Other heavyweight champions before Ali embodied the zeitgeist, John L. Sullivan and Jack Dempsey come to mind, but few led the charge?
?This life is not real. I conquered the world and it did not bring me satisfaction.??Muhammad Ali
Former heavyweight champion Muhammad Ali passed away this morning after a long fight with Parkinson?s disease. ?The Greatest? was 74.
Ali was hospitalized Thursday with respiratory problems and his condition was upgraded to ?grave.?
Tributes are pouring in from around the world. Ali?s story has been told before and will be told again in the upcoming days. He was a great champion, a supersized Sugar Ray Robinson who played by his own rules and never ducked a soul. He fought the best of the best during a time when the heavyweight division was deep. He fought smart, even when his legs were gone, and he was as tough as they come.
Ali exemplified what it meant to be a boxing legend. He traversed the worlds of sport, politics, and culture like few before him or since. He went from the most hated man in America to the most loved man in America.
All lives are a journey, but Muhammad Ali went the distance.
Despite his accomplishments in the ring, which includes wins over Sonny Liston, Joe Frazier, George Foreman, and countless others splendid fighting specimens, Ali to this day is a controversial figure. He was an iconoclast. He challenged the status quo.
Other heavyweight champions before Ali embodied the zeitgeist, John L. Sullivan and Jack Dempsey come to mind, but few led the charge. Ali made his share of mistakes. Living large has consequences. But as he grew from outrageous youngster to esteemed man of the world, Ali?s heart grew, along with his ailments. There are things Ali would have done differently if he had lived a second time, but he got and took his shot, literally and figuratively, and the world, no less than boxing, is better off for it.
