"Boxing is nothing, just satisfying to some bloodthirsty people. I am no longer Cassius Clay, a Negro from Kentucky. I belong to the world, the black world. I will always have a home in Pakistan, in Algeria, in Ethiopia. This is more than money."

Muhamed Ali is without any doubt, the Greatest Boxer that ever lived. The reason for this is that Ali was not just a Great Boxer, but a true Champion, both inside and outside the ring. There is more to the man than just the knockouts he gladly handed his opponents. He stood for something bigger than the sport, something very rare in our current crop of professional athletes. Ali used his fame and fortune to focus the world's attention on social and humanitarian issues.

First and foremost he converted to Islam and dropped his Christian name Cassius Clay. He said this was a slave name given to his ancestors by their slave masters. He also wanted nothing to do with their religion (Christianity) which he believed was used to perpetuate slavery and other injustices against the black people. This trend has grown tremendously among African-Americans, but very few of them realize that it was Muhamed Ali who popularized it.

Muhamed Ali was born Cassius Clay on January 17th 1942, in Louisville, Kentucky, USA. Cassius grew up in West End Louisville, a poor black area. His entry into boxing came at the age of 12, at the urging of a Louisville policeman he talked to after his bike was stolen. As a high school student, he won the national Golden Gloves middleweight championship in 1959 and 1960 and the AAU national light heavyweight title in 1960, then went on to a gold medal in the Olympic light heavyweight division, after beating the much fancied Zbiginiew Piertrzkowski of Poland in the final.

Under his given name, Cassius Clay, he had his first professional fight on October 29, 1960. Before his sixth professional bout, against Lamar Clark on April 19, 1961, Clay predicted a 2nd-round knockout and was right. He continued making predictions, often in rhyme, and making them come true until March 13, 1963. On that date, he won a questionable 10-round decision over Doug Jones after predicting a 4th-round knockout.

His first title fight came on February 25th 1964, against reigning Heavyweight Champion Sonny Liston who had dominated the scene for a considerable amount of time with his hard hitting style. The pundits gave Cassius no chance coming into this, and predicted an easy win for Liston. But in what turned out to be an interesting and entertaining match, Cassius danced around the ring, giving Liston absolutely no chance to land his fierce blows, while at the same time teasing him with his lightning-fast jabs. The beat up and frustrated Liston refused to come back in the seventh round making Cassius the new Heavyweight Champion of the World. This was probably the biggest night in Cassius Clay’s boxing career.

But behind all this glory, there was trouble brewing for the new Champion. The media began chastising Cassius for his involvement with the Nation of Islam, which was considered a radical black Muslim movement, and out of favour with the white American establishment. Also around this time Cassius changed his name first to Cassius X and later to Muhammad Ali after converting to Islam. Ali took a lot of heat for this, especially from his white supporters who wanted him to be a clean Champion. None of these swayed Ali, who remained true to his new-found faith. On May 25th 1965, the much-awaited rematch between Ali and Sonny Liston took place. Ali knocked out Liston in the first round by what came to be called the Phantom Punch.

Ali then went on to successfully defend his title five times in 1966. In the meantime, he had refused induction into the Army. As a result, his license was revoked by the New York State Boxing Commission, his title was stripped, and he was sentenced to five years in prison for draft evasion.

By early 1966, the US was finding it difficult to impose its will on the Vietnamese and the draft call was expanded; the Heavyweight champion of the world, Muhammad Ali was reclassified as 1A, eligible for military service. Ali was told the news at a training camp in Miami came out with one of his famous poems:
Keep asking me, no matter how long,
On the war in Vietnam, I’ll still sing this song:
I ain’t got no quarrel with no Viet Cong.

When Ali declared his alienation from the war in Vietnam, in early 1966, not one mainstream politician or newspaper of any kind had come out against the war. That month, February 1966, the Number One record was the truly execrable song called “The Ballad of the Green Berets”, celebrating the special forces units who were at that moment running a systematic campaign of torture against the Vietnamese people.

Muhammad Ali, for years to come, was the best known American individual opposed to the Vietnam war. Far more than more political figures - he had the greater recognition. When Ali returned to America in early 1967 he faced
a daunting choice - give in, sign up with the army and cut a deal with them, or, go to jail, loose his Heavyweight crown and never fight again. But his conscience would not let him back down.

Ali was stripped of his title, charged, convicted, sentenced to five years in prison, released on bail. His passport was taken away from him and for three and a half years he was not allowed to leave the United States and not allowed to fight at all. In 1967 no sane person would have predicted that Ali would ever fight again, no less reclaim the Heavyweight title, no less become universally adored as the most popular sporting figure of the twentieth century. And the reason is that no one predicted that the anti-war movement would grow to mass proportions.

While the conviction was being appealed, Ali was inactive for more than two years and announced his retirement early in 1970. He returned to the ring shortly afterward, knocking out Jerry Quarry in the 3rd round on October 26, 1970, at Atlanta. After a court ordered New York to restore his license, he fought the new champion, Joe Frazier, at Madison Square Garden on March 8, 1971. Frazier won a brutal 15-round fight on a unanimous decision.

The U. S. Supreme Court overturned his conviction on June 29, 1971, and Ali won the North American Boxing Federation’s championship by knocking out Jimmy Ellis in the 12th round less than a month later. He lost it on a 12-round decision to Ken Norton, regained it by outpointing Norton in 12 rounds, and then beat Frazier on a 12-round decision to gain a world title fight against George Foreman, who had also beaten Frazier.

One of his major career fights dubbed Rumble in the Jungle, against George Foreman, was held in Zaire, a country deep in the heart of Africa. This was Ali’s way of both giving back to his African ancestry and highlighting the plight of the African continent. Ali knocked Foreman out (with crowds cheering ‘Ali Bumaye, Ali Bumaye’), in the 8th round on October 30, 1974, at Kinshasa, Zaire, in the first heavyweight championship fight ever held in Africa. He was named fighter of the year by Ring magazine. He and Frazier shared the 1975 award after their celebrated “Thrilla in Manila” fight on October 1, when Ali won with a 14th-round knockout.

After ten defenses, Ali lost the title to Leon Spinks on a 12-round decision February 15, 1978, but regained it for a third time with a 15-round decision on September 15. Ali announced his retirement from boxing on June 27, 1979, but within a year challenged the new heavyweight champion Larry Holmes for his crown. On October 2, 1980, in Las Vegas, Nevada, Holmes dealt Ali the worst loss of his career, physically punishing the former champion before delivering a knockout blow in the 11th round. Ali retired permanently in December 1981 after losing a ten-round decision to Trevor Berbick.

Since retiring from the ring, much of the attention focused on Ali has centered on his physical condition. Ali suffers from Parkinson’s syndrome, a neurological affliction that causes tremors, loss of balance, memory lapses, and confusion. Doctors have asserted that Ali’s symptoms were brought on by the repeated blows to the head he endured in the latter part of his boxing career, a diagnosis that has prompted medical organizations and other civic groups to lobby for the elimination of boxing or for the use of head gear.

The young Ali was practically untouchable: Sonny Liston could land only two punches in their 1965 rematch. But in his late fights against the hard-hitting Joe Frazier, Leon Spinks, and Larry Holmes, Ali took several hundred punches in every match; in the punishing 1980 loss to Holmes, Ali took 125 punches in the ninth and tenth rounds alone.

Ali’s neurological disorder is essentially a motor-skills problem; he has retained his wit and his thought processes are clear. Ali has remained an important figure on the world stage. In November 1990, Ali traveled to Iraq to meet with Saddam Hussein in a bid to forestall war in the Persian Gulf. In late 1996 Ali acted as a spokesperson for Operation USA in war-torn Rwanda.

Earlier that year, Ali lit the flame to open the Olympic Games in Atlanta, Georgia. He has been honored for creating the Muhammad Ali Community and Economic Development Corporation, an organization that teaches job skills to low-income public housing residents in Chicago.

In 1994, Sports Illustrated ranked Ali first on its “40 for the Ages List.” In 1987, The Ring named him the greatest heavyweight champion of all time. Ali was inducted into the International Boxing Hall of Fame in 1990, and into the U.S. Olympic Hall of Fame in 1983. The Muhammad Ali Museum opened in Louisville, Kentucky in 1995.

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