Mohammed. Mohammed Ali.

Muhammad Ali - Profile

You had to be there to understand. The Mohammad Ali mystique was ubiquitous. His little impromptu poems, his one liners, and his defiant sense of self were as much a part of it as was his performance in the ring.

"I am the greatest, I said that even before I knew I was."

"I hated every minute of training, but I said, "Don't quit. Suffer now and live the rest of your life as a champion.""

"The fight is won or lost far away from witnesses - behind the lines, in the gym, and out there on the road, long before I dance under those lights."

"He who is not courageous enough to take risks will accomplish nothing in life."

"I'm so fast that last night I turned off the light switch in my hotel room and was in bed before the room was dark."

And hey, he even understood Aristride Briand's famous quip:

"A man who views the world the same at fifty as he did at twenty has wasted thirty years of his life."

proving that just about everybody wises up in their old age.

He won a gold medal in the Rome Olympics but later allegedly threw it into a river in response to an act of racism he had encountered. He worked tirelessly in the Civil Rights movement and in 2005 he was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by George W. Bush. He lost only 5 of the 61 fights he was in. No one can deny his claim to be "the greatest".(Wikipedia)

And who can forget him lighting the flame at the 1996 Atlanta Olympics!



And nobody knew until the very last moment it would be him.

I was never much of a boxing fan, either before or since. It was just that Ali, the man who floats like a butterfly and stings like a bee, was a fighter and a winner in life as well as in the ring:



His personal life was anything but saintly, but this was before the era when the private life of every celebrity and high profile politician was considered fair game for gossip mongerers. How I long for those days!!

ht: The Iceman who's got that song floating around in my head now. "Mohammad. Mahammad Ali. He floats like a butterfly and stings like a bee." Somehow, I don't think "Cassius. Cassius Clay" would sound the same when put to music.