Muhammad Ali, 'the Greatest', dies aged 74 a sad lose

[Anthea]

Muhammad Ali, 'the Greatest', dies aged 74 - Truly 'the Greatest' sportsman ever

Muhammad Ali, the three-time heavyweight champion who proclaimed himself “the Greatest”, defied the US government over the Vietnam war, and later became one of the most well-known – and loved – sportsmen in history has died.

Ali died late on Friday at a hospital in Phoenix, Arizona, the family’s spokesperson Bob Gunnell said. His funeral will take place in his home town of Louisville, Kentucky.

Ali was admitted to hospital on Thursday with a respiratory problem – a move that was described at the time as “a precaution”. However, reports emerged 24 hours later which said he had been placed on a life support machine and his family “feared the worst”.

Ali had become increasingly frail since being diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease in 1984, aged 42, and in recent years had limited his public appearances. Earlier this month his brother Rahman Ali revealed that the condition was so advanced he could barely speak or leave his house.

As a sportsman he will be remembered for many classic fights – in particular beating the fearsome Sonny Liston to become champion; the Fight of the Century and the Thrilla in Manilla against Joe Frazier, and the Rumble in the Jungle in 1974 when, at the age of 32, he surprised everyone bar himself by cutting down George Foreman in Kinshasa to regain back his title.

Paying tribute after his death, Foreman wrote: “Ali, Fraser and Foreman we were one guy. A part of me slipped away.”

He told the BBC: “Muhammad Ali was one of the greatest human beings I have ever met. No doubt he was one of the best people to have lived in this day and age.”

Another former world heavyweight champion, Mike Tyson, wrote: “God came for his champion. So long great one.”

Tributes flooded in from the world of boxing, the wider sporting community and well beyond them. The former US president Bill Clinton described him as “courageous in the ring, inspiring to the young, compassionate to those in need, and strong and good-humoured in bearing the burden of his own health challenges”.

Ali’s influence out of the ring was no less marked. Having appalled white America by converting to the Nation of Islam and changing his name from Cassius Clay to Cassius X and then to Muhammad Ali, he later refused to be drafted into the army, telling reporters: “Man, I ain’t got no quarrel with them Vietcong.”

In 1967, still unbeaten and with no obvious challenger in sight, Ali was stripped of his titles and for three-and-a-half years had to scrape a living making campus speeches and appearing on Broadway. He lost his best years as a fighter yet as the opposition to Vietnam war grew, so did Ali’s popularity. By the mid 1970s he was the biggest sports star on the planet.

Grace and speed

In his physical prime, a decade earlier, Ali had such grace and foot speed that watching him perform almost became an extension of the balletic arts. He won Olympic light-heavyweight gold as an 18-year-old at the Rome Olympics and four years later, in 1964, he won the heavyweight title for the first time by stopping Liston in a major upset. Challengers were dispatched with a surgical beauty, although there was a vicious streak to him too: when Ernie Terrell called him by his birth name, Cassius Clay, Ali shouted at him “What’s my name?” as he inflicted a terrible beating.

Link to Full Article - Videos - Photos:

https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2016/ ... d-ali-dies

R I P Ali

[Anthea]

Muhammad Ali's best quotes: 'I'm so mean I make medicine sick'

Muhammad Ali wasn’t known as the Louisville Lip for nothing. Following his death in the US on Friday, here are Ali’s sharpest verbal jabs and most withering putdowns

Poem describing what he would do before the first Sonny Liston fight, 1964

“...now Clay swings with a right, what a beautiful swing
And raises the bear straight out of the ring;
Liston is rising and the ref wears a frown
For he can’t start counting ‘til Liston comes down;
Now Liston disappears from view, the crowd is getting frantic
But our radar stations have picked him up somewhere over the Atlantic;
Who would have thought when they came to the fight
That they’d witness the launching of a human satellite?
Yes the crowd did not dream when they laid down their money
That they would see a total eclipse of the Sonny.”

Before George Foreman fight, 1974

“I’m so fast that last night I turned off the light switch in my hotel room and got into bed before the room was dark.”

“Float like a butterfly sting like a bee – his hands can’t hit what his eyes can’t see.”

“I done wrestled with an alligator, I done tussled with a whale;
Handcuffed lightning, thrown thunder in jail;
Only last week, I murdered a rock, injured a stone, hospitalised a brick;
I’m so mean I make medicine sick.”

Link to More Ali Quotes:

https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2016/ ... sville-lip