In this March 8, 1971 file photo, Muhammad Ali (left) and Joe Frazier (center) in action at Madison Square Garden, New York
Muhammad Ali, the brash, fleet-footed heavyweight boxing champion whose charisma transcended sports and made him a global symbol of social change, has died at 74.
He died Friday, Bob Gunnell, a spokesman for the family, said in an e-mailed statement. Ali, who called himself “The Greatest,” was hospitalized in the Phoenix area with respiratory problems earlier this week, the Associated Press reported. He suffered from Parkinson’s disease, a neurological affliction that some doctors attributed to the numerous blows to the head he took during two decades as a boxer.
“Muhammad Ali was The Greatest. Period,” President Barack Obama said Saturday in an e-mailed statement. “Ali shook up the world. And the world is better for it. We are all better for it.”
Ali’s illness prematurely silenced one of the great self-promoters, agitators and entertainers in sports history. He delighted sportswriters with his poetic putdowns of opponents and was outspoken as well on race, religion and war. He managed to emerge from his firebrand years as something of a statesman, saluted during the opening ceremonies of the 1996 and 2012 Summer Olympics.
“The Louisville Lip” early in his career because of his Kentucky hometown and his boasting, Ali called himself “The Greatest” and wrote poems predicting in which round his opponent would fall.
His playful public image became more serious when, days after beating Liston in 1964, he joined the Nation of Islam and changed his name from Cassius Clay to Muhammad Ali, as bestowed by the spiritual leader Elijah Muhammad. While some viewed the move as an act of black pride, others criticized him for joining what they considered an extremist group.
Ali departed from both the “good Negro” image forged by Floyd Patterson and the “bad Negro” reputation of Liston, the two black heavyweight champions who preceded him, David Remnick wrote in “King of the World,” his 1998 biography of Ali.“I had to prove you could be a new kind of black man,” Ali said, according to Remnick. “I had to show that to the world.”
Diagnosed with Parkinson’s in 1984, Ali continued to travel the world to promote his religion and international goodwill, but gave few interviews or speeches.
At the 1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta, he steadied his trembling hands long enough to light the cauldron at the opening ceremonies.
“I don’t want anyone to feel sorry for me, because I had a good life before, and I’m having a good life now,” Ali said, according to Hauser’s book.
Cassius Marcellus Clay Jr. was born on Jan. 17, 1942, the first of two boys raised in Louisville by Cassius Sr., a painter of signs and murals, and his wife, the former Odessa Lee Grady, who cleaned the homes of wealthy families. MDT/Bloomberg
pacquiao: ‘we lost a giant’
From Manny Pacquiao to left-wing activists, Filipinos in this boxing-crazy nation on Saturday grieved the death of Muhammad Ali, which brought back fond memories of the epic 1975 “Thrilla in Manila” fight between him and Joe Frazier.
“We lost a giant today,” Pacquiao, the Filipino boxing legend, said on his Facebook account, offering prayers to Ali’s family. “Boxing benefitted from Muhammad Ali’s talents but not nearly as much as mankind benefitted from his humanity.”
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