THE GREATEST: My Own Story by Muhammad Ali with Richard Durham (1975)
I happened to pick up this book at a free neighborhood book exchange. It is the autobiography of Muhammed Ali, born Cassius Clay, then the world heavyweight boxing champion at the height of his success. I never was a boxing fan, but I liked this book at lot.
One thing I got from it was an appreciation of the discipline and dedication required to be a boxing champion. Another was an appreciation of what it means to live a life of integrity.
Ali was a polarizing figure because of his boasting and insults, because of his adherence to the Nation of Islam, and because he refused being drafted during the Vietnam Conflict.
He was well-respected as a boxer for beating physically stronger opponents through speed and agility, intensive training, tactical thinking and determination to win at all costs.
He may or may not have been the greatest, but he was world champion for a longer period of time, and won more title bouts, than anyone except Joe Louis and the Ukrainian Wladimir Klitschko, brother of the current champion.
In training and in the ring, Ali pushed himself to the limit of endurance. He said he never started timing himself on running, hitting the punching bag, skipping rope or the like until he started to hurt. He regarded a day in which he got through training feeling good as a day wasted.
After he was exhausted, he would enter the ring with sparring partners, who would be fresh. This was to prepare himself for actual bouts, when he would be tired and in pain. He was monk-like in the rigor of his training. Of course, all the top boxers trained hard.
Boxers and trainers believed that avoiding sex was an important part of their training, he said. Sexual intercourse leaves a man feeling mellow; the winning spirit comes from feeling angry and frustrated.
Aki’s little poems, taunting his opponents, were part of a calculated strategy. It brought him publicity, and it made it harder for his targets to turn down his challenges.
He said he felt energized by the hostility of crowds. The pain of defeat was that it caused him to be ignored.
Born in 1942 in Louisville, Kentucky, Ali started training as an amateur boxer at age 12. He won a gold medal in the light heavyweight division of the Summer Olympics in 1960 at age 18, and defeated Sonny Liston for the world heavyweight title in 1964 at age 22.
In 1967, he was stripped of his title as punishment for refusing to be drafted. He sued and won a reversal of that decision in 1970, but he’d been out of action and out of training during his prime fighting years. He lost the title to Joe Frazier in 1971, but won it back by defeating George Foreman in 1974. He held on to the title, except for a brief interval, until 1978.
The book tells of his great respect for Joe Frazier, which seems to have been mutual. The book includes a long transcript of a fascinating conversation they had. Each was the one the other most wanted to defeat.
Ali fought Frazier twice more, in 1974 and 1975, right before and right after he regained the championship. The last was a technical knock-out after 14 rounds; the fight was so punishing that Ali said he was considering retiring. He probably would have been better off if he had. He was 33, which is old for a boxer.
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