The three-time world heavyweight champion, hailed as the greatest boxer who ever lived, had battled Parkinson’s disease for 32 years. He died in Phoenix, Arizona, after being admitted to hospital with a respiratory condition.
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Muhammad Ali died Friday at age 74.
Dyke Spear, a West Hartford lawyer who said he promoted closed-circuit TV showings of Ali fights in the Hartford area, at venues such as Northwest Catholic and New Britain high schools, said he cried when he saw news of Ali’s death late Friday.
I was too young when it was taken to understand who he was – still Cassius Clay, already an Olympic Gold Medal victor, yet to set out on a spiritual journey that would lead him to his Muslim faith, exile him at the peak of his power, and set the stage for his return to greatness with a name as familiar to the downtrodden in the slums of Southeast Asia and the villages of Africa as it was to cheering crowds in Madison Square Garden. Us Weekly reports that the list of people who will deliver eulogies has also been announced via a spokesperson for the Ali family.
Stripped of his world boxing crown for refusing to join the USA army and fight in Vietnam, Ali returned in triumph by recapturing the title and starring in some of the sport’s most unforgettable duels.
“God blessed him because he was such a sweet person. Humble people, I’ve found, don’t get very far”. “He was a wonderful, wonderful, wonderful man, he will be missed”.
“I hated every minute of training, but I said, ‘Don’t quit”. Years later, he came back to the old neighborhood as a heavyweight champ, driving a Cadillac with the top down.
It was the simple way Ali talked to the world, even when a lot of the world didn’t want to hear what he had to say.
A family funeral for Muhammad Ali will be held Thursday in his hometown of Louisville, Kentucky.
Ali first won the heavyweight championship on February 25, 1964, when the heavily favored Sonny Liston did not answer the bell to start the seventh round at the Miami Beach Convention Center.
“You shook up the World!” he wrote.
In his own emotional tribute Obama revealed he keeps a pair of Ali’s gloves in his private study at the White House, and said the world was fortunate that “the Greatest chose to grace our time”. In 2009, Ali received the Beacon of Change Award in Cincinnati for his contribution to civil rights.
He stood with (Martin Luther) King and (Nelson) Mandela; stood up when it was hard; spoke out when others wouldn’t.
His youngest adoptive son Asaad Amin Ali shared a post on Instagram, writing: “And I’m happy you get to go home to grandma now I know she has missed you like insane!”
Pele was a member of Brazil’s 1958, 1962 and 1970 World Cup winning teams while Ali won an Olympic gold medal in 1960 and the world heavyweight title in 1964, 1974 and 1978. It’s too bad people didn’t recognize that in Ali at the time, but his personal style and the political tenor of the ’60s precluded that.
“I’m going to float like a butterfly and sting like a bee”. Ali employed the “rope-a-dope”, in which he allowed Foreman to tire himself out as Ali absorbed punch after punch, before he claimed the bout in Zaire – now known as the Democratic Republic of the Congo – with a knockout.
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Like most people, he was aware of Ali’s declining health in recent years but unknowing of his grievous state that came to light hours before his death.
