A legend has passed. Late Friday night, the news broke that Muhammad Ali, considered by himself, and many who fought him or watched him fight, “The Greatest” fighter ever. Ali died Friday at a Phoenix-area hospital after being treated for respiratory complications. He was 74.
Muhammad Ali, born Cassius Marcellus Clay, Jr., has battled Parkinson’s disease for the past 32-years. Parkinson’s is a progressive neurological condition that slowly robbed Ali of him world-famous verbal grace and physical dexterity. His daughter Rasheda said early this morning in a statement that her legendary father is “no longer suffering.” She described him as “daddy, my best friend and hero” and “the greatest man that ever lived.”
Ali burst into the national conscious in the early 1960s. At the time, he was a young heavyweight champion who converted to Islam and refused to serve in the Vietnam War, one of many political statements he would make throughout his life. Even in the weeks leading up to his death, Ali was publicly critical of Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump’s proposal to ban Muslims from entering the United States, saying “we as Muslims have to stand up to those who use Islam to advance their own personal agenda.”
A fighter indeed, Muhammad Ali was also a natural showman. As Ali rose to fame in the late-60s, his mouth netted him as much attention as his fist. After all, we was the self-proclaimed “greatest.” Ali’s boxing career would always be linked with fellow heavyweight Joe Frazier, who passed away in 2011. Frazier wasn’t quite the showman that Ali was, but he packed an equally devastating punch. The three fights between the two superstars are some of the most significant fights in boxing history.
Born in Louisville, Kentucky, Ali began boxing at age 12, winning gold gloves before heading to the 1960 Olympics in Rome, winning a gold medal. He resided in Michigan for much of his post-boxing life, until he and wife Yolanda (“Lonnie”) Williams moved to Scottsdale, Arizona in January of 2007. A funeral service has been planned in his hometown of Louisville.
