He was born Cassius Marcellus Clay Jr. on Jan. 17, 1942, in Louisville, Ky. Early on the morning of Oct. 30, 1974 — it was still Oct. 29 in these United States — a crowd at a stadium half a world away invoked the name by which he’d chosen to be known and chanted, “Ali, bomaye!” By then, Muhammad Ali wasn’t just the most famous athlete on earth. He was the most famous person.
“Ali, bomaye” means “Ali, kill him!” The “him” was George Foreman, who was younger and bigger and thought to be indestructible, and the fear in Kentucky and many other precincts was that Big George might maim if not kill the aging Ali.
It was the second time in his career that we’d felt that dread, the first coming in 1964 when he fought Sonny Liston in Miami Beach for the heavyweight title. In the distant light of hindsight, such fretting seems silly. But we, being human, hadn’t grasped the full extent of Ali’s talent. He was so fast he didn’t often get hit. When he did, he hit back harder.
Liston was beaten by a TKO. (The fearsome Bear didn’t answer the bell for the seventh round.) Afterward, Ali shouted into microphones: “I’m the greatest! I shook up the world!”
At the time of his passing, we offer this: Yes, he was, and yes, he did.
He was the best boxer ever, but to call him that seems trivial. He lost the most-hyped fight in history — against Joe Frazier in Madison Square Garden on March 8, 1971 — and we still regard him as “The Greatest.” Because he came back to beat Frazier twice. Because he knocked out Foreman after devising the rope-a-dope when nobody had any idea what the heck he was doing. Because those in the crowd that night in Kinshasa, Zaire, for the Rumble in the Jungle cared not one fig for the mighty George Foreman. They were drawn, as were we all, by the magnetic force of Muhammad Ali.
He converted to Islam and changed his name. He refused induction to the Army. (“I ain’t got no quarrel with them Viet Cong,” he famously said.) He didn’t fight for 3 1/2 years while his case wended its way to the Supreme Court, which ultimately found in his favor. On Oct. 26, 1970, he made his return against Jerry Quarry in Atlanta’s Municipal Auditorium. He won on a third-round TKO.
On July 19, 1996, Ali appeared in a stadium barely a mile from Municipal Auditorium — it had become part of Georgia State — and, with trembling hands, lit the Olympic flame. He’d been diagnosed with Parkinson’s 12 years earlier, but there he stood, again a performer on the global stage.
If he’d been only a prizefighter, if he’d remained Cassius Clay, we’d still have known him, followed him, sung his praises. Because he became so much more than a prizefighter, he became a symbol for struggle, for protest, for triumph. It would be wrong to deem the man a saint — he did punch people in the face for a living — but it would not be wrong to say he was bigger than his sport, bigger than any sport, bigger than any athlete who has ever lived.
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