Mrs.

McCoy
Modern Arts & Culture M-W-F 11:30
Nov 11 2016
Great Athletes Research Project

Yuanliang Zhang
 Muhammad Ali, whose name was Cassius Marcellus Clay, Jr., was one of the worlds

greatest athletes, activists, and anti-war hero. He was also an artist and philanthropist. As a

boxer, he fought through his career till the limit of his age, he achieved what other boxers never

had achieved not through forever winning but quickly stand up and strike back. As an activist, he

fought for equality of African Americans and Muslims. As an anti-war hero, he was a

conscientious objector who went against the government and became a signature figure of

pacifists. He had his place in singing, recording and writing. Last but not least, his charity helped

many people in Middle East, Africa and many others around the world.

In past 100 years he has been accredited as the most recognized sports person and has

been crowned as sportsman of the century. He is known to be the greatest heavy weights in the

history till now. (Smith, 2014). His boxer life did not start until a police officer in his

hometown, Joe Martin, saw him fighting against someone who was trying to stole his bike.

(Smith, 2014). It did not take him too long until he won his first Olympic gold medal in 1960 and

he kept a record of 100 wins out of 105 fights (Croke, 2016) which was quite impressive for an

amateur athlete. The gold medal definitely was his key to open the door of professional career

and he quickly adopt to it although faced by much stronger opponents. After gaining enough

attention of the boxing world, Ali faced his first and the most powerful opponent, Sonny Liston,

the World Heavyweight Title holder. Liston was an experienced fighter who was expert in

delivering heavy hits and was therefore considered very tricky for Ali because he was younger

and lighter. Ali proved everyones prediction wrong utilizing his speed and even stronger power.

Liston, who claimed that he would be locked up for murder if he fought Ali (Croke, 2016) before

the fight, never stand up to face Ali for the 7th round. Therefore, Ali, who was back then still
Clay, created one of the biggest upsets in sport history (Croke, 2016), won his first World

Heavyweight Title.

Days later, Ali made a statement to the world that he had joined the Nation of Islam, and

was criticized by medias and the boxing world. Despite many negative comments, 1960s was

still peak of Alis career. He defeated every opponent including rematch with Liston, defended

his title from them. Also in this period, he met his first wife Sonji Ro but soon divorced after

marring because she would not convert to Islam and dress accordingly. Then came 1967, a big

year for Ali, not only for that he married his second wife who agreed to convert to Islam, but also

due to the draft for Vietnam War was upon him.

Ali, as he told the media before, refused to be drafted to fight against people who were

not his enemies. He claimed that he did not see Vietnamese as enemies more than white people

since they did not impose discrimination on his people. By stating that his religion banned him

from participating such war, he claimed himself as conscientious objector, but since he also

showed his willingness to participate in Islamic Holy War, (Croke, 2016) his reason was not

accepted. He ended up losing his championship title, banned from fighting in the U.S. and was

sentenced to go to jail for 5 years. Luckily he was free on bail and this became the start of him

being an activist and anti-war hero, he was sympathized by many people when the support for

Vietnam war decreased and would give speeches concerning racial equality and peace.

Soon in 1970s Alis case was overturned by U.S. Supreme Court, and he can finally go

back in to his career. Despite three years banned from fighting in U.S., Ali quickly went back to

the peak of the boxing world and met current Heavyweight Champion Joe Frazier who he called

favorite of KKK (Croke, 2016). The fight between them was a fight of the century for

boxing world. They were evenly matched and fighting in their peak condition, although Frazier
won this match, Ali won their second and third rematch and finally commented that Frazier was

the greatest fighter of all times next to himself. (Croke, 2016).

Ali continued fighting and won another Heavyweight Championship after his last fight

with Frazier, but was deeply troubled by illness. After losing two match, Ali finally decided to

retire from boxing. His boxing career ended but he kept on fighting for what he believed is

justice such as for racial equality, anti-war movement and helping refugees, war victims and etc.

There was a wide spread story about Ali: when he was young, he once threw his gold

medal into river because he was refused by a white only restaurant, but by reading through some

materials, I found out that this is not true and was denounced by Ali himself. Such stories could

be made up because Ali had been a fighter for racial equality in his whole life in both extreme

and peaceful ways. He was not a perfect person, he had four wives and two of them divorced

because Ali had a fair but this never shade his ceaseless work on charitable causes. He suffered

from illness and his health was rapidly decreased during 2014 to 2016 and passed away on June

3, 2016 at the age of 74.

References

Croke, S. (2016). Muhammad Ali. Born to Win. My life, My Times, My Story.

Create Space Independent Publishing Platform.

Smith, R. (2014). Sting Like a Bee: Muhammad Alis Life Story.

Ali, M, Durham, R., Morrison, T., (2015) The Greatest: My Own Story. Graymalkin Media