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81°
BREAKING NEWS 1 of 1
Famed boxer Muhammad Ali dead
Jun 4, 2016 12:24 AM
(RNN) - Muhammad Ali, known as the "Greatest of All Time" in boxing, has died.
Ali has been hospitalized multiple times in recent years, and his family said June 2 he was being treated for a respiratory illness. He has battled Parkinson's disease for more than 30 years.
Born Cassius Marcellus Clay Jr. on Jan. 17, 1942 in Louisville, KY, he changed his name the day after winning his first world title. The announcement confirmed his conversion to the Muslim faith.
Elijah Muhammad, leader of the Nation of Islam, gave him the name "Muhammad," meaning one worthy of praise, and "Ali," the name of a cousin of the prophets.
Ali had his championship belt stripped in 1967 for refusing to serve in the U.S. Army and fight in the Vietnam War for religious reasons. After reporting April 28, 1967 to his induction in Houston, he was ordered four times to step forward in response to the name Cassius Clay but would not respond.
He did not box again for three years.
The public widely criticized the move, and he was found guilty of a felony. But as outrage for the Vietnam War grew, so did support for the former champion.
Ali's court decision was overturned by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1971, one year after he began fighting in the ring again.
Hating people because of their color is wrong. And it doesn't matter which color does the hating. It's just plain wrong. - Muhammad Ali
Often controversial, Ali spoke out on topics such as the civil rights movement, separatism, slavery and war. He became a champion for people who were impoverished and discriminated against.
His efforts helped provide food and medical supplies across the world, many hand-delivered. His official website states he was instrumental in getting 232 million meals to the world's hungry in his lifetime. He also supported nonprofits like the Make-A-Wish Foundation and the Special Olympics.
The Muhammad Ali Boxing Reform Act, enacted by the federal government in 1999, increased protections for the welfare of boxers and oversight of the sport. President George W. Bush presented Ali with the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2005.
Ali-Frazier
Ali will forever be linked with rival and fellow former heavyweight champion Smokin' Joe Frazier.
Frazier died Nov. 7, 2011 from lung cancer, and Ali attended the private funeral in Philadelphia.
The two reportedly began making amends in Frazier's last days after decades of little contact, despite earlier efforts by Ali to reach out to his greatest opponent. He issued a statement following Frazier's death, saying "I will always remember Joe with respect and admiration."
The men first met in what was dubbed the Fight of the Century. Both entered March 8, 1971 as undefeated boxers, with Frazier the crowned champion and Ali seeking to regain the title he never lost in the ring. Frazier defeated Ali by unanimous decision after knocking him down in the 15th round.
Ali and Frazier paired for two more fights, both of which Ali won. Ali took a 12-round decision in Madison Square Garden before winning the legendary Thrilla in Manila on Oct. 1, 1975 when Frazier's trainer stopped the fight before the 15th and final round.
The two boxers heavily influenced the movie Rocky, with Ali's flamboyance and "float like a butterfly, sting like a bee" fighting style used by the character Apollo Creed. Rocky Balboa adopted the real-life Philadelphian's straightforward style, along with training techniques like running the stairs outside the Philadelphia Museum of Art and hitting raw meat.
The story of another classic Ali bout, The Rumble in the Jungle - Ali's knockout of George Foreman to recapture the heavyweight title, was captured in the documentary When We Were Kings.
He who is not courageous enough to take risks will accomplish nothing in life.
Parkinson's disease
In arguably the greatest era of heavyweights ever, Ali's star shone the brightest. However, the many epic battles took their toll, and he was diagnosed with Parkinson's disease in 1984. His doctors agreed the disease likely came from the years of punches to the head and his career going well past his prime.
His fight in 1980 with heavyweight champ Larry Holmes, Ali's former sparring partner, was particularly brutal, and Ali lost by TKO in the 10th round. He would fight once more, a loss to Trevor Berbick in 1981, before retiring at age 39 with a 56-5 record.
His speech and movements began to slow as Parkinson's degenerated his mind and body. Still, he continued in his roles as a defender of civil rights and goodwill ambassador to the world.
Ali received the honor of lighting the Olympic torch at the 1996 opening ceremonies in Atlanta. In 1999, Sports Illustrated named him its Sportsman of the Century.
He lived in Arizona with his wife, Yolanda Williams Ali. He was the father of nine children, daughters Rasheeda, Jamilla, Maryum, Miya, Khalilah, Hana and Laila; and sons Muhammad Jr.
81°
BREAKING NEWS 1 of 1
Famed boxer Muhammad Ali dead
Jun 4, 2016 12:24 AM
(RNN) - Muhammad Ali, known as the "Greatest of All Time" in boxing, has died.
Ali has been hospitalized multiple times in recent years, and his family said June 2 he was being treated for a respiratory illness. He has battled Parkinson's disease for more than 30 years.
Born Cassius Marcellus Clay Jr. on Jan. 17, 1942 in Louisville, KY, he changed his name the day after winning his first world title. The announcement confirmed his conversion to the Muslim faith.
Elijah Muhammad, leader of the Nation of Islam, gave him the name "Muhammad," meaning one worthy of praise, and "Ali," the name of a cousin of the prophets.
Ali had his championship belt stripped in 1967 for refusing to serve in the U.S. Army and fight in the Vietnam War for religious reasons. After reporting April 28, 1967 to his induction in Houston, he was ordered four times to step forward in response to the name Cassius Clay but would not respond.
He did not box again for three years.
The public widely criticized the move, and he was found guilty of a felony. But as outrage for the Vietnam War grew, so did support for the former champion.
Ali's court decision was overturned by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1971, one year after he began fighting in the ring again.
Hating people because of their color is wrong. And it doesn't matter which color does the hating. It's just plain wrong. - Muhammad Ali
Often controversial, Ali spoke out on topics such as the civil rights movement, separatism, slavery and war. He became a champion for people who were impoverished and discriminated against.
His efforts helped provide food and medical supplies across the world, many hand-delivered. His official website states he was instrumental in getting 232 million meals to the world's hungry in his lifetime. He also supported nonprofits like the Make-A-Wish Foundation and the Special Olympics.
The Muhammad Ali Boxing Reform Act, enacted by the federal government in 1999, increased protections for the welfare of boxers and oversight of the sport. President George W. Bush presented Ali with the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2005.
Ali-Frazier
Ali will forever be linked with rival and fellow former heavyweight champion Smokin' Joe Frazier.
Frazier died Nov. 7, 2011 from lung cancer, and Ali attended the private funeral in Philadelphia.
The two reportedly began making amends in Frazier's last days after decades of little contact, despite earlier efforts by Ali to reach out to his greatest opponent. He issued a statement following Frazier's death, saying "I will always remember Joe with respect and admiration."
The men first met in what was dubbed the Fight of the Century. Both entered March 8, 1971 as undefeated boxers, with Frazier the crowned champion and Ali seeking to regain the title he never lost in the ring. Frazier defeated Ali by unanimous decision after knocking him down in the 15th round.
Ali and Frazier paired for two more fights, both of which Ali won. Ali took a 12-round decision in Madison Square Garden before winning the legendary Thrilla in Manila on Oct. 1, 1975 when Frazier's trainer stopped the fight before the 15th and final round.
The two boxers heavily influenced the movie Rocky, with Ali's flamboyance and "float like a butterfly, sting like a bee" fighting style used by the character Apollo Creed. Rocky Balboa adopted the real-life Philadelphian's straightforward style, along with training techniques like running the stairs outside the Philadelphia Museum of Art and hitting raw meat.
The story of another classic Ali bout, The Rumble in the Jungle - Ali's knockout of George Foreman to recapture the heavyweight title, was captured in the documentary When We Were Kings.
He who is not courageous enough to take risks will accomplish nothing in life.
Parkinson's disease
In arguably the greatest era of heavyweights ever, Ali's star shone the brightest. However, the many epic battles took their toll, and he was diagnosed with Parkinson's disease in 1984. His doctors agreed the disease likely came from the years of punches to the head and his career going well past his prime.
His fight in 1980 with heavyweight champ Larry Holmes, Ali's former sparring partner, was particularly brutal, and Ali lost by TKO in the 10th round. He would fight once more, a loss to Trevor Berbick in 1981, before retiring at age 39 with a 56-5 record.
His speech and movements began to slow as Parkinson's degenerated his mind and body. Still, he continued in his roles as a defender of civil rights and goodwill ambassador to the world.
Ali received the honor of lighting the Olympic torch at the 1996 opening ceremonies in Atlanta. In 1999, Sports Illustrated named him its Sportsman of the Century.
He lived in Arizona with his wife, Yolanda Williams Ali. He was the father of nine children, daughters Rasheeda, Jamilla, Maryum, Miya, Khalilah, Hana and Laila; and sons Muhammad Jr.
It was more than a meeting of two heavyweights – it was a culture clash. The signature showdown between “draft-dodging” Ali and the Establishment’s hippy-humbling hero, Smokin’ Joe Frazier.
The freaks had a hero in Ali, but Frazier was a rolling mass of brute punishment waiting to unfurl.
The freaks had a hero in Ali, but Frazier was a rolling mass of brute punishment waiting to unfurl.
Ali: “You don’t understand, Frazier will be easier than Quarry or Bonavena. I’ll just hold his head and I’ll tell him, ‘Come on, Champ.’ I’ll just play with him. He’ll be trying all those short hooks and not reaching me and I’ll be moving and saying, ‘Come on, champ. You can do better than that."
“Joe Frazier is an Uncle Tom. He works for the enemy.” Muhammad Ali-Training in Miami. The fighter that Norman Mailer said “invented the psychology of the body”. Image John Shearer/TIME & LIFE Pictures
Ali taunts Frazier at his own training headquarters in Pennsylvania. The photographer John Shearer wondered if Ali realised what was happening here – it would be war. John Shearer/TIME & LIFE Pictures
“The two places Frazier communicates best,” wrote LIFE’s Thomas Thompson in a March 1971 cover story, “are in the ring, when a cloak of menace and fury drops over him, and on a nightclub stage, where he sings with strength and sincerity.”
Joe Frazier with his Knockouts. John Shearer/TIME & LIFE Pictures
“Frazier felt that he was every bit as articulate as Ali,” photographer John Shearer said, “and every bit the showman that Ali was.” John Shearer/TIME & LIFE Pictures
Ali sparing playfully outside a Miami grocery store, February 1971. As Shearer said: “The man’s appeal — his charisma, his confidence, his strength, his beauty — drew to him people of all classes, races, and creeds”. John Shearer/TIME & LIFE Pictures
“Heavyweights are always the most lunatic of prizefighters. The closer a heavyweight comes to the championship, the more natural it is for him to be a little bit insane, secretly insane, for the heavyweight champion of the world is either the toughest man in the world or he is not, but there is a real possibility he is. It is like being the big toe of God. You have nothing to measure yourself by.” (Mailer)
The War Machine, Joe Frazier. “A Knockout combs and blacks Frazier’s beard before a performance,” read the caption in LIFE. One of the Knockouts said “Music has brought Joe out, made him a little nicer to people, a little more comfortable to be around.” John Shearer/TIME & LIFE Pictures
“Sooner or later fight metaphors, like fight managers, go sentimental. But there is no choice here. Frazier was the human equivalent of a war machine. He had tremendous firepower. He had a great left hook, a left hook frightening even to watch when it missed, for it seemed to whistle.” (Mailer)
Ali with his personal trainer, American boxing cornerman Angelo Dundee, resting before the fight.
“It was electric in the Garden that night,” Shearer told LIFE.com. “You know, it was the night of the great showdown between the era’s two gladiators, and there was a sense that the unprecedented hype for the fight might actually fall short of the reality.”
It didn’t.
About to be humbled? “People were there in all their finery,” Shearer said, “from the outlandish to the most elegant imaginable. And without a doubt it was a very, very pro-Ali crowd. They all came to see him win, to see him destroy Joe Frazier.” John Shearer/TIME & LIFE Pictures
Miles Davis mixes in the crowd for the Ali-Frazier fight, Madison Square Gardens 1971. John Shearer/TIME & LIFE Pictures
Ali with close friend and assistant, Bundini Brown, shortly before the fight. Brown was the street poet who helped phrase Ali’s greatest catechism: “Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee” John Shearer/TIME & LIFE Pictures
Many of the greats have shown us that it takes the power of the event, and the fulcrum it generates, to bind the spirit, guide us through turmoil; create sense, certainty, politics, art. Life is uncertain, sure. But nature abhors a vacuum. Or, as Mailer put it: “Within 45 seconds the pattern had begun”.
“I have this visceral belief that he just can’t be beaten,” LIFE’s sports editor, Steve Gelman, said of Ali before the fight. “He’s one of those guys, like [Bob] Cousy in basketball, or Willie Mays in baseball. In their prime they were able to come up with exactly the right physical improvisation necessary to do the job. Ali has more of this quality than any athlete I’ve ever seen. No matter how good Frazier is, Ali will manage to win.”
The fight more than matched the juggernaut of hype. It ran the full 15 round championship distance. Ali weaved his way through the first three rounds, catching Frazier with a series of jabs and hooks as he ducked and dodged.
But Frazier slowly began to dominate.
Catching Ali with a barrage left hooks Frazier squared the champ up against the ropes, delivering a sermon of body blows.
Joe Frazier serves Muhammad Ali a sermon of blows. Photograph: Bettmann/Corbis
Ali was visibly wilting after the sixth, putting together a flurry of punches, but unable to keep step with the pace he had set himself at the start. But agility and eloquence kept him on an even footing with Frazier. The fight was close until late in round 11.
Frasier and Ali retire into their camps during the middle rounds. Photo: John Shearer/TIME & LIFE Pictures
During the 11th round Frazier caught Ali, backing him into a corner with a bruising left hook, tacking him onto the ropes. Ali survived, but the War Machine claimed the next three.
“Frazier moved in with the snarl of a wolf,” Norman Mailer wrote of the middle rounds. “His teeth seemed to show through his mouthpiece … Ali looked tired and a little depressed … At the beginning of the fifth round, he got up slowly from his stool, very slowly. Frazier was beginning to feel that the fight was his. He moved in on Ali, his hands at his side in mimicry of Ali, a street fighter mocking his opponent, and Ali tapped him with long light jabs to which Frazier stuck out his mouthpiece, a jeer of derision as if to suggest that the mouthpiece was all Ali would reach all night.”
At the end of 14 Frazier held a lead on the three scorecards. Early in round 15 Frazier landed a tremendous left hook that put Ali on his back.
Ali, right jaw swollen, recovered quickly from the blow quickly. He stayed the course for the rest of the round, weathering the powerful blows from Frazier.
Boxer Joe Frazier is directed to the ropes by referee Arthur Marcante after knocking down Muhammad Ali. A few minutes later the judges made it official: Frazier retained the title with a unanimous decision.
Herb Scharfman / Sports Illustrated / Getty Images
It was Ali’s first professional loss. He would not win another world title fight until three and a half years later, on October 30, 1974.
Donald McRae wrote for The Guardian: “There was, of course, a price to pay – for both of them – and the Araneta Coliseum in Quezon City, Manila, on the morning of Wednesday 1 October 1975, was the settling place. The Thrilla in Manila – conceived by Don King, embraced by the dubious regime of President Marcos – reached and maintained such a level of raw intensity that it is regarded by an overwhelming majority of respected observers as the most brutal of all heavyweight title fights. It is no exaggeration to say that either or both combatants could have died.”
Frazier straightens himself up after the fight. Photo: John Shearer/TIME & LIFE Pictures
After the Great Fight both Frazier and Ali spent time in hospital. Rumors circulated that Frazier had died. Ali vowed to retire from boxing if they turned out to be true.
They weren’t.
Smokin’ Joe and his camp after the main event. But despite his victory, Ali remained the prominent name in Ali-Frazier phenomenon. Ali’s shadow stalked Frazier for years. Photo: John Shearer/TIME & LIFE Pictures
Mailer went on to write ‘The Fight’, about Ali’s confrontation with George Foreman during the 1975 World Heavyweight Boxing Championship in Kinshasa, Zaire. In contrast to the wrecking ball of Frazier, Foreman’s deadly character has been described as a potent of “silence, serenity and cunning”. Foreman had also never been defeated. His hands were his instrument, and “he kept them in his pockets the way a hunter lays his rifle back into its velvet case”. In Mailer’s own hands, it was another monumental clash of Egos.
Sinatra pursued his singing career.
Towards the end of his life, Frazier claimed he was badly out of pocket – lost many millions lost on land deals and a swindle of business partners. He walked with a cane, but continued to tour with The Knockouts. Of Ali, Frazier commented in 2011 “If I had a loaf of bread, I’d give it to him”.
On hearing of Frazier’s death shortly afterward, the Ego of the battle was perhaps finally laid to rest. Ali said: “The world has lost a great Champion. I will always remember Joe with respect and admiration. My sympathy goes out to his family and loved ones.”
RIP, he was taken from us years ago by a wicked disease
I enjoy(ed) watching him talking shit, "I'm a bad man"
He did it with a sense of humor, I liked his style
and no, I'm not condoning everything he may have done or not in life, I'm just saying I enjoyed watching him fight and I found him to be very entertaining
I wish he still had a voice for the past 30 years
I enjoy(ed) watching him talking shit, "I'm a bad man"
He did it with a sense of humor, I liked his style
and no, I'm not condoning everything he may have done or not in life, I'm just saying I enjoyed watching him fight and I found him to be very entertaining
I wish he still had a voice for the past 30 years
My dad was a good friend of Abe Green the then NJ boxing commissioner
who gave us press passes to the old Madison Sqyare Garden & as soon as I could
drive my brother & I would go there for almost every fight card. We saw Ali then
Clay on his way up fight Von Clay & Doug Jones when all 3 were young & on the way
up. Ali beat both but both fights could have gone either way.
Unlike Ray Robinson & Roberto Duran true greats that I always rooted for I never
rooted for Ali until they unfairly took his championship away then I became a supporter.
If I ever had mixed emotions for a fight it was Ali's first fight back after his ban
against Jerry Quarry. Quarry I saw KO an unbeated Mac Foster at the new Garden
& really thought he should have become champ during Ali's 3 year ban, how he ever
lost his title shot to Jimmy Ellis is beyond me. Anyway Ali's 1st fight from exile was Jerry Quarry
Ali won in the early rounds as he split Quarry's face wide open, every fight from then on
I rooted for Ali.
who gave us press passes to the old Madison Sqyare Garden & as soon as I could
drive my brother & I would go there for almost every fight card. We saw Ali then
Clay on his way up fight Von Clay & Doug Jones when all 3 were young & on the way
up. Ali beat both but both fights could have gone either way.
Unlike Ray Robinson & Roberto Duran true greats that I always rooted for I never
rooted for Ali until they unfairly took his championship away then I became a supporter.
If I ever had mixed emotions for a fight it was Ali's first fight back after his ban
against Jerry Quarry. Quarry I saw KO an unbeated Mac Foster at the new Garden
& really thought he should have become champ during Ali's 3 year ban, how he ever
lost his title shot to Jimmy Ellis is beyond me. Anyway Ali's 1st fight from exile was Jerry Quarry
Ali won in the early rounds as he split Quarry's face wide open, every fight from then on
I rooted for Ali.
