Ali’s ring opponents are unanimous: He was ‘The Greatest’

“I was the only guy to knock him down when he was champion of the world”, Wepner told FOX Sports.

Obama said that after Ali’s boxing career ended, he became an even more “powerful force for peace and reconciliation around the world”.

Miami Marlins president David Samson says the family of Muhammad Ali isn’t unhappy about the team’s premature tribute to the late heavyweight champion.

Sir Michael said Ali’s family had recently been in touch to ask for a compilation DVD of the interviews the pair had done as Ali spent days watching them with great pleasure on the internet.

“All these years I’ve been wanting to speak to this man, but I was at a loss for words”, said Hunter, mindful of Ali’s advanced-stage Parkinson’s disease.

Outside the family home in Louisville and the hospital in Scottsdale, fans left flowers, letters and mementos in Ali’s honour. “True Muslims know that the ruthless violence of so called Islamic jihadists goes against the very tenets of our religion”, he said in response to Trump previous year.

A procession will carry his body down an avenue in Louisville that bears his name, through his boyhood neighborhood and down Broadway, the scene of the parade that honored the brash young man – then known as Cassius Clay – for his gold medal at the 1960 Olympics.

My parents were given almost every advantage, whereas Ali had to fight, literally and figuratively, for everything he had.

“He just represents everything that was good about mankind and it’s sad to see him go”, said James Brice.

Don King promoted that watershed bout in Kinshasa, Zaire, in 1974, in which Ali used his “Rope a Dope” strategy to best Foreman and become just the second fighter ever to regain the heavyweight world title. I think that it was the beginning of people who think a little different, think outside the box, represented their rights in a really positive way, he was one of the first that ever stood up for that.

“Ali was a citizen of the world and he wanted people of all walks of life to be able to attend”.

“When I was a kid, I remember working in my dad’s service station in West Virginia”, Saban said. “Muhammad Ali has shown us the way”.

Celebrities, politicians, reporters that covered him, athletes and of course boxers praised Ali for his superb work in and out of the ring.

Floyd Mayweather, who retired from boxing previous year with a ideal 49-0 record, recalled the awe he felt in meeting Ali in 1996, when he was a US Olympian. “I couldn’t believe it”, Mayweather said.

Barry Hunter has been around boxing for decades, and like many others in the sport, the highly regarded District trainer acquired a special affinity for Muhammad Ali early in life. “And here was this great champion turning against it at enormous personal cost”, Carter said.