Reply With QuoteRIP Muhammad Ali. Truly the greatest.
Just passed away.
Legend :(
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RIP Muhammad Ali. Truly the greatest.
Boxing legend Muhammad Ali dies aged 74 - BBC News
https://apple.news/Ae8B8ALlEQ-S_11rdAY2wPA
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I had a feeling he would go this way when I heard he was unwell yesterday.
Unfortunately this is the harsh reality associated with Parkinsons disease.
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Very sad. As I am late 60s years old he was a boxer whom I watched fight (on tv), and not really watched much boxing since.
He set the benchmark in boxing for a generation and he was already legend before his passing. He will not be forgotten.
I think most of the fans have been prepared for this this week.
Very sad day. One of the greatest sportsmen, greatest entertainers and greatest men who ever lived.
Leaves a hell of a legacy, I doubt he'll be forgotten.
"When We Were Kings" is worth a listen today (from the movie/documentary of the same name). Upsetting, but inspirational;
https://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&rc...23664746,d.ZGg
I admired him as much for his stance against oppression as his boxing prowess...... A legend indeed..
I know nothing about and have no interest in boxing - however in his day he did seem to provide a lot of entertainment for many people. I recall his appearance on Parkinson in the 70's - very funny
Wasn't their a hullabaloo over him been drafted into the US army in the late 60's which I seem to recall was linked to his change of name and religion?
Incredible boxer and more importantly an incredible man! This is worth a read, there is stuff I did not know about him:
https://uk.sports.yahoo.com/news/muh...2069.html?vp=1
The greatest sportsman ever, in any sport, in my opinion.
He once visited a small chippy in Coventry, early 80s I think it was. Just a local fish and chip shop on Jardine Crescent in Tile Hill. We heard about it and thought it was just a daft rumour, way before internet, email, texts too, so it was word of mouth stuff. So we went along with a crowd of about 100 people and about an hour later a limousine showed up and out gets the man himself. He went in and spent about 15 minutes chatting to the owner of the chippy. Turns out he was an old sparring partner. True story. I was maybe a yard from Ali as he went through he crowd,. We just walked home wondering if that had actually occurred.
RIP, Ali. The greatest.
Yep he told Uncle Sam to stuff it, saying effectively: "no Vietnamese ever called me ni**er"...at great personal cost.Originally Posted by Velorum
Great boxer and a great man .So different from the Tyson's ,Mayweather's and fury's of this world.
Just looked it up. Interesting stuff
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clay_v._United_States
A true legend. Goodbye champ.
“Why should they ask me to put on a uniform and go 10,000 miles from home and drop bombs and bullets on Brown people in Vietnam while so-called Negro people in Louisville are treated like dogs and denied simple human rights? No I’m not going 10,000 miles from home to help murder and burn another poor nation simply to continue the domination of white slave masters of the darker people the world over. This is the day when such evils must come to an end. I have been warned that to take such a stand would cost me millions of dollars. But I have said it once and I will say it again. The real enemy of my people is here. I will not disgrace my religion, my people or myself by becoming a tool to enslave those who are fighting for their own justice, freedom and equality. If I thought the war was going to bring freedom and equality to 22 million of my people they wouldn’t have to draft me, I’d join tomorrow. I have nothing to lose by standing up for my beliefs. So I’ll go to jail, so what? We’ve been in jail for 400 years.” ~Muhammad ali
A legend he most certainly was. I have to agree on him being the greatest sportsman of all time. Charismatic and funny. RIP.
Would love to have heard his thoughts on boxing and boxers today, shame he couldnt articulate in later life.
I recall at the time of his appeal there was chatter about 'draft dodging' - however I think that it is clear that this really was a conscientious decision taken on principal. Had it been about avoiding combat then this wouldnt have been an issue as I suspect his celebrity status would have confined him mainly to army PR work and probably have ended up making him wealthier. Even for the rich and famous, standing up to a powerful establishment cant be easy
Very sad, my favourite boxer of all time, & what a great man away from the ring. I remember his first interview on the Parkinson show. R.I.P. Muhammad.
My Dad was just growing up around the time Ali was in his prime, (he was 24 when he fought in Zaire). He's followed boxing his whole life but states that period, and more specifically, that man was the best of the best.
I think though Ali's true legacy won't be found within the confines of a boxing ring.
Remember meeting him about 35 yrs ago quite strange really. He was going round the pitch at our local non league footy club Nuneaton town. In an open top gold rolls Royce chucking signed tennis balls out to the crowd. I jumped on the car and shook his hand. Very surreal
Rip
im 53, my dad would let me and my brother stay up to watch his fights, always remember my dad buying this record, http://www.lyricsfreak.com/j/johnny+..._20289449.html
RIP legend. One of the greatest fighters, Sugar Ray Robinson, and Joe Louis were better fighters, but didn't have Ali's charisma. Ali was a great humanitarian and from all accounts a very nice person. A new champion is in heaven now.
Seconded.
He was so much more than boxing legend. He was an ambassador for so many, for the things that he believed in, right up to the very end. And as you say hopefully that will be his true legacy.
A piece of my childhood and big sportlegend Ali past away. I'm sad not only for me but for al sports and boxing adepts! One of the last great Champions the boxing world has had. Personality, flair, technique new style of fighting he had it all , he'll never float like a butterfly or sting like a bee again.
R I P great one!
RIP Ali... you were a one off boxer and supreme athlete. No one will ever be comparable.
a true boxing legend.
I like the mash's take:
Butterflies and Bees thank Muhammad Ali for the compliment.
Butterflies and bees paid tribute today to the greatest boxer of all time.
Yep, me too.
The greatest sportsman of his era. A man with great charisma who reached out to everybody. Simply the greatest.
Quite simply ,the Greatest !
There will never be another boxer to come within touching distance of his achievements and natural ability .
R.I.P Ali
no matter how long an innings, or the fact we could see it coming, it truly is a sad day, an Inspiration to me as a child and what I understood to be a true sporting gentleman and legend
RIP
Father of a lad at school was a tailor and had his own shop just outside Brum. Ali dropped in to get outfitted by this chap and he had his photo taken with Ali. The picture was mounted in pride of place in the shop.
RIP Muhammad Ali, The Greatest.
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Words cannot convey the loss to the world on this day.
An inspiration to milions if not billions of people - The words Icon and Legend, do not seem enough.
Today has made me very sad.
Sad day indeed. My early memory of this man was the fight against Henry Cooper. I was a very small boy about 4 yrs and woke up, went downstairs where my dad was laying on the sofa watching the fight. We were close but not a outwardly affectionate man, but that night he put me by his side, put his arms around me and we watched the fight together. Funny what you remember.
Last edited by Thorien; 4th June 2016 at 15:32.
I watched him win the Rome Olympics as a light heavyweight in 1960 and recognized his magic even then. Although I became a Vietnam combat vet, I was a staunch supporter of his right to refuse the draft on religious grounds. He was robbed of 3-1/2 years of his most prime fighting career. Maybe in the next 100 years there will come another athlete whose persona with shine as bright and as long as Muhammad's.
As l said on the other Ali thread - absolutely "the greatest of all times".
Quite coincidentally, unaware that he was ill, l started reading his 1976 autobiography "The Greatest" only a couple of days ago for the umpteenth time.
Im genuinely gutted he's gone. R.I.P.
Jon.
Good read. Thanks
Like other true & great sport personalities, Mohammed Ali was an inspiration to more than one generation!
In the early 60s, I was 6 years old when I saw him for the first time on our first B&W television set. My mom hated his 'big mouth', my father loved it. I thought it was not fair when he had to go to jail a few years later - mentioned above. Rereading his arguments, I think he was right.
Fast forward to this day and age: my son (15 yrs old) has a t-shirt with a pic of Ali on it. Ali is a hero to him. Not for his boxing but for his motivational speeches. When we travel together to a sailing regatta, there's this we listen to:
Ali was more than a boxer. He was (and is) a landmark for young sports enthousiasts. His youth is incomparable with what most of our kids go through these days: poverty, racism and discrimination. But the fact that his life and life's experience can change the attitude of youngsters on the other side of the ocean- upon this very day - makes me humble and makes me aware of the fact that he really was the greatest!
(my son is doing great during regattas; his first year in this type of dinghy and he's #15 on the world's ranking list - and there's no regatta preparation without Ali's voice coming from his telephone, watching YT - really think that Ali has to do with this).
Last edited by thieuster; 4th June 2016 at 22:40.
Gutted the greatest of all time, I watched many recordings of his classic fights when I was a young ameture boxer, not that I was any good mind lol
Watched the Thriller in Manila this evening. 14 rounds. RIP mate.
We won't see another like him, legend. R.I.P
Joe
My father got up at some ungodly hour of the morning to watch Cassius Clay as he was then fight Sonny Liston. No tme-shifting in those days and no instant replays. You watched something as it happened.
He switched on the TV and went into the kitchen to put the kettle on. When he walked back into the lounge it was all over!
Good documentary on TV last night all about Ali. RIP Champ
Sat down last night and watched the movie "When we were Kings" such a great DVD, meant so much watching it again, RIP to a to true boxing legend.
A great man who meant a lot to so many.
RIP
A true icon. It was a privilege to have experienced it. Thank you.
RIP
Whoever does not know how to hit the nail on the head should be asked not to hit it at all.
Friedrich Nietzsche
Probably the person I would have most wanted to meet in my life time, a remarkable human being!
RIP Muhammad you will always be the greatest.
Funnily enough that was my first thought when I heard, that fight.
I don't think I saw it (just checked - I was 1!), but I can remember my Mum and Dad saying "Henry Cooper, he knocked Casius Clay down once - Would've won too if it hadn't have been for the bell!" more than once.
Ali stood for a lot of good things, but he had some odd excursions along the way! There was a very good, less reverential, but still generally positive programme about him on Radio 4 on Saturday, you might be able to find it on iPlayer.
He was certainly a good boxer and a great character. I'm not so sold on him being universally right politically though!
Still, sad to see a man who was a peak in human fitness laid low by disease for so long and to die, relatively, young.
When I see some of the thuggish morons who box these days, it's sad to see Cooper and Ali (and some of their contemporaries) are gone.
M
Last edited by snowman; 7th June 2016 at 17:23.
BBC link for Muhammad Ali on iPlayer etc: link.
Edit: Just watched this one: images of Muhammad Ali by his personal photographer...plenty more to go through.
Last edited by PickleB; 7th June 2016 at 18:09.
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