Clay but before Ali there was, X, the man who would be king MARCH 1964

A change was coming for the soul-loving boxer destined to be The Greatest

Two days after he defeated Sonny Liston to become heavyweight champ, the boxer, who would soon announce he had joined the Nation of Islam and change his name to Muhammad Ali, signs autographs in New York accompanied by Malcolm X, in glasses. Within a year, Malcolm X would be shot making a speech in the city.

Cassius covered on his own musical debut album, which Cooke was also instrumental in setting up.

The music links don’t end there. He picked up his love of rhyming couplets that went on to be a huge part of his brand from a radio DJ he listened to as a teenager. And Cassius was also friends with Jimmy Ellis, a gospel singer who he went to school with and who became part of his inner circle.

“Jimmy was not only a great singer but a brilliant boxer. He actually beat Cassius in the run-up to his Olympic glory and later travelled with him, moving to Miami and coming over here when Ali fought Henry Cooper. He was a really important friend and close to Cassius,” said Cosgrove. “He was a deeply Christian man and a fantastically gifted gospel singer who signed to Atlantic Records. I read a piece that said one of the deals Cassius struck with the Nation of Islam was they would leave Jimmy alone, they wouldn’t try to convert him or kick him out of the camp.” Quickly becoming known as a garrulous and tack-sharp, the fighter once known as the Louisville Lip was, by contrast, less open about his conversion to Islam, says Cosgrove. “He was coming under pressure from his family, who were unhappy with his interest in the Nation of Islam, and certainly those connected to his boxing believed it would obliterate his career.

“But I think he was trialling it. There was a fight in Los Angeles in early 1962 and on the fight application there was a photograph where he has the cropped hair, the crisp white shirt, the bow-tie, the suit – almost the uniform for the Nation of Islam. It already looks like he is a member at that point, but he wasn’t enunciating it to the world. Every Friday, he was stealthily going to the mosque, avoiding the main entrance. He clearly understood there was some significant risk to his career. The single biggest of those was he felt they wouldn’t let him fight for the title, they would find a way to obstruct him and not allow him to become the contender. As soon as he beat Liston for the belt he was to some extent beyond all that and could probably say what he wanted.”

Less than two weeks after winning the heavyweight title, he officially announced his name change to Muhammad Ali. His friends Sam Cooke and Malcolm X were gunned down just a few months apart at the end of 1964 and start of 1965, and Cosgrove says Ali’s life was also in jeopardy.

“There were several assassination attempts the FBI intercepted. There was one particularly credible one where he seemed to be threatened by the mafia. He had just won the title. There was an endless number of threatening letters, too. The closer he grew to Malcolm X, the more he received,” said Cosgrove.

“His persona as enemy of the state didn’t fade in some people’s eyes due to his stance on the Vietnam War.” But Cassius, now Ali, came through it all and established himself as the greatest of all time, only succumbing to a long fight with Parkinson’s four years ago. And Cosgrove believes the period when he was Cassius X shaped the person he became.

“He was one of the first of that generation to fully understand you could control a career and the wealth, as well as your identity. He once said he was driven by a single overwhelming ambition – ‘I had to prove I could be a new kind of black man’. To his eternal credit, he did.”