Muhammad Ali- The American sporting dream.

 Muhammad Ali - The American sporting dream.

He was by far the greatest showman of them all. He also transcended all class and race boundaries. At the height of his career nobody could touch him with the proverbial barge pole. He was the one of the most outstanding heavyweight boxers ever seen in a boxing ring. He was a stylist, a purist, ultimately religious and one of the boldest sportsmen of the 20th century. He fought off all comers quite convincingly and, by his own admission, beautifully. He did indeed float like a butterfly and sting like a bee. Nobody could lay a proper glove on him- or if they did it was simply a figment of your imagination. He was a man of his times and ideally suited to the big occasion. 

His name was Muhammad Ali and in a recent BBC Two documentary about the legend that was Ali all of the poses, the mannerisms, the affectations, the ludicrous boasts, the braggadocio, the grandiose claims, the strutting and that powerful voice, were genuine reminders that he would always be around. Nobody would ever forget or fail to recognise that all encompassing aura, that animal magnetism, the charm offensive, the posturing and preening, that declaration of intent. Of course he was the greatest boxer and, in his estimation, this could never be argued or questioned. 

Ali of course was, as all of us know, Cassius Clay, the Louisville Lip, the epitome of manliness and muscularity, full of raging testosterone, full blooded, masculine, a giant of a man, shoulders the size of boulders, a well defined body, rippling with remarkable strength and athleticism. Ali commanded the attention when he stepped into the ring. You knew you were in the presence of a momentous era in the making. The stomach was superbly honed and muscled with a chest that reminded you of an ironing board. 

Ali always knew he wanted to be a boxer and from an early age Cassius Clay knew exactly where his destiny lay. Of course there were the innumerable moments of childhood basketball, the national game of baseball and American football. But Clay was a scrapper, those serious fighting bouts in the playground and the troublemaking days when his mother must have known that her son had to channel all of that pent up aggression in the right environment. 

By the time he was 18, Clay would step up to the mark and throw those first tentative punches in all the amateur bouts. In due course he would meet and beat the hitherto formidable likes of Doug Jones in March 1963, Archie Moore in November 1962  and the one and only Henry Cooper in June 1963. Ali locked horns with Cooper in what turned into one of the bloodiest, most dramatic and controversial prizefights of all time.

At a packed and expectant old Wembley Stadium on a warm night in June 1963, Our 'Enery Cooper dared to pack the most devastating punch at Clay and the rest is well documented history. Clay fell like a tree, staggering at first before crumpling in a helpless heap on the ropes. Before the referee had time to make any kind of logical decision, the bell went for the end of the round and Ali found the most improbable salvation. The intervention of fate had come at exactly the right moment and Ali was reprieved.

We all know that Clay or Ali as he was to become, would win this gruelling and gruesome battle of pugilistic wits. From that point onwards nobody was going to stop this irrepressible force of nature, a gutsy, blustering tornado of a fighter who blew his opponents down quite remorselessly. It all became ridiculously easy for Clay so much so that he could still afford the luxury of changing his name and still look, in his words, pretty.

Clay's conversion to Islam is another story that can never be forgotten. After life changing meetings with Malcolm X and that spiritual discovery of another religion, a professional career beckoned. Ali would sweep aside the illustrious legend who was Floyd Patterson and then there was Sonny Liston, the man who would become Ali's most dangerous adversary who was then battered into submission. Liston was a street fighter, a belligerent bruiser who would work his way to your midriff and waist before finding the stomach, ribs and then the head. Ali would upper cut with bloodthirsty ferocity, then sling more punches with right and left hooks that now left Liston sinking onto the canvas, dazed and stunned. 

Then in the mid 1970s Ali, after that toxic political battles that saw him refused the Vietnam draft, Ali came face to face with the incomparable George Foreman, Joe Frazier and Ken Norton. All three men were like battering rams for Ali and proved more than a match for the experienced warrior Ali had become. Ali would go through the whole calisthenic routine; theatrical skipping, dancing around the ring as if it were some late hour in a local nightclub; taunting and teasing, jumping up and down briskly, beckoning his opponent into some cunning trap, arm windmilling and then dragging his opponent around like a ragdoll. 

Of course Ali was a master story teller, a passionate advocate of Islam, ferociously defensive about black sportsmen and women and there could be very few who felt as if they'd won any argument with him on any issue. He was outrageous, flamboyant, vocal, talkative, gregarious, a classic actor in any allotted role and spokesman for the underdog, those who were misunderstood in society. He would talk the good talk at great and detailed length and never hold back when asked for his considered reaction to a topical point.

During the 1970s Michael Parkinson, the legendary chat show host, would take Ali to task with deeply probing questions designed to unsettle the man's pumped up ego and the cocky narcissism that drove him on before and during every fight. He would look at the bathroom mirror and find an image of a man who was not only good looking and, to his female admirers, handsome but also somebody they could trust and believe in. Ali always delivered the right message at the right time. 

In later years the Ali we used to know became a tragic parody of the man who would be sadly diagnosed with Parkinson's disease. The last time we would see him at a public event would be the Olympic Games of Atlanta in 1996. Some of us could barely to watch a shell of a man, his arms and hands now trembling violently, the body hunched as the flame was lit and a world emotionally wept. It was all too much to take in. 

Then at the beginning of the 21st century there was Ali at a BBC Sports Personality of the Year awards ceremony, voice now a husk and barely audible. The Parkinson's disease was now advanced and his years were numbered. He fought on bravely but now into his early 70s, the life had vanished from his eyes and the spirit diminished to a heartbreaking nadir. Ali would die peacefully and inevitably several years ago and the millions of fans who had so fervently idolised him were broken and bereft. 

Some of us though can still see the vibrant and poetic Ali, the blissfully confident and the outspoken Ali, the opinionated world heavyweight boxing champion of the world. There was a tenderly young Cassius Clay winning gold at the 1960 Olympics in Rome, still wet behind the ears and yet vociferously barking out his aspirations and intentions. The fights with Frazer and Foreman would go down into folklore as the most aesthetically pleasing to the eye. Ali spent most of the rounds masquerading as a clown, a frustrated comedian and the mischievous kid who kept chucking paper aeroplanes at the teacher. Muhammad was indeed the black Superman who floated like a butterfly and stung like a bee. Cassius Clay, you'll always be remembered and for all the right reasons. A champion indeed.