By Eric Baldwin: Muhammad Ali passed away last Friday night after being hospitalized due to a breathing problem in Phoenix, Arizona. The 74-year-old Ali had been bravely battling Parkinson’s disease for the past three decades of his life. Boxing News 24 will miss this great fighter. Ali was simply the greatest and there won’t be another like him.
Ali’s funeral will reportedly be held in his old hometown of Louisville, Kentucky.
Ali ended his professional career in 1981 shortly after a 10 round unanimous decision loss to Trevor Berbick. As a pro, Ali fought 61 times with a career record of 56-5 with 37 knockouts. It’s interesting to note that all five of Ali’s losses came after he returned to the sport after being exiled from boxing from 1967 to 1970 due to him refusing to be inducted into the military after being drafted during the Vietnam War.
If Ali had retired from the sport at that point, he would have ended his career with an unbeaten record. It’s unfortunate that Ali had to miss those three years because he was fighting at such a high level before the suspension. Ali’s last fight before being suspended was against Zora Volley, who he toyed with before stopping in the 7th round in March 1967. Before that fight, Ali had recently beaten Ernie Terrell, and Cleveland Williams. Unlike the fighters of today, Ali fought frequently.
In 1966 alone, Ali fought five times, beating Karl Mildenberger, Brian London, Henry Cooper, and George Chuvalo. Ali was smart to fight heavyweights from all parts of the world rather than focusing just on fighters from the U.S., which he could have easily have done. Cooper and London were from the UK. Chuvalo was from Canada and Mildenberger from Germany. Ali increased his worldwide popularity by fighting heavyweights from different parts of the world because he was able to show his talent to people that had never had the chance to see him fight.
As far where you can rank Ali in the overall rankings of top fighters of all time, it’s a subjective thing. It would be difficult to put Ali ahead of Sugar Ray Robinson. However, Ali is certainly up there among the best heavyweights of all time. Him and Joe Louis are arguably the two best heavyweights of all time.
Rocky Marciano finished his career with an unbeaten record at 49-0, but he didn’t have guys like Ali, Joe Frazier, Sonny Liston and George Foreman facing him during his career. Ali beat the best heavyweights during the prime of his career. The guys that Ali did eventually lose to at the end of his career, Larry Holmes and Berbick, likely wouldn’t have stood a chance of beating a prime Ali before he’d started to slow down from age. It would have been interesting to see how those guys would have held up against Ali. Marciano vs. Ali would have been a great fight to watch, but I suspect it would have been one-sided with Ali easily winning.
“Muhammad Ali was The Greatest. Period,” President Barack Obama said in a statement today via ESPN.com. “If you just asked him, he’d tell you. He’d tell you he was the double greatest; that he’d ‘handcuffed lightning, thrown thunder into jail. Like everyone else on the planet, Michelle and I mourn his passing. But we’re also grateful to God for how fortunate we are to have known him, if just for a while; for how fortunate we all are that The Greatest chose to grace our time. Muhammad Ali shook up the world. And the world is better for it. We are all better for it. Michelle and I send our deepest condolences to his family, and we pray that the greatest fighter of them all finally rests in peace.”
Ali took boxing to the next level in the 1960s. The fight game had become dull in some ways with boring champions that had little to say and showed very little emotion. Once Ali captured the world heavyweight title, he brought new life and energy to the sport. Ali was just what boxing needed at the time. The sport hadn’t been the same since Ali left. Ali ended the short reign of Sonny Liston by twice beating him. He also beat former heavyweight champion Floyd Patterson.