As the world mourns the passing of Muhammad Ali, a celebrated philanthropist and social activist, the legacy he left as a boxing champion still resonates with fans.
Born Cassius Marcellus Clay Jr. on Jan. 17, 1942, in Louisville, Ali found an interest in boxing at the age of 12 in an odd reversal of fortune when his bike was stolen, causing him to be so angry he wanted to beat up the thief, the genesis of a headstrong talent.
Joe Martin, a police officer and boxing trainer, told Ali he better learn to fight before he challenged anyone, so he took Ali under his wing to train at the desegregated Columbia Gym in Louisville, during a time when Blacks and whites usually could not spar together.
Martin began to feature Ali on his local television show, “Tomorrow’s Champions,” and later an African-American trainer named Fred Stoner taught Ali the science of boxing, including lessons on moving within the ring like a graceful dancer and learning to channel his anger, according to the World History Project.
What later grew into a famous aversion to training, Ali devoted all his time to boxing and soon began his amateur career by winning his first bout in 1954, a split decision. In 1956, he won the Golden Gloves tournament for novices in the light heavyweight class, stringing an impressive list of successes.
As an amateur, Ali captured as many as 137 victories, although some boxing experts claim it could have been as low as 99. Nonetheless, Ali combined “blinding hand speed and brilliant footwork to win clear-cut decisions in his bouts,” as one announcer said during his 1960 Summer Olympics campaign in Rome.
After graduating high school, Ali cemented his rising stature by winning the light heavyweight gold medal that summer, then went on to win his professional boxing debut in October 1960, a six-round decision.
It was clear from the beginning that Ali, at 6 feet 3 inches, could overwhelm opponents in and out of the ring. With quick and powerful jabs, defensive schemes, trash talking and relentless swagger, many boxers in the present continue to emulate his style of fighting with calculated mind games.
Various members of the professional boxing world have responded to Ali’s passing. In one Instagram post by boxing’s former No. 1 pound for pound fighter in the world, Floyd Mayweather Jr. said Ali’s charisma, charm and class made him an icon for generations.
“Not a day went by entering the gym that I didn’t think of you,” Mayweather said of Ali. “You are someone that inspired me greatly throughout my boxing journey and words cannot express how great you were as a person.”
In addition, George Foreman, one of Ali’s premier opponents, a champion and Olympic gold medalist in his own right, said in an interview with BBC, “Muhammad Ali was one of the greatest human beings I have ever met. No doubt he was one of the best people to have lived in this day and age.”
Foreman, who infamously battled Ali in the “Rumble in the Jungle” fight of 1974, was undefeated and a heavy favorite to defeat Ali coming into the fight, but the 60,000 in Kinshasa, Zaire, (now Democratic Republic of the Congo), saw Ali shake the world with an eighth-round knockout. “It was like I was mugged in the jungle. I went there with two title belts, I came home with none,” Foreman said, laughing.
During an interview with “CBS This Morning,” Foreman described the fight as a strange experience in his memory and complimented Ali’s measured game plan.
“I thought I’d knock him out in one or two rounds, but about the third round, I’d hit him, and he fell on me. I thought, ‘That’s it.’ And he started screaming, ‘That all you got, George?! Show me something!’ And I knew then I was in the wrong place at the wrong time,” he said.
While Foreman has called the fight “the most embarrassing moment” of his life, Foreman said he and Ali became lifelong friends. When asked how he became friends with a former enemy, Foreman said, “If you beat me up like he did, I’d be your friend, too.”
Using a strategy that later became known as the “rope-a-dope,” Ali, throughout the fight, leaned on the ropes of the ring and defended himself, repeatedly allowing Foreman to punch him on the arms and body, which was a direct contrast of his original style that emphasized speed, finesse and crowd-pleasing flair.
The key was allowing Foreman to spend energy throwing punches early in the fight, which was risky indeed, because one mistake could leave Ali open to a crippling body or headshot.
Nevertheless, Ali’s wit shined in the end, once Foreman’s punches became ineffective. Foreman’s attempts became wild and undisciplined when searching for the knockout, then Ali jumped at the opportunity, landing several of his own combinations that culminated in a left hook and hard right straight that dropped Foreman to the canvas.
Still, the “Rumble in the Jungle” was only one of many marquee bouts featuring Ali and a worthy challenger. The beginning of Ali’s true legend was against then-champion Sonny Liston, especially the first of their two fights where Ali, 22, was a fast-talking, agile fighter, while Liston was heavy handed and greatly feared in the ring.
Liston was the World Heavyweight Champion at the time of the first fight in February 1964 in Miami Beach. After Liston defeated former champion Floyd Patterson twice with first-round knockouts in 1962 and 1963 respectively, most experts thought Ali had no chance.
Henry Cooper, former British champion, said he would face Ali in a title fight if he beat Liston, (Ali defeated Cooper twice in 1963 and 1964), but he was not interested in facing Liston if he won. Cooper’s manager Jim Wicks reportedly said, “We don’t even want to meet Liston walking down the same street,” according to the Boxing Hall of Fame in Las Vegas.
Public opinion was stacked against Ali from the media side as well. Boxing promoters and sports writers spoke of Liston’s ferociousness as if he were a villain in a movie, some of this perception stemming from his stint as a convicted felon for armed robbery and assault on a police officer. Add in connections to the Mafia and depictions of Liston as a “gorilla,” and Ali’s mouth was expected to be wired shut by the fight’s end.
But it’s not as if Ali was beloved at this time, either. One Los Angeles Times article compared the bout to Hitler versus Stalin, calling for audiences to root for a double knockout. It was precisely Ali’s jab from the jaw that kept him from being the favorite.
Of the 46 sportswriters at ringside, 43 picked Liston to win by knockout.
However, once the fight began, Ali’s finesse-focused boxing style became the exact reason he was able to defeat Liston in both fights.
The signatures of Ali’s greatness, a tendency to box with his hands low, a traditional no-no in the sport, while leaning away from a barrage of punches, led opponents to slap the air aimlessly when attacking Ali, proving his grace and the lessons learned from former trainer Stoner. Liston, who reportedly trained minimally for the fight, simply couldn’t keep up with Ali.
Unable to connect with slower jabs or heavy punches, Ali opened his attack with combinations from the very start, and by the third round, Ali opened cuts and bruises under Liston’s eyes. But Ali’s eyes were stinging too, and he complained to his trainer, Angelo Dundee, that they were burning and he could not see.
After the fight, conflicting reports suggested accidental and intentional foul play by Liston’s camp. But it did not matter in the end, as Ali survived long enough for his eyes to be cleared, then he delivered the knockout and sprung against the ropes to face the ringside media, boasting, “Eat your words,” “I am the greatest,” and “I shook up the world!”
The Ring magazine called this match “Fight of the Year,” “Fight of the Decade” and “Upset of the Decade,” and this bout is where Ali’s most famous image of him towering over Liston was taken.
But the man who gave Ali the greatest challenge was perhaps Joe Frazier, and their three brutal contests thrilled fans in the 1970s.
The first, which was known as the “fight of the century,” featured Frazier and Ali with undefeated records, most wins by way of the knockout.
During the time of Ali’s absence in the sport — due to losing his titles by refusing induction into the armed forces in 1967 — Frazier gained two championship belts.
By then, Ali’s talent and persona made him one of the best known figures in sport, but when it came to the full 15-round fight, Frazier landed a left hook in the final round that put Ali on his back.
Ali got back up to fight, but the unanimous decision was made. Frazier had retained his title and handed Ali his first professional loss in the process, making the second and third fights even more riveting.
After avenging himself in the second fight in 1974, the end of 1975 featured familiar foes in the third and final match known as the “Thrilla in Manilla.” The clever rhyme reportedly came from Ali’s boast that the contest would be “a killa and a thrilla and a chilla when I get that gorilla in Manilla.”
Frazier’s game plan, which was to aim for Ali’s body first, visibly hurt Ali, but Frazier could no longer see out of his left eye, and that made the difference.
Ali, as only Ali could, seized the moment and beat his opponent to the point where Frazier’s trainer pulled him from the fight despite his protests.
Ali later admitted that the fight was the most grueling test he had ever faced up to that point, saying, “Frazier quit just before I did. I didn’t think I could fight anymore. It was like death. Closest thing to dyin’ that I know of.”
It is clear that, in the present, the heavyweight division is not as gruesome, exciting or crowd-pleasing as it was when Ali was in his prime.
Larry Holmes, one of only five men to defeat Ali, said Ali, Frazier and Foreman’s era of boxing was the golden era of the division, something that still has not been replicated today.
“The new heavyweights aren’t the same,” he said in an interview with Telegraph Sport. “I went to school with professors of boxing — they were all professors. These guys today are not,” he said.
“I don’t want to knock them but I wouldn’t buy a ticket to watch them,” he added. “They’d have to give me tickets.”
