Muhammad Ali is the greatest boxer who ever lived because he was consistently able to beat the top-ranked fighters in the world, but his largest contributions to society came outside the boxing ring. He became one of leaders in Civil Rights movement because of his unwillingness to fight the war in Vietnam and after his long, successful career he became the face of Parkinson’s Disease. Ali also became is the most famous Islamic athlete to have ever lived which only distanced himself from the accepted description of a professional athlete in the United States. The reason I was interested in writing this paper about Muhammad Ali was because he was the most recent athlete-advocate that we can that we can look at the issue after the fact an know he was in the right and was able to overcome the punishment he acquired based on his beliefs and his work outside of boxing can be consider to be more important than what he did inside the ring.
When we look at Muhammad Ali’s life, we can separate its importance into four parts: early career, anti-war/civil rights activism period, later career, and post career. Ali was born in on January 17th 1942 as Cassius Marcellus Clay Jr. and decided to take up boxing when a police officer told him to learn how to fight after his bike was stolen (Gregory, 2016). Clay went on to win 100 out of 108 fights with two national Golden Glove titles, two Amateur Athletic Union national titles and won a gold medal in the 1960 Summer Olympics in Rome. He quickly took control of the boxing world by winning all of the fights he had for the first four years of his professional career, 19-0 with 15 KO’s. Ali got his first title opportunity on February 25 1964 against the current heavyweight champion Sonny Liston, where before the match he coined the phrase “float like a butterfly, sting like a bee” believing he would knock-out Liston despite being a seven to one underdog (Gregory, 2016). Ali won the fight by TKO and everyone besides himself, and immediately after the fight Cassius Clay announced to the world that he had changed his name to Muhammed Ali.
Muhammad Ali’s introduction to the civil rights/anti-war was big news because it revealed his relationship with Elijah Muhammad, the leader of the Nation of Islam who gave him his new name, and Malcolm X (Rubin, 2016). The ideas of the Nation of Islam were considered to be radical and many believed that they were a threat to society, and with an Islamic Black Man as the champion of boxing people believed that sport was a disgrace that needed to be removed. From 1964-1967 continued to fight and remain the champion until April 28th 1967 when he refused to be inducted into the United States Army (Rubin, 2016). As a result of his actions he was sentenced to five years in prison and was stripped of all of boxing titles and licenses. While he was able to avoid jail time because of a successful appeal, Ali was in exiled from boxing and was not allowed to fight until October 26th 1970 against Jerry Quarry (Rubin 2016). Despite Ali’s struggles with being able to compete, his popularity grew while the public began to protest the war the War in Vietnam.
The later part of Muhammad Ali’s career, while not as successful, was just as remarkable as the early part. Despite all five of his total losses came in the later part of his career, he was able to ascend all the way back to the top of the boxing world twice, becoming the first fighter in heavyweight boxing history to win the title three times (McCallum, 2016). He reclaimed his title on October 30th 1974 against George Forman in the “Rumble in Jungle” with a seventh round knockout of the current champion. He kept his title for three years until he lost on February 15th 1978 when he lost to Leon Spinks in a split decision, but was able to reclaim his title within 6 months of the loss when he defeat Spinks in a unanimous decision. Ali fully retired in 1981 after an unsuccessful comeback where he dropped two fights but remained a part of the spotlight until his death on June 3rd 2016.
Muhammad Ali was diagnosed with Parkinson’s Disease in 1984 which many believe to be a result of long boxing career. While the disease began to make his motor skills with time, Ali continued to live an active and politically outspoken lifestyle. According to Dr. Michael Okun, “His involvement with Parkinson’s disease was really transformational for the field. Before Ali, there wasn’t that much known about Parkinson’s disease [among the public]” (McCallum, 2016). Ali famously had the honor of lighting the cauldron for the Summer Olympics in 1996 despite many fearing that his condition would potentially endanger himself and the athletes at the opening ceremonies. Throughout the 1990s, Muhammad Ali raised one hundred million dollars for Parkinson’s disease with his annual Celebrity Fight nights and in 1997 he helped create the Muhammad Ali Parkinson Center at the Barrow Neurological Institute (McCallum, 2016). Despite the progressing nature of Ali’s condition, he continued to display his political expertise when he successfully negotiated the release of American hostages with Saddam Hussein during the Gulf War and was the United Nations Messenger of Peace in 2002.
We all remember Muhammad Ali as the larger than life personality who would say just about anything to explain his greatness in ways those around him could understand. The fighter that Muhammad Ali was nothing short of sensational, but the activist that he was left the most impact on society and gave the largest imprint of his legacy. The Greatest did not just win fights against the worlds best heavyweight boxers, he won the fights against the people and the disease that should have completely removed him from the successful life that he had. Ali’s involvement an Antiwar and Parkinson’s disease advocate created a precedent that all influential athletes should follow. We commend Ali’s bravery when he stuck to his convictions and was unfairly punished with a three-year exile, and it is because ability to overcome this oppression by the boxing community we were able to see him as the sensational boxer that he was. Muhammed Ali’s legacy is one of success and broken-down barriers because of his relentless effort to overcome all the obstacles in his way.