International News

NEW YORK, (APP): Known as ‘The Greatest,’ former
three-time heavyweight boxing champion and cultural and
civil rights icon Muhammad Ali has died. He was 74.
The iconic Louisville native, born Cassius Clay Jr, was
diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease in the mid-1980s. He was
taken to a Phoenix hospital in Arizona this week suffering from
respiratory problems.
Arguably the most famous athlete on Earth, Ali won millions
of fans around the world, including Pakistajn, which he visited
in 1988. The man who would “float like a butterfly and sting
like a bee” won the 1960 Olympic gold medal and remains the only
fighter to win the heavyweight belt three different times.
He first won it in 1964 as a 7-1 underdog against Sonny
Liston; regained the title in 1974 against George Foreman
in the famous Rumble in the Jungle match-up; and won it again
in 1978 by beating Leon Spinks, who had scored a surprise victory
over Ali earlier that year. His three fights against and
long-running feud with “Smokin'” Joe Frazier became the stuff
of legend.
Ali retired from the ring in 1979, though he returned for
losses to Larry Holmes and Trevor Burbick in the early 1980s.
The boxer had a total of 61 fights in his career, winning
56 of them ” 37 by knockout” and became a global superstar.
But Ali’s fame extends far beyond the sweet science.
In addition to being a civil rights activist and a
sometimes-reviled conscientious objector to the war in
Vietnam, Ali redefined what it meant to be an American
athlete, especially an African-American athlete.
Deprived of his title in 1967 because of his religious
beliefs as a Muslim and his stance on the war in Southeast
Asia, Ali took his case all the way to to the Supreme Court
in Clay v. United States.
As detailed in HBO’s Stephen Frears-directed 2013 movie
Muhammad Ali’s Great Fight, the former champ saw the justices
vote 8-0 to overturn his conviction on June 28, 1971. While he
was already fighting in jurisdictions that granted him a
boxing license, the SCOTUS win allowed Ali to fully return
to the ring to reclaim his title.
The change in attitudes toward Ali over the decades came
after his fight career, when he became a tireless human rights
ambassador and philanthropist whose impact was felt worldwide.
He was invited to the White House several times in his later
career and was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in
2005. In 1999, the BBC proclaimed Ali the Sports Personality of
the Century.
It one of the most iconic moments in recent Olympics
” TV ” history, Ali received thundering applause when he
made a surprise rare appearance to light the Olympic flame
during the Opening Ceremony of the 1996 Atlanta Games.