MUHAMMAD ALI, THE GREATEST BOXING ICON
By Maloney L. Samaco
PhilBoxing.com
Tue, 21 Feb 2012
Muhammad Ali turned 70 last January 17 when his long-time trainer Angelo Dundee was still alive and was able to attend the celebration in Louisville, Kentucky. It was the last reunion for both father-and-son-like trainer-boxer tandem in the boxing world.
But a ?Power of Love? benefit dinner was held at MGM Grand, Las Vegas, Nevada to give tribute to ?The Greatest? for his 70th birthday. During Ali?s Prime, Madison Square Garden, New York was considered the Mecca of Boxing. Now it?s Las Vegas.
More than 2,000 guests attended the $1,500-per-plate party, including Manny and Jinkee Pacquiao. Besides being a belated birthday bash, it was also a musical variety used to raise funds for the Cleveland Clinic Lou Ruvo Center for Brain Health and the Muhammad Ali Center, a cultural attraction that showcases Ali's memorabilia and aims at educational objectives on an extensive variety of subjects for adults and children.
Ali, aside from being the first and only three-time lineal world heavyweight champion, was a philanthropist and social activist. For almost 30 years now, he is suffering from Parkinson?s disease, a brain ailment which according to doctors was primarily caused by punches absorbed by his head. Thus the beneficiary was the health center specializing brain illness.
Since he retired from boxing, it was reported that Ali has devoted himself to humanitarian actions around the world. He provided inspiration to hunger aids and poverty relief operations all over the world.
Being a devout Muslim, he supported all kinds of educational exploits, endorsed adoption and promoting respect and understanding among all people. An estimated more than 22 million meals were helped by Ali to feed the hungry. On the average, he traveled more than 200 days per year.
Originally known as Cassius Clay, Ali changed his name after joining the Nation of Islam in 1964, and was later converted to Sunni Islam in 1975. In 1967, three years after Ali had won the world heavyweight championship, he was publicly belittled for his refusal to join the U.S. military, because it was contrary to his religious beliefs and due to his disagreement to the Vietnam War. Ali declared, "I ain't got no quarrel with them Viet Cong... No Viet Cong ever called me nigger." It was one of the most significant commentaries of the time.
Protests against the Vietnam War had not widely spread yet. But with his principles opposing the war for the generation of young Americans ignited as a hallmark for the racial and antiwar turmoil that shocked the world in the 1960s. Ali also inspired Martin Luther King Jr. to declare also his resistance to the Vietnam War for the first time.
Ali was arrested and was convicted of draft evasion charges. He was stripped of his boxing crown and his boxing license was suspended. Although not imprisoned, he was not able to fight again for more than three years of his prime. He appealed his case up to the U.S. Supreme Court, where he was found not guilty because of his religious beliefs.
On June 5, 2007, he was conferred an honorary degree of doctorate of humanities at Princeton University's 260th graduation ceremony. Ali is generally considered as the greatest heavyweight of all time by many boxing reporters and experts. Sports Illustrated selected him as Sportsman of the 20th Century.
Click here to view a list of other articles written by Maloney L. Samaco.
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