“For an athlete like myself today, without Muhammad Ali, I wouldn’t be sitting up here talking in front of you guys”.
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“The uplifting exuberance of Muhammad Ali will endure long after his passing, ensuring that the lasting political achievements of one of the 20th Century’s greatest sports superstars will remain a vital part of the history of the turbulence that changed the world in the 1960s and 1970s”, Dubai’s Gulf News, a widely read daily in the United Arab Emirates, said in an editorial. “He would walk backward for two blocks”. Ali was hospitalised in the Phoenix area early this week, but his condition quickly deteriorated.
Fox, a 54-year-old actor who was diagnosed with young-onset Parkinson’s disease in 1991, called for a renewed commitment to research in honor of Ali’s fortitude in a CNN opinion piece he penned with Michael J. Fox Foundation CEO Todd Sherer.
Pakistan’s cricket legend-turned-politician Imran Khan, writing a series of tweets mourning Ali’s death, described the boxer as the “greatest sportsman of all time” and a man of strong convictions. “He was so ideal, so fast”.
At a time when the Rio Olympics has thrown open the doors for professional boxers; Ali would have been a happy man had he watched a few bouts on television.
“Were trying to find a fight that’s good for us and something we can use as a stepping stone”, he said. “He was beyond a fighter”.
His body will pass the Muhammad Ali Centre, travel along Muhammad Ali Boulevard and through his former neighbourhood. The visitors had come from as far away as Georgia and as near as down the street.
“He just loved to talk”, he says with a warm, nostalgic look. Ali to heavyweight champion Floyd Patterson during the 1960 Olympic Games.
He won and defended the heavyweight championship in epic fights in exotic locations, spoke loudly on behalf of blacks, and famously refused to be drafted into the Army during the Vietnam War because of his Muslim beliefs. Ali had lost his champion status years earlier after legal proceedings that followed his refusal to submit to compulsory military service during the US war in Vietnam. He did not fight again for almost four years.
Saban said he has often referenced Ali to his Crimson Tide teams.
Scot X. Esdaile, president of the state chapter of the NAACP and a commissioner of the state Boxing Commission, said Ali was one of his heroes. He upset the established order, gave hope and inspiration to millions of black people, and frightened a lot of white racists. He put his brand on the line, he put his title on the line …
“His final hours were spent with just immediate family”, Gunnell said, noting the official cause of death was septic shock due to unspecified natural causes.
Spear visited Ali’s training camp in Deer Lake, Pa., in 1974, just before Ali left for the Rumble in the Jungle in what was then known as Zaire. That was a wonderful time for heavyweight boxing and I’d like to see those days come again.
“Every time the bus would stop to pick up kids, he would pass us up”, she recalled.
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Among the most important lessons they leave behind for future generations is how each of them managed to break those shackles and define another course that defied and challenged the obstacles along the way. “He wasn’t doing it for show”.
