Legacy larger than life: He will always be Ali-ve

Why Muhammad Ali was unlike any other sports superstar we’ve ever seen

KARACHI: The term greatest-ever and the greatest of all time are thrown around regularly by the media to honour supremely successful athletes, but very rarely is the title as truly deserved or as unanimously bestowed as in the case of late American boxer Muhammad Ali.

When the former heavyweight passed away yesterday in Scottsdale, Arizona at the age of 74 due to complications arising from a respiratory illness, him being the greatest sportsman of all-time wasn’t a debate. That argument had been settled during his lifetime, in his favour.



Point to note here is that he isn’t considered the greatest boxer to ever enter the ring, but actually the greatest ‘sportsman’ ever to walk the Earth. Truth be told, those who know boxing and its history rank Sugar Ray Robinson slightly above Ali as the greatest pound-for-pound pugilist of all time.



Even the perennially boastful Ali once conceded that Robinson, his idol, was a notch above him on pure boxing skills. But zoom out of boxing to observe the larger picture and it becomes clear why Ali was in a league of his own. Boxing’s greatest is just too narrow a classification to accommodate the style, the personality, the impact and the sacrifice of Ali.

Simple cross comparisons with consensus bests from other sports would tell you why all others pale in comparison. The Jordans, the Peles, the Bradmans and the Babe Ruths were either too selfish, too boring, ducked top competition, had no impact outside of their sport or didn’t play in the most competitive of eras.

Meanwhile, Ali, with whom there was never a dull moment, cleared up his division in what was the golden era of heavyweight boxing, stood up for his principles, empowered an entire race and broke the barrier of sports to emerge as an international icon.



He was a master innovator both inside and outside the range. The rope-a-dope, the Ali Shuffle, the blinding hand speed, the trash talking — Ali was the Edison of boxing. With his reptilian tongue and sharp wits, he even demonstrated how to construct a rivalry and how to sell a sport to a new audience.



But most importantly, in 1966, when ordered to serve the US Army in its meaningless invasion of Vietnam, he refused to oblige. “I ain’t got no quarrel with them Viet Cong — no Viet Cong ever called me [a] nigger,” were his famous words.

His stand got him arrested, costed him his boxing titles and deprived him of four years of boxing at the height of his career. It was Ali’s sacrifice that opened the eyes of the likes of Martin Luther King Jr, who until then had kept mum on the growing opposition of the war.



Both before and after Ali, several other black athletes had been in a position to take political stands, but they chose to be subservient Uncle Toms, more interested in women, shoe empires and appeasing the authorities. Ali was bigger than that.

This is why no slam dunker, no ball dribbler, no bat wielder comes even close to matching Ali’s legacy. He knew when to throw a punch and when to duck one. He was the ‘People’s Champion’. The greatest.

Published in The Express Tribune, June 5^th, 2016.

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