By Michael Talbot
Muhammad Ali was one of the greatest boxers of his generation. He was born in 1942 in Louisville as Cassius Marcellus Clay Jr. At 12 years old, he started amateur boxing training, and by 18, he was in the Olympics and won gold in the light heavyweight division. Later on in the same year he became a professional boxer. His first big fight was against Sonny Liston, beating him in a huge upset victory in February 1964. And One year later in 1961, he became a Muslim and changed his name to Muhammad Ali. Five years later in 1966, the United States held a draft, and he declined due to his religious beliefs, and was thrown in jail for draft evasion, however, his conviction was overturned in 1971, but didn’t fight for almost 4 years after being let out of prison. But during this time, he fought for civil rights and racial pride. Some other famous boxing matches he fought in were “the fight of the century” and “the thrilla in Manila” with Joe Frazier as his opponent, and “the rumble in the jungle” against George Foreman. During this time, he was the best boxer, but also one of the best trash talkers in an era where most boxers had their managers do the talking. After boxing, he released 2 Grammy nominated albums, and also wrote 2 autobiographies. He retired from boxing in 1981, and was diagnosed with Parkinson’s syndrome 3 years later, some people thought that It was because of his estimated 200000 hits taken by his opponents, but it wasn’t because of that. In 1996, he participated in the opening ceremony of the summer Olympics in Atlanta, lighting the flame with over 3 billion people watching. As his health declined, he could barely walk by 2002, and by 2013, he couldn’t speak. He eventually passed on June 3rd 2016. I think that Muhammad Ali was a huge influence on not only sports, but also the entire world. He won a lot of boxing matches, wrote 2 books, made 2 Grammy nominated albums, and appeared in many movies and tv shows. He was also influential in the civil rights movement, and he raised a lot of money for people in need. He was a great man in the ring and out of it, and we’ll never see another boxer like him ever again.
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