MUHAMMAD ALI "THE GREATEST" TRIVIA PART I
By Maloney L. Samaco
PhilBoxing.com
Tue, 07 Jun 2016
Muhammad Ali was born Cassius Marcellus Clay Jr. on January 17, 1942 in Louisville, Kentucky. He was named after his father, Cassius Marcellus Clay Sr., who was named after the 19th-century Kentucky Republican politician Cassius Marcellus Clay.
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The 12-year-old Clay was angry over a thief who stole his bicycle. He told a police officer he was going to whup the thief. The officer advised him to learn how to box first. So he learned his first lesson in boxing from coach Joe E. Martin.
As an amateur, he won six Kentucky Golden Gloves titles, two national Golden Gloves titles, an Amateur Athletic Union national title, and the 1960 Rome Olympics light heavyweight gold medal. His amateur record was 100 wins with five losses.
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Ali wrote in his 1975 autobiography that he hurled his Olympic gold medal into the Ohio River after they were not served at a "whites-only" restaurant and brawled with a white gang. Although Thomas Hauser's biography of Ali revealed that he lost his medal a year after he won it. Ali was awarded a replacement gold medal during a basketball intermission at the 1996 Atlanta Olympics where he lit the torch at the opening ceremony.
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Clay fought his professional debut on October 29, 1960 with a six-round decision overTunney Hunsaker. In 1962, he defeated his former trainer and veteran boxer Archie Moore. Clay left Moore's camp in 1960, one reason because of Clay's refusal to do some chores such as dish-washing and sweeping. So he hired Angelo Dundee, whom he had met in February 1957 while Ali was still as an amateur boxer.
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Clay was a 7?1 underdog in his world heavyweight championship with titlist Sonny Liston whom he called "the big ugly bear." Liston did not answer the bell signalling the seventh round and Clay was declared the winner by TKO. Clay roared to the mediamen: "Eat your words! I am the greatest! I shook up the world. I'm the prettiest thing that ever lived."
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Clay changed his name to Muhammad Ali when he was converted to Islam and became a member of the Nation of Islam. Ali then refused to be inducted into the armed forces and was denied of a boxing license in every state. As a result, he did not fight for more than three years from March 1967 to October 1970, from age 25 to almost 29. Finally, his conviction was overturned in 1971. During his inactivity, he toured colleges across America, condemning the Vietnam War and championing African American pride and racial justice.
Click here to view a list of other articles written by Maloney L. Samaco.
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