“I am the greatest” Muhammad Ali

This is the story of boxing legend Muhammad Ali, I could blabber on about what I think of the book and all of that bollocks, but instead I think it would be more constructive for you to read what the author Alan Goldstein wrote about Ali and the book. Here you have it…

There have been a number of sports heroes in the 20 th Century who became bigger than life by both deeds and fable - Babe Ruth, Joe Louis, Jesse Owens and Joe DiMaggio - but no athlete weighed so heavily on the public’s consciousness as Muhammad Ali.

A three-time world heavyweight champion who first captured our imagination by successfully predicting the round he would dispose of his ring rival, Ali never fit the stereotype role we had shaped for the king of boxing. If the heavyweight champion ideal was Louis - carry a big punch in the ring but walk softly outside the ropes - Ali turned the model upside down.

Using the title as a bully pulpit, he forced people to choose sides, lecturing the world on Vietnam, racism, sexism and the emerging Third World nations. By refusing induction into the US Army during the Vietnam War on religious grounds, he was viewed as a traitor or martyr, but the politicians stole his heavyweight crown without due process and exiled him from the ring for three years.

He told everyone who questioned his transformation to the Muslim faith: “I don’t have to be who you want me to be,” and seldom did he adhere to the consensus of opinion. Nor did he match the conventional mode of past heavyweight champions who relied mainly on power, instead using his remarkable speed of hand and foot to whip such giants as Sonny Liston and Joe Frazier, and late in his career, guile and inventiveness to upset the seemingly invincible George Foreman.

Where he once divided America with his social and religious beliefs, Ali, his body now ravaged by Parkinson’s Syndrome, has become a unifying force and symbol of peace and hope. In an age of superstars without a public conscience, Ali was truly unique. He cavorted with presidents and kings, but was always more comfortable with the common man. Quite simply, “The Greatest.”

Book courtesy of Lydia Drukarz at Carlton Books
www.carltonbooks.co.uk

James Henderson

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