The body of Muhammad Ali has arrived in Louisville ahead of memorial services set for Friday.
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His large 8-car motorcade stopped traffic as it traveled from Louisville International Airport to A.D. Porter and Sons Funeral Home Fern Creek location.
The broadcaster altered its Saturday-night schedule after news broke of the death of the three-time boxing world champion.
Foreman described the sense of “losing a piece” of himself while reflecting on the life of his long-term friend.
Mr Elliott said his grandmother was once a nanny to Ali’s family.
He had been admitted to hospital earlier in the week with a respiratory condition having suffered with Parkinson’s disease for 32 years.
“The sanitizing of Ali’s image in recent years has led many to forget that he was reviled by many during the 1960s for his conversion to Islam and for his refusal to be inducted into the US armed forces”, said Frank Guridy, a visiting associate professor of history at Columbia University. In 1963, Ali cemented his place in history by defeating then-Heavyweight champion Sonny Liston in a six-round fight, in which Ali was declared the victor by TKO.
He was the heavy favourite and had been expected to retire his challenger there in Zaire, when Ali secured perhaps the finest victory of his decorated career by masterfully stopping him in eight rounds.
The funeral for the legendary boxer will be held on Friday in his hometown Louisville, Kentucky, Gunnell said.
“I’ll give you a cheque”, the elder Mr Elliott said.
Tennis great Billie Jean King remembered Ali as fun to be around.
Ali also served as something of a public figurehead who often spoke out against racism in modern culture.
Chris Ratcliffe/Getty Images News/Getty ImagesLONDON, ENGLAND – MARCH 03: Sarah Foster, 21, looks at a signed “Float like a butterfly sting like a bee” robe worn by Ali’s cornerman Bundini Brown at the “Rumble in the Jungle” fight – at the preview of the “I Am The Greatest” Muhammad Ali exhibition on March 3, 2016 in London, England. “Speaking as someone who has never been accused of political correctness, I believe that our political leaders should use their position to bring understanding about the religion of Islam and clarify that these misguided murderers have perverted people’s views on what Islam really is”. He made every day of his life worth living, and every time you’d meet him, you felt good about meeting him.
Spectators at the French Open men’s final, many of them standing, have paid tribute to Muhammad Ali with a sustained bout of applause before the title match between Novak Djokovic and Andy Murray. They didn’t put no dogs on me.
“When I came back into boxing (in 1987) he’d retired, and I realised how many years I’d missed his friendship, I could have been closer to him”. Throughout the rest of his storied career, Ali went on to face such high profile fighters as Ernie Terrell, Floyd Patterson, and later, George Foreman.
Foreman revealed that was far from the first time he had experienced Ali’s aura, and recalled a time he first truly witnessed it for himself. “I was devastated”, he said. “I’d just won an Olympic gold medal and I was a handsome young man, and as I sat with her – she didn’t know what I did – I told her I was a boxer”. And you know what? “She asked me where he is and I said he was in heaven”. “Muhammad Ali was born in Miami”. Just like that girl said, he was attractive. “I never saw her again, but I wish I had so I could have told her”.
Former US president Bill Clinton, comedian Billy Crystal and sports journalist Bryant Gumbel will offer eulogies for Ali, the three-time world heavyweight champion who died on Friday at age 74 after a long battle with Parkinson’s disease.
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He was chosen to light the Olympic torch in 1996 in Atlanta and was named a United Nations messenger of peace in 1998.
