'If you even dream of beating me, you better wake up and apologise.' 'I'm the boldest, the prettiest, the most superior, most scientific, most skilfullest fighter in the ring today.' 'Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee, his hands can't hit what his eyes can't see.' 'It's hard to be humble when you're as great as I am.'

Fewer are prepared to go to jail fewer still give up all we have plus a golden promise yet to mature. He may have stumbled into his most famous stance his famous comment on being drafted ('I ain't got no quarrel with them Vietcong') was such a throwaway line that reporter Bob Lipsyte of the New York Times, interviewing him outside his house, initially missed it. Confronted with moral challenges that would have defeated us as easily as the physical battles he fought, he proved himself superior to most of us in that sphere too. It helps us believe that what we are watching goes beyond bread and circuses, and is more than a mere distraction from the crueller realities elsewhere.Īli was different. It is the sort of veneration that has as much to do with making us feel better about our sporting obsessions as it does with self-delusion. The boxing legend posed with the Beatles during their maiden US tour Watch some of Ali's most famous interviews.A woman who can run faster than any other born must live by a superior moral code. A man who can hit a small stationary ball more sweetly than any other is assumed to have similarly transcendent character. We often try to equate sport with more than just exceptional physical ability in one obtuse role. His skills in his chosen vocation were unmatched, but the effect they had on the world went far beyond those narrow proficiencies. To talk of Ali as a champion heavyweight boxer is like saying the Beatles had a collective ear for melody.

Muhammad ali boxing