I am of an age where Ali was the World's greatest star. In an age before the Internet and social media, he was the headline. He was the greatest boxer in the world and he was loved by the world. He lived his hard years before I was born and whilst I was a baby so I only ever knew him in the golden years of the heavyweights, during the mid and late 1970's when he was past his prime and fought on with the heart and the skill of a natural boxer, lacking the speed of youth.
My Dad and my Grandad are and were both huge boxing fans and Muhammad Ali was the pinnacle of boxing, he overshadowed everyone before and after. Who, in everyday life, remembers the greats before Ali? Sugar Ray Robinson, Joe Louis and going back even further, the great Jack Johnson (http://www.cyberboxingzone.com/boxing/jjohn.htm)? These are the fighters that Ali knew and modeled himself on, adding that unique Ali twist that would mark him out as "the Greatest". He was mouthy, funny and ultimately, very humble.
Ali fought in the golden age of the heavyweights, a time when any number of those fighters could have been rated as possibly the greatest ever and he beat them all. Joe Frazier, one of the boxers with the biggest hearts I've ever witnessed, a boxer that would have died in the ring rather than quit (his corner threw in the towel as they feared he would die), fought Ali 3 times and each fight was brutal, equal and full of heart, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QUraXMe18pE. There is, of course the "Rumble in the Jungle" and the subsequent film, "When we were Kings" a film I made my youngest watch a few years ago, and she was riveted, the backdrop and the buildup to the fight, the gamesmanship, Ali's use of the press and the love of the people and ultimately the phenomenal fight.
I was still too young to appreciate boxing at this time but I knew that song - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KW5qF9fheXw
Yes, I know it's a terrible song but it was catchy and I was a child. I know that Ali didn't like the song but as a child, I did and it was at this time, along with the paternal influence of my Dad and Grandad, that I became aware of boxing.
Ali changed the face of all boxing, he talked up the fights so much that huge amounts of money were injected into the sport and the athletes started to earn serious amounts of money, particularly the heavyweights and some of the other divisions followed sometime later.
Father's are influential on their children, my Dad followed athletics, sometimes rugby but always boxing, he is a font of knowledge and knows his boxing history. My relationship with boxing is chequered, one of my best friends is a huge boxing fan so I fall in and out of love with boxing. The heavyweight division had a brief renaissance in the mid 80's and into the early '90's but has always lacked the class and quality of the 1970's.
The beauty with Ali is that he transcended the sport and national barriers, everybody wanted him and he obliged. Seeing him so ill with parkinsons disease later in life could have been tragic but he didn't conduct himself like that. You could still see the brightness, the humour and the speed of thought in his eyes and despite the slow words, the wit was still there:
Given that this award was presented in 1999, twenty years after he hung up his gloves and he garnered more votes than the other athletes combined, says so much about how the British feel about him.
I won't finish with Ali the boxer, he was "the Greatest", I won't finish with Ali and his good works, these are all documented, I will finish Ali vs Freddie Starr, I was shedding a few tears on Saturday morning and this made me smile:
And I changed my mind, I will finish with the famous interview with the three kings, Ali, Frazier and Foreman:
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