Legend who shot straight from the lip
THE fact is, I was never too bright in school. I ain’t ashamed of it, though. I mean, how much do school principals make a month? I said I was The Greatest, I never said I was the smartest!
Only a man who knows what it is like to be defeated can reach down to the bottom of his soul and come up with the extra ounce of power it takes to win when the match is even.
Maybe my Parkinson’s is God’s way of reminding me what is important. It slowed me down and caused me to listen rather than talk.
Actually, people pay more attention to me now because I don’t talk as much.
I get so wrapped in boxing, in the Golden Gloves, that I concentrate all my attention on that. I don’t have time for girls or parties, because every morning I have to get up and do my roadwork.
If I don’t win a national Golden Gloves, then I’ll never get to the Olympics.
And I have to be The Champion...
I done wrestled with an alligator, I done tussled with a whale;
Handcuffed lightning, thrown thunder in jail;
Only last week, I murdered a rock, injured a stone, hospitalised a brick;
I’m so mean I make medicine sick.
I shook up the world, I’m the king of the world. You must listen to me. I am the greatest! I can’t be beat!
[On the Rumble in the Jungle] The referee is raising my hand, and the whole world is screaming, ‘ALI! ALI! ALI! ALI!’
A reporter claws his way through the crowd and yells at me, ‘How did you do it, world heavyweight champion?
‘What do you think of George now?’
I take nothing away from George. He can still beat any man in the world. Except me. Michael Parkinson, who said Ali boosted audiences for his unforgettable interviews in the early 1970s by 2million viewers: “It was not often I was gobsmacked but as he walked across the studio floor I’d never seen a more graceful or beautiful man, he was extraordinary. He was a man who could fell you with a blow – kill you maybe – yet he had beautiful hands with long tapering fingers. “America was divided about Ali, in this country people adored him. All they wanted was to see him, to worship him, to love him and he responded by giving him what they wanted.
“He was maybe the greatest showman I ever interviewed. The way he dealt with that appalling Parkinson’s disease was brave and noble. He never moaned about it and I don’t think he ever understood the irony that the greatest boxer of all time was destroyed by his occupation.”