Muhammad Ali: Biography of a Boxing Legend

“The greatest” (the greatest of all time), “the people's champion” (people’s champ) and the “Louisville champion”, are some of the qualifying adjectives that are recognized worldwide to refer to the most famous and controversial fighter of all time: Muhammad Ali (1942 - 2016), or Cassius Clay, which was the name he was born with.

Some of the world-renowned magazines such as The Esquire, The Time and Magazine, have extolled the figure of Muhammad Ali as the most influential sportsman and character of the late 20th century. Still some, after his death, continue to think that there has not been and will not be anyone like him, especially because of the context in which the legend was born.

Below you can find a short biography of Muhammad Ali that goes from his early years to his triumph in the world of boxing.

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Biography of Muhammad Ali

Muhammad Ali, born Cassius Marcellus Clay in 1942 in Louisville (Kentucky, USA), he came from a middle class black family who made a living from art

, since her father was dedicated to painting portraits and religious representations for the white privileged classes, something that the child prodigy liked little because of the racial segregation that the country lived in that turbulent time of the Ku Kux Klan.

Attending high school like any other child of the time, some events frustrated Clay and marked his political-social vision in a very premature way. Once, his mother Odessa Clay recounted, they denied him a glass of water for being black, a fact that enraged Cassius and he returned home asking his mother for an explanation.

Let us remember that in the United States there were times of great controversy due to the contradiction of having fought in the Second World War for freedom, at the same time as in the country itself the races were segregated between whites and blacks, and where you could see posters in the shops like "here it is not sold to blacks."

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Boxing, an accident in his life

Muhammad Ali never thought of boxing, much less of becoming the icon that he became globally. An anecdotal, circumstantial fact would change his life forever: the theft of his bicycle. He began his hunt for the thief, when a policeman in the area intercepted him, asking for an explanation. Muhammad Ali, crying, told him that he was going to “beat up father” the thief.

The policeman in question, Joe E. Martin, advised him to train a few punches on the punching bag before hitting anyone, in order to vent his anger. Later, Joe would be his personal trainer, since he was his mentor and the first person who saw the terrible potential that Ali had yet to exploit.

The Olympic Games in Rome in 1960

The event of the Olympic Games in Rome in 1960 marked the beginning and professionalization of the amateur boxer. The first steps taken in the world of boxing had not shown any exceptionality in the qualities of Ali, a fact that kept him out of the orbit of professional scouts.

Nevertheless, at the Olympics won the gold medal against more skilled opponents on paper, defeating all of his adversaries with relative ease. Upon returning to his country in the United States, rather than returning as a hero in flight, his own people continued to treat him as “black,” a derogatory pseudonym with which he referred to African-American citizens.

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Muhammad Ali against the Establishment and segregation

In 1964 he became, against all odds, world heavyweight champion against Sonny. Liston, another black boxer who was invincible until the arrival of Muhammad Ali, who beat him in two occasions.

His recent successes, his charisma and popularity, began to unsettle the authorities. Americans, advocates of the Status Quo imposed through segregation. Thus, during the Vietnam War, Muhammad Ali was called up for military service by demoting him. arbitrarily to a lower category (on the military scale), a fact that forced him to fight in the country Asian.

Ali refused, was sentenced by the Supreme Court to serve in jail and stripped of his title as a boxer, as well as the title of world champion. Far from being offended, Cassius Clay converted to Islam (hence his renown), taking advantage of his popularity to fight for black rights, he attended rallies, college talks, and public stages to extend his struggle.

"I do not understand why I have to go thousands of miles away from home and kill people who have done nothing to me while those who call me black are my thing," Ali snapped in one of his speeches.

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Boxing legend, political activist and mass idol

In the strictly sports field, fights like the one in "The fight of the century" (1971) against his arch enemy Joe Frazier, "Rumble in the jungle" (1974) against "Big" George Foreman or Thrilla in Manilla (1975), against Joe Frazier for the third time, where both fighters claimed to have felt the closest to death, they are still recognized today as the most spectacular fights in all of boxing history, and Muhammad Ali participated in all they.

Returning to the political arena, Muhammad Ali He rubbed shoulders with the most important personalities of the fight for the rights of blacks. Among them is Martin Luther King, Malcom X Y rosa Parks, making the boxer another essential element for that cause.

Finally, a world icon was erected for all: rich, poor, athletes, journalists, politicians and disadvantaged youth. Lewis Hamilton, a three-time Formula 1 champion, dedicated a victory to him the year of his death by shouting Ali's famous slogan "fly like a butterfly and sting like a bee!" On the radio.