Have you heard the iconic lines, “Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee”? These lines were uttered by one of the greatest heavyweight boxers of all time – Muhammad Ali.
Ali was born Cassius Marcellus Clay Jr in Louisville, Kentucky on January 17, 1942.
When he was 12 he lost his cycle at a local town fair. A local policeman named Joe Martin found him sobbing and ready to beat up the thief. Martin advised him to learn to fight properly first. He introduced him to boxing in a local gym and soon Cassius became the best boxer in and around the town of Louisville.
Realising his potential, Martin encouraged him to participate in the 1960 Olympics Games held in Rome. Cassius agreed and after a Terminator style battering of his opponents, returned to Louisville with the Olympic gold medal. He was 18 at the time. On his return however, he was deeply disillusioned when he found that the people back home still viewed him just as an African-American and not a national champion. He was thrown out of a local white-owned restaurant which did not serve African-Americans in Louisville. In disgust Cassius flung his Olympic gold medal into the Ohio River (36 years later he was awarded a replacement gold medal during the Atlanta Olympics in 1996).
In 1963, Cassius fought and defeated the reigning world champion Sonny Liston to become the world heavyweight champion. He changed his name to Muhammad Ali shortly after this, saying that his birth name was given to his ancestors by white slavers.
In 1967, he was stripped of his boxing license when he refused to be drafted to the U.S. army during the Vietnam War. According to him, the Vietnamese war was unethical and the African-Americans of the U.S.A. had nothing against the people of Vietnam. As a result of the refusal he lost four precious years on the boxing circuit. Due to his stand on the Vietnam War, he attained cult status and became a sports icon around the world.
He returned to the professional circuit after the Supreme Court ruled in his favour in 1971. He went on to defeat Joe Frazier in 1974 and in 1975 in two of the most hard-fought battles in boxing history. He defeated George Foreman, the reigning heavy-weight champion, in 1974 in a bout nicknamed ‘Rumble in the Jungle’ in Kinhasa, Africa.
Ali won 56 of 61 fights with knock out wins in 37. He died on June 3, 2016 and is widely regarded as the greatest boxer of all time.
Picture Credit : Google
