, and Karl Mildenberger followed. On November 14, 1966, Ali fought Cleveland Williams. Over the course of three rounds, Ali landed more than 100 punches, scored four knockdowns, and was hit a total of three times. Ali’s triumph over Williams was succeeded by victories over Ernie Terrell and Zora Folley.
Then, on April 28, 1967, citing his religious beliefs, Ali refused induction into the United States Army at the height of the war in Vietnam. This refusal followed a blunt statement voiced by Ali 14 months earlier: “I ain’t got no quarrel with them Vietcong.” Many Americans vehemently condemned Ali’s stand. It came at a time when most people in the United States still supported the war in Southeast Asia. Moreover, although exemptions from military service on religious grounds were available to qualifying conscientious objectors who were opposed to war in any form, Ali was not eligible for such an exemption, because he acknowledged that he would be willing to participate in an Islamic holy war.
Ali was stripped of his championship and precluded from fighting by every state athletic commission in the United States for three and a half years. In addition, he was criminally indicted and, on June 20, 1967, convicted of refusing induction into the United States armed forces and sentenced to five years in prison. Although he remained free on bail, four years passed before his conviction was unanimously overturned by the United States Supreme Court on a narrow procedural ground.
Meanwhile, as the 1960s grew more tumultuous, Ali’s impact upon American society was growing, and he became a lightning rod for dissent. Ali’s message of black pride and black resistance to white domination was on the cutting edge of the civil rights movement. Having refused induction into the United States Army, he also stood for the proposition that “unless you have a very good reason to kill, war is wrong.” As civil rights activist Julian Bond later observed, “When a figure as heroic and beloved as Muhammad Ali stood up and said, ‘No, I won’t go,’ it reverberated through the whole society.”
In October 1970, Ali was allowed to return to boxing, but his skills had eroded. The legs that had allowed him to “dance” for 15 rounds without stopping no longer carried him as surely around the ring. His reflexes, while still superb, were no longer as fast as they had once been. Ali prevailed in his first two comeback fights, against Jerry Quarry and Oscar Bonavena. Then, on March 8, 1971, he challenged Joe Frazier, who had become heavyweight champion during Ali’s absence from the ring. It was a fight of historic proportions, billed as the “Fight of the Century.” Frazier won a unanimous 15-round decision.
Following his loss to Frazier, Ali won 10 fights in a row, 8 of them against world-class opponents. Then, on March 31, 1973, a little-known fighter named Ken Norton broke Ali’s jaw in the second round en route to a 12-round upset decision. Ali defeated Norton in a rematch. After that he fought Joe Frazier a second time and won a unanimous 12-round decision. From a technical point of view, the second Ali-Frazier bout was probably Ali’s best performance in the ring after his exile from boxing.
On October 30, 1974, Ali challenged George Foreman, who had dethroned Frazier in 1973 to become heavyweight champion of the world. The bout (which Ali referred to as the "Rumble in the Jungle") took place in the unlikely location of Zaire (now the Democratic Republic of the Congo). Ali was received by the people of Zaire as a conquering hero, and he did his part by knocking out Foreman in the eighth round to regain the heavyweight title. It was in this fight that Ali employed a strategy once used by former boxing great Archie Moore. Moore called the maneuver “the turtle” but Ali called it "rope-a-dope". The strategy was that, instead of moving around the ring, Ali chose to fight for extended periods of time leaning back into the ropes in order to avoid many of Foreman’s heaviest blows.
Over the next 30 months, at the peak of his popularity as champion, Ali fought nine times in bouts that showed him to be a courageous fighter but a fighter on the decline. The most notable of these bouts occurred on October 1, 1975, when Ali and Joe Frazier met in the Philippines, 6 miles (9.5 km) outside Manila, to do battle for the third time. In what is regarded by many as the greatest prizefight of all time (the "Thrilla in Manila"), Ali was declared the victor when Frazier’s corner called a halt to the bout after 14 brutal rounds.
The final performances of Ali’s ring career were sad to behold. In 1978 he lost his title to Leon Spinks, a novice boxer with an Olympic gold medal but only seven professional fights to his credit. Seven months later Ali regained the championship with a 15-round victory over Spinks. Then he retired from boxing, but two years later he made an ill-advised comeback and suffered a horrible beating at the hands of Larry Holmes in a bout that was stopped after 11 rounds. The final ring contest of Ali’s career was a loss by decision to Trevor Berbick in 1981.
Ali’s place in boxing history as one of the greatest fighters ever is secure. His final record of 56 wins and 5 losses with 37 knockouts has been matched by others, but the quality of his opponents and the manner in which he dominated during his prime placed him on a plateau with boxing’s immortals. Ali’s most-tangible ring assets were speed, superb footwork, and the ability to take a punch. But perhaps more important, he had courage and all the other intangibles that go into making a great fighter.
Ali’s later years were marked by physical decline. Damage to his brain caused by blows to the head resulted in slurred speech, slowed movement, and other symptoms of Parkinson syndrome. However, his condition differed from chronic encephalopathy, or dementia pugilistica (which is commonly referred to as “punch drunk” in fighters), in that he did not suffer from injury-induced intellectual deficits.
Ali’s religious views also evolved over time. In the mid-1970s he began to study the Qurʾan seriously and turned to Orthodox Islam. His earlier adherence to the teachings of Elijah Muhammad (e.g., that white people are “devils” and there is no heaven or hell) were replaced by a spiritual embrace of all people and preparation for his own afterlife. In 1984, Ali spoke out publicly against the separatist doctrine of Louis Farrakhan, declaring, “What he teaches is not at all what we believe in. He represents the time of our struggle in the dark and a time of confusion in us, and we don’t want to be associated with that at all.”
Ali married his fourth wife, Lonnie (née Yolanda Williams), in 1986. He had nine children, most of whom avoided the spotlight of which Ali was so fond. One of his daughters, however, Laila Ali, pursued a career as a professional boxer.
In 1996 Ali was chosen to light the Olympic flame at the start of the Games of the XXVI Olympiad in Atlanta, Georgia. The outpouring of goodwill that accompanied his appearance confirmed his status as one of the most-beloved athletes in the world. His life story is told in the documentary film I Am Ali (2014), which includes audio recordings that he made throughout his career and interviews with his intimates.
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