Boxing legend Muhammad Ali dies at the age of 74
The former World heavyweight champion, one of the world’s best-known communicators and sportsmen died at a hospital in the US – the city of Phoneix, Arizona, after being admitted on Thursday 2nd June 2016. He was suffering from respiratory illness and Parkinson’s disease. The funeral will take place in Ali’s hometown of Louisville, Kentucky, according to a statement issued by his family.
“ I am the greatest” was the quote by the man who won the World Heavyweight Championship three times. Born Cassius Marcellus Clay in Louisville, Kentucky, on 17th January 1942, son of a sign painter he was named after a prominent 19th-century abolitionist. Ali made his debut in 1954 in a three-minute amateur bout and went on to win the Golden Gloves Tournament of Champions in 1959. In 1960 he was selected in the US team for the Rome Olympics but at first, he refused to go because of his fear of flying and eventually he bought a second-hand parachute and wore it on the flight. On 5th September 1950, he beat Poland’s Zbigniew Pietrzykowski to become the Olympic light-heavyweight champion. He was subjected to racism like all other African Americans, after his return from Rome, when he was refused service at a restaurant because of his race. He stormed out of the smaller cafe diner and threw his prized gold medal into the Ohio River and the gold medal was lost forever. Ali was honoured again with a replacement medal at the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta. Clay’s extraordinary manner was popular among the crowds as he taunted his opponents delighting crowds with his showboating, shuffling feet and instant reflexes. Clay was a fierce opponent of the racism that blighted large areas of the United States in the 1960s.
“float like a butterfly, sting like a bee” Muhammad Ali best quotes.
‘If you even dream of beating me, you better wake up and apologize.’
“It’s hard to be humble when you’re as great as I am.”
“Not only do I knock’em out , I pick the round.”
“I’m a poet, I’m a prophet, I’m the resurrector, I’m the savior of the boxing world. If it wasn’t for me, the game would be dead.”
“It’s not bragging if you can back it up.”
“I’m so fast that last night I turned off the light switch in my hotel room and was in bed before the room was dark.”
And he could be inspiring…
“Don’t count the days, make the days count.”
“Live every day like it’s your last because someday you’re going to be right.”
“Impossible is just a big word thrown around by small men who find it easier to live in the world they’ve been given than to explore the power they have to change it. Impossible is not a fact. It’s an opinion. Impossible is not a declaration. It’s a dare. Impossible is potential. Impossible is temporary. Impossible is nothing.”
“The man who views the world at 50 the same as he did at 20 has wasted 30 years of his life.” That is really some statement to reason with!
Ironically, he also said, “I don’t like fighters who talk too much.”
Ali refused to sign the oath of the allegiance to join the US Army (“I ain’t got no quarrel with them Vietcong”) he was stripped of his title and given five years in jail, a sentence that was quashed on appeal. Ali was granted a reprieve and returned to the ring in 1970 with a win over Jerry Quarry. In 1971 he was beaten for the first time in his professional career by Joe Frazier and Ali gained his revenge three years later.
In October 1974 he defeated George Foreman in Zaire in the so-called Rumble in the Jungle.
Ali spent most of the first eight rounds leaning back on the ropes soaking up the punches of his younger and significantly larger foe. At the age of 32, Ali had become only the second man in history to regain the heavyweight championship of the world. A year later, he met Frazier for the third time in the Thrilla in Manila. It was the closest he had come to death in the ring and was victorious when Frazer’s corner halted the fight after 14 rounds. At the age of 36 he won the world title for the third time.
His funeral will be on Friday in the town of Louisville Kentucky where his home is. One of the best known and charismatic sportsmen in history he was a Civil Rights Activist, a poet and a convert to Islam. He was interviewed by Michael Parkinson more than once and was a genius in the ring and a cultural icon out of it. He won gold at the Rome Olympics in 1960. His career improved from win to win in the future and he was said to have a Louisville Lip. He said Cassius Clay was his slave name and Muhammed Ali was his new Muslim name. Michael Parkinson called him beautiful and one of the world’s great entertainers.