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Muhammad Ali |
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Muhammad Ali (Cassius Marcellus Clay) was born
on January 17, 1942 in Louisville,
Kentucky to parents of modest circumstances. He
started boxing in junior high, when he learned
boxing from a policeman at a local gym. By the
time that Ali had reached high school, he
already intended to be a prizefighter and hoped
to box in the Olympics. As an amateur boxer,
Ali attracted notice in 1960 by winning the
Amateur Athletic Union light heavyweight and
Golden Gloves heavyweight championships. At the
Rome Olympics in 1960, Ali crushed his opponents
to win a gold medal in the light heavyweight
division.
After turning pro, Ali
defeated his first opponents. Then on February
25, 1964, he fought, and knocked out, Sonny
Liston in seven rounds, thus becoming the new
heavyweight world champion. Ali defended his
title nine times from 1965 to 1967 and became
universally recognized as world heavyweight
champion after outpointing World Boxing
Association (WBA) champion Ernie Terrell in
fifteen rounds on 6 February 1967. Ali often
proclaimed his invincibility in verse and
boasted, "I am the greatest!"
Soon after becoming
heavyweight champion, Ali decided to change his
religion and joined the Nation of Islam (Black
Muslims), taking the Muslim name "Muhammad
Ali." The Vietnam War then interrupted Ali's
career. In 1967, he was inducted into the
military, but he refused to serve, saying his
religious beliefs forbade him to fight. While
some Americans praised Ali for risking prison to
stand up for his beliefs, others called him a
draft dodger and traitor. The government
charged him with violating the Selective Service
Act; his titles were taken from him; and he was
not allowed to box.
After a long court
battle, Ali was convicted of draft evasion and
sentenced to five years in jail and fined
$10,000 fine, but in another lawsuit in 1970, a
judge ruled that Ali could still box
professionally. The new heavyweight champion
was Joe Frazier, and a match was scheduled et
for March 8, 1971. Newspapers called it "The
Fight of the Century." In the fifteenth round,
Frazier knocked Ali down. Ali got back up, but
all the judges named Frazier the winner.
That same year, Ali
won his legal battle when the U.S. Supreme Court
said he was not guilty of draft evasion--He
should not have been drafted at all. Ali spent
the next three years fighting other champions,
including Jerry Quarry, Floyd Patterson (making
a brief comeback attempt), Joe Bugner and Ken
Norton, winning all but one fight to Ken Norton.
He also won a unanimous decision over Frazier on
January 28, 1974, but Frazier had lost the
heavyweight title to George Foreman. So Ali
next had to fight Foreman.
Millions of people sat
before their televisions to watch the fight
between Ali and Foreman, staged as "The Rumble
in the Jungle." Sixty thousand fans gathered at
the stadium in Kinshasa in Zaire on October 30,
1974. People favored Foreman, who was seven
years younger than the 32-year-old Ali, but Ali
fought brilliantly, tiring his opponent using
"rope-a-dope" tactics. In round eight, Ali
knocked out Foreman. He could still "float like
a butterfly and sting like a bee," as he liked
to say. Ali had regained the undisputed world
heavyweight title.
After defending his
heavyweight title six times--including a third
fight with Joe Frazier--Ali lost it to Leon
Spinks on February 15, 1978 in a split decision.
He regained the WBA title from Spinks seven
months later in a unanimous decision, becoming
the first boxer to win the heavyweight
championship three times. In 1979 Ali announced
his retirement, at that point having lost only
three times in 59 fights, but he returned to
fight World Boxing Council champion Larry Holmes
in 1980 and Trevor Berbick of Canada in 1981,
losing both. Ali then retired permanently.
As Ali entered his
forties, he looked ill. In 1984 it was assumed
that he was suffering from a series of symptoms
variously known as "punch drunk" syndrome, or
chronic encephalopathy of boxers, but Ali had
Parkinson's disease, an illness of the nervous
system for which he was taking medication. "I
feel fine," he insisted. "I'm older and fatter,
but we all change."
Ali was selected to
light the Olympic flame at the 1996 summer games
in Atlanta, Georgia.
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