As a boy, I was a Ken Norton fan. That means I spent the 1970s rooting against Muhammad Ali, which was usually quite fruitless. Any Norton fan could tell you: our man had beaten him two out of three, although the judges robbed one of those from Norton with a crooked decision.
So when the vampiric Leon Spinks shocked the world by outpointing Ali in 1977, it was a cause for celebration. And when Ali got revenge in the rematch, it was to be expected.
The underlying story, however, was that when someone like Ali loses to someone like Spinks, it’s time to hang up the gloves up. Yet Ali kept going, trudging through a series of embarrassments. By the time Trevor Berbick finally pummeled him into retirement in 1981, it was hard to hate on Ali anymore. He seemed like just another sad pugilist who’d hung around long past his due date.
It was also increasingly obvious to most observers that Ali was becoming what was then known as “punch drunk.” The more technical terms was dementia pugilistica. Today it’s it’s called CTE (Chronic Traumatic Encephalopahty), the form of brain damage that makes parents think twice about letting their kids play football.
As I came of age during the 1980s, I learned more about Ali, née Cassius Clay. As a boxing fan, I came to appreciate that he was, in fact, almost certainly the greatest heavyweight of all time, and undoubtedly one of the greatest boxers of any class.
But far more interesting was the life he lived outside the ring.
He emerged from the segregated South to become a star of the 1960 Rome Olympics. Immediately after winning the heavyweight championship in 1964 with a shocking upset of Sonny Liston, he stunned the public even more by revealing his friendship with Malcolm X, announcing his conversion to Islam, and officially changing his name to Muhammad Ali.
In 1966, he publicly voiced his opposition to the Vietnam War, stating “I ain’t got no quarrel with the Vietcong.” The war was then at its peak of popularity in America, and no other celebrities of his caliber dared oppose it. Just Ali.
Afterwards, he spent four years fighting the federal government in court to avoid being drafted. Along the way, the feds gave him numerous outs, such as offering him a part time entertainment position in the military that would allow him to keep fighting in the ring instead of in Vietnam. But he declined all of it, refusing to compromise on his ideals.
When federal authorities arrested Ali for draft dodging, an amazing act of collusion followed; the boxing commissions in all 50 states stripped him of his license. For the next three years, he was unable to box professionally.
Deprived of his profession, he fell into debt during the prime of his career. The Nation of Islam disavowed its most famous convert. He was roundly criticized by none other than Jackie Robinson. Nearly every sports writer condemned him, many offering up epithets. Serious social commentators throughout the nation railed against him. But Ali held firm.
As the war became more and more unpopular among Americans, Ali’s reputation was resuscitated. Some states relented and reinstated his license. He re-entered the ring in 1970. The U.S. Supreme C
ourt overturned his conviction a year later. He was redeemed.
But by then, Ali was more than just redeemed. He was a hero. In America he was a symbol of the transition from Civil Rights to Black Power. Abroad he was a global symbol of courageous resistance.
In part two of his boxing career, Ali wasn’t just a champion. He was an phenomenon. He was world famous. He was a symbol righteous power. He fought championship bouts in former European colonies that had emerged as independent nations after WWII.
He beat George Foreman in Zaire, which suffered under one of the world’s poorest and most despotic governments. He beat Joe Frazier in the Philippines, which had been under the bloody colonial boots of Spain, the United States, and Japan for nearly five centuries. Everywhere he went, crowds chanted his name.
In the coffee table book I recently co-authored with Heather Rounds, Ali made the cut; he was one our 100 Moments on 20th century America. Not one of his many momentous fights, but him. When devising our list of entries for the Celebrity chapter, there was no question we had to include him. We titled the entry on Ali: “The Most Famous Person in the World.” Which he was. But the important thing is why.
If Muhammad Ali had simply been one of the greatest athletes of all time who also happened to be incredibly smart, funny, engaging, and charismatic, that would be enough to make him famous. But he was far more than that. He was a man of values and ideals who sacrificed outside the ring to defend those beliefs. He wasn’t just great. He was heroic.
Ali was a complicated man, and he had his dark side, which is also part of his legacy. He could be cruel, both to his opponents in the ring and to his loved ones. But it’s his complicated legacy that makes Ali is too important for mere hagiography. Most other athletes fit comfortably onto bubble gum cards and lounge among our fond memories. Very few of them earn a place in our serious history books.
But Muhammad Ali is for the ages.