Muhammad Ali can be described as a boxer and a sporting icon in his own words as “The Greatest”. Ali once said that it wasn’t boasting if you could back it up, and he surely did that in a career spanning 27 years where he ‘floated like a butterfly’ and ‘stung like a bee’.
He was also one of the richest sportsmen in history earning and amassing a fortune of 65 million dollars by early 1980’s. But Ali started as a normal Afro-American guy who achieved much in later life when he realized that he was in possession of fast legs and hands and an equally fast mouth. He was never afraid of obstacles that came his way in the form of racism, and became stronger in spirit with every impediment he faced in life.
Ali started learning Boxing so he could beat up the person who stole his bike, when he was 12. Later in his later in his career Ali commented that “boxing is a lot of white men watching two black men beat each other up”. Ali was directed towards learning boxing by Louisville police officer Joe E. Martin. Ali’s last amateur loss was to Kent Green of Chicago, who could say he was the last person to defeat the champion until Ali lost to Joe Frazier in 1971 as a professional. Muhammad Ali went on to win six Kentucky Golden Gloves titles, two national Golden Gloves titles, an Amateur Athletic Union National title, and the Light Heavy Weight Gold Medal in the 1960 Olympics in Rome beating Zibigniew Pietrzykowski of Poland. He later turned professional.
