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Ali is the greatest heavyweight who ever lived, and one of the top three or four pound for pound boxers who ever lived, and miles above Floyd Mayweather.People who cited Floyd’s undefeated record simply do not understand boxing, or boxing records. Winning is not enough, it is who you defeat, when, and how.CREDIT PICTURE YOU-TUBEFloyd is not the only fighter to retire undefeated. Floyd retired undefeated because he cherry picked his opponents outrageously, including fighting a guy who had never had a boxing match in his life, and calling it a record breaking 50th win.Ali fought every great contender of his time, never cherry picked his opponents, or fought a rank amateur and claimed it was his record breaking victory.Most fans not only do not understand the significance of the record of a fighter’s opponents in assessing wins and losses, but they don’t understand the significance of the historical record in general.Ali was and is the first and only three-time lineal World Heavyweight Champion. He was and remains the first World Heavyweight Champion to come back from retirement and regain the undisputed title. He beat 14 world champions, from the years 1962 to 1978, over an incredible 16 year period. Ali won twenty-two World Heavyweight Championship fights over a 14 year period. Ali made a total of nineteen successful title defenses of the undisputed title, nine during his first reign and ten during his second reign, second only to Joe Louis.And incredibly, he did this after three and one half years of his prime were taken away. He worked on adapting his decreased physical abilities to better technique, and the results speak for themselves.Boxing is not about who you beat, it is about who you faced and who you beat, AND, when you faced and beat them.Without further ado…10 REASONS MUHAMMAD ALI WAS THE GREATEST HEAVYWEIGHT OF ALL TIME, AND A FAR GREATER FIGHTER THAN FLOYD MAYWEATHERAli is the only heavyweight to retire, come back, and retake the undisputed championship;Ali, unlike Mayweather, fought every contender of his time, and never ducked a single fighter, ever;Ali fought 8 Hall of Fame fighters, defeating 7 in winning 10 of 11 fights;Ali's record of beating 21 boxers for the world heavyweight title - tied with the great Joe Louis stood for 30 years;Ali’s record of winning 14 unified and undisputed title bouts - tied with Hall of Fame welterweight champ Jose Napoles - stands today;Ali is 11–0 in rematches, the best record for any heavyweight, ever in rematches;Ali won 22 world championship fights over a 14 year period, the most over the longest such period ever in any weight class:Ali was won 19 fights defending the undisputed title; the second most ever to Joe Louis;Ali is the first, and only, three time lineal world heavyweight champion;Ali was a great human being outside the ring, where Mayweather is known for beating women, Ali is known for flying ill to Iraq to personally rescue 19 hostages before the Gulf War, and for, literally, going out on a ledge to save a man from jumping.But let us go to the real experts, the fighters, in this case, the ones who fought Ali, and who studied Ali's career as part of their own training:Bob Foster: : "Muhammad Ali. He was the man. He was big, fast; he was smart and never did get hit easy. Man, was he fast and slick in the ring"Or Joe Bugner, who was the best fighter you ever met, including Ali and Frazier?Joe Bugner: "Best overall was Muhammad Ali, who was the greatest of all time in my opinion."What about George Foreman, who faced fighters in two generations, who was the best fighter you ever faced or saw? Foreman said: "It's clear that “The Greatest” remains exactly that. Ali has the vastly superior record and his accomplishments are beyond reproach."What did Ken Norton say, about the man he fought three closely contested bouts with? In an interview with boxing writer and historian Frank J. Lotierzo on ESPN radio 1490, he said: Frank: In your book you say Ali is the best ever. Do you believe that? Norton: "As far as I’ve been around, yes." Frank: "Is Ali the best fighter you ever fought?" Norton: "Yes."In his book, "Going the Distance," Ken Norton described Ali's later career and defense as "he didn't have the lightning speed he had in the 60's, but he was still one hell of a fighter, and man, could he slip punches!"Ernie Shavers, said in his book "Welcome To The Big Time" by Earnie Shavers, that the best fighters of that era were Ali, Foreman and Frazier. He said "even an old Ali was still the greatest."Rocky Marciano, who filmed the "computer fight" with Ali in 1969 while Ali was banned from boxing, said of Ali "the fastest man on wheels, no fighter who ever lived was that fast." Rocky, when asked how good he thought Ali was, said "most would make the guy before they made him stop fighting – the fighter that destroyed Cleveland Williams, before time off took so much of the skip and slip from his legs – a strong favorite over anybody, anytime, anywhere, including me."Canadian heavyweight George Chuvalo said of Ali, "my plan for the fight was simple: as the shorter guy, I wanted to stay close to Ali, nullify his speed and prevent him from using the whole ring. I also wanted to make it rough. The rougher, the better. But it took all of about 30 seconds for me to realize he was the fastest fighter I’d ever seen. It’s one thing to expect it; it’s another thing to feel it, live it."Chuck Wepner, beaten by Ali in 1975, said, "The day of the Ali fight I bought my wife a powder blue negligee and told her 'wear this tonight, 'cause you'll be sleepin' with the heavyweight champion of the world'. That night, when I got back to the room, she said: 'Do I go to his room or will he be coming to mine?'"Let's ask Mike Tyson to evaluate Ali as a fighter:Mike Tyson, a student of boxing to this day, and a guy who has probably watched more boxing film than any other boxing historian, said of Ali: “Nobody beats Ali,” he said when asked if he’d have beaten him, prime against prime. And he explains that those who grew up in the ’80s and ’90s and perceived Tyson as the winner just because he hit harder and had bigger muscles let themselves be fooled by Ali’s physical appearance. “Ali is a fuckin’ animal,”Tyson said. “He looks more like a model than a fighter, but what he is, he’s like a Tyrannosaurus Rex with a pretty face. And fast, Lord God he was fast!”Tyson was asked, in your prime, could you have beaten Ali? “NOBODY beats Ali,” said Iron Mike.What about Lennox Lewis? "Ali was the greatest heavyweight EVER in my opinion.... I would never put myself in his class...and never have."TEN REASONS FLOYD MAYWEATHER IS NOT THE GREATEST FIGHTER OF ALL TIME AND NOWHERE CLOSE TO AS GREAT AS ALI IS:Floyd never unified a title;Floyd never tried to become undisputed champion at any weight class;Floyd never fought an undisputed champion;Floyd never took a fight he was not convinced he could win;Floyd refused to fight welterweights he thought might beat him, such as Paul Williams and Antonio MargaritoFloyd refused to meet Sergio Martinez when Martinez held the Junior Middleweight title, and then again when he held the middleweight title, though Martinez offered to meet him at a catchweight;Floyd refused to fight any of the young welterweights who called him out at the end of his career, such as Erol Spence, (who beat his ass sparring), Keith Thurman, Shawn Porter, Bud Crawford, and instead, choose to fight washed up Andre Berto;Floyd fought a complete amateur for his 50th, supposedly record breaking, win;Floyd took a highly illegal IV prior to the Pacquiao fight, which was approved retroactively when the press began to publisize it.The only people Floyd ever fought who were the same age and under no preconditions were women.NO opponent of Mayweather sings his praises as the best of all time, and there is a whole list of who he ever ducked completely, or ducked until time had removed the danger for him.The greatest fighters do not duck credible opponents. Mayweather certainly did duck those he thought might beat him.Cases in point:In 2005, Mayweather called out Winky Wright, the lineal and formerly undisputed 154lbs title holder who had just beaten Felix Trinidad at 160lbs and could point to two wins over Mosely. Wright agreed and within days had his team in the office of Top Rank (Floyd's promoters at the time) offices hammering out the contract for the fight.The details were hammered out: the bout would be at 154lbs but weigh-ins would be the morning of the bout rather than the day before and Wright would not be allowed to gain more than eight pounds between weighing in and the start of the contest. But Mayweather and Bob Arum suddenly pulled out.Mayweather ducked Winky - as the contract was agreed on, Floyd became more nad more uneasy, and he pulled out. That is ducking.In 2007-08, Miquel Cotto was the next best welterweight in the world behind Mayweather. A thrilling fighter he had moved up in weight and easily disposed of Carlos Quintana, smashed the over-matched Urkal, stopped Judah and then beaten Shane Mosley in an excellent showing. He was by any definition the most deserving fighter to face Mayweather. There was no reason for the bout not to be made. But Mayweather instead signed for a pointless rematch with De La Hoya.Seemingly this wasn't the end of the world for the bout. After all, Mayweather would surely beat De La Hoya and Cotto only had to get through Alfonso Gomez (which he did with ease) and then the two would match up. It was obvious. Then Mayweather "retired" instead of taking the second De La Hoya bout.Of course Mayweather did eventually face Cotto but it was years later, and after gruelling wars with Margarito and others had sapped Cotto and he wasn't the same fighter.The 2007-08 version of Cotto with his inside game, hook and versatile jab was a major challenge for Mayweather. The 2012 version may have been good enough to pose Mayweather some problems but he wasn't the same. Mayweather ducked Cotto at his best. There's no other way to put it.And I won’t even get into Paul Williams and Margarito…Ali was a genuinely good and charitable human being, who fed the poor, championed the weak and oppressed, and literally risked his life to save other people.Muhammad Ali (right) leans out of a window of a high-rise building on Jan. 19, 1981, in Los Angeles and talks with a man, later identified by reports as Joe, who threatens to jump. Credit Boris Yaro/Los Angeles TimesCredit also details of the event to Boris Yaro and the Los Angeles TimesAlso credit the New York Times, which carried details of this story:When Muhammad Ali Met a Man on a LedgeThe story of Muhammad Ali going out on a ledge, literally, to stop a man from jumping to his death is preserved forever by Los Angeles Times photographer Boris Yaro. On Monday, Jan. 19, 1981, Yaro was monitoring a police scanner in LA and heard a report of a suicidal jumper. His editor at the LA Times was not interested, but Yaro drove over to Los Angeles’s Miracle Mile, where the man had been reported on a ledge despite that,There, Yaro found a young black man in jeans and a hoodie, on an office-building fire escape nine floors above the ground.The young man, “Joe,” as he was named in reports, had evidently been up there for hours. The police at the scene said, “he seemed to think he was in Vietnam with the Viet Cong coming at him.” A crowd had grown, of course, on the street below, and was happilly screaming to “Joe” to jump to his death.Police officers, a police psychologist and a chaplain was stationed at a window close by, begging him to come inside. “I’m no good,” he shouted, moving to the edge and hanging out when it appeared someone was going to intervene. “I’m going to jump!”In a twist of fate, Muhammad Ali’s best friend, Howard Bingham, was there that day, and called Ali, who at that time was living in LA not far from the Miracle Mile. “About four minutes later,” Bingham would later recall, “Ali comes roaring up the wrong side of the street in his Rolls with his emergency lights blinking.”Boris Yaro watched in amazement as Ali talked briefly with the police, then saw the former champ run into the building. Yaro’s pictures, including the one above, recorded the rest of the incident for history.Ali, in a dark suit and tie, is seen leaning out of a nearby window, trying to see the young man threatening to jump. Just a few feet away, Joe is perched dangerously on the ledge, holding a pillar as he leans out over empty space.By The Los Angeles Times’s account, Ali leaned out and shouted to Joe: “You’re my brother! I love you, and I couldn’t lie to you.” Dodging back inside, Ali found his way to the fire escape, came out, put an arm around Joe and lead him back inside. The two walked out of the building together, got in Ali’s car and drove, after a stop at a police station, to a nearby V.A. hospital.Ali, deflected credit for saving the young man’s life, saying the first responders were the heroes.But of course nothing is ever quite what it appears, and though the police reported that Joe was “badly disturbed,” a few days later when the Los Angeles Times published a story on Joe, it was found that he had never served in Vietnam.Nonetheless, on Wednesday, Jan. 21, at a news conference for a company he was endorsing, Ali announced that he was going to buy Joe clothes and travel with him to his home state, Michigan.Robert Lipsyte, who spent a large part of his life chronicling Ali’s says any claim that Ali was doing it for acclaim was, even if true, only possible one part of why he would try to talk a man off a ledge. “The other part was he was capable of acts of kindness; almost casual acts of kindness,” Lipsyte said at the time. Lisyte believed Ali showed up to the office building not only because he thought he could help Joe, but because he wanted to. “In some sort of ways, he talked a lot of people off the ledge,” Lipsyte says. “I think about a guy who made people brave. That’s what he did.”Acts like these were common in Ali’s life. Angelo Dundee once recalled an incident that took place after Ali’s last fight before his almost 4 year exile in 1967.On September 10, 1966, a young Ali defended his title in Frankfurt Germany against Karl Mildenberger as part of his "European tour." He was tired and stressed by a return to the USA to continue his fight against the military draft, but he won the fight nonetheless. In the 12th round, with Mildenberger on the ropes, referee Teddy Waltham stopped the fight. At the airport the next day, Waltham’s fee of 1,000 pounds was stolen. Waltham, who was counting on the money to pay his mortgage and bills, was distraught. When Ali heard, he gave Waltham the money from his own pocket.When asked about the incident, Ali shrugged it off, saying "man, don't make this a story, he needed the money more than I did."But perhaps nothing sums up Ali's life, and who he was, than what he did in 1990. That year, Ali went to Bagdad as the first Gulf War was looming, to try and free 15 American hostages being held by Saddam Hussein. Ali, already badly ill with Parkinson's, ran out of his medications while in Bagdad, and endured very real suffering, yet refused to leave, and persevered until Saddam allowed him to take all 15 American hostages home to their families.On Dec. 2, 1990, Ali and the hostages flew out of Baghdad, headed for JFK.The men remain overwhelmed to this day. “You know, I thanked him,” said former hostage Bobby Anderson. “And he said, ‘Go home,’ be with my family . . . what a great guy.”Ali asked the media not to make the story about him, but about the hostages and their reunited families.The New York Times, after Ali rescued the 19 hostages in Iraq in 1990, said "however great he was in the Ring, Ali is greater as a human being. Despite being ill, the Champ has given millions of his own money, raised tens of millions more for charity, to feed people, for medical treatment, and perhaps most importantly for a man who is ill, he donates his time to help others. His recent trip to Iraq to rescue hostages held there, during which he ran out of medications he must take, and which caused him considerable suffering, is an example of one man reaching out to help others with no regard for his own health or safety."After retiring from boxing in 1981, at age 39, Ali focused on religion and charity, until his declining health prevented him from public appearances. Ali donated millions to charity organizations and disadvantaged people of all ethnic, racial and religious backgrounds. He helped raise tens of millions more. Ali helped to feed more than 22 million people afflicted by hunger across the world. He never asked for, or wanted, praise for these efforts.Among his many charitable efforts, Ali worked with the Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson's Disease to raise awareness and encourage donations for research. In 1987, the California Bicentennial Foundation for the U.S. Constitution selected Ali to personify the the U.S. Constitution and Bill of Rights. Ali rode on a float at the following year's Tournament of Roses Parade, launching the U.S. Constitution's 200th birthday celebration.In 2012, Ali was awarded the Philadelphia Liberty Medal in recognition of his lifelong efforts in activism, philanthropy and humanitarianism.Make no mistake, Ali was human enough, and he made plenty of mistakes. He himself regretted the rest of his life not standing by Malcolm X when Malcolm left the Nation of Islam, and he also regretted the way he had treated Joe Frazier.Ali said it best: "Ali: "I'm sorry Joe Frazier is mad at me. I'm sorry I hurt him. Joe Frazier is a good man, and I couldn't have done what I did without him, and he couldn't have done what he did without me. And if God ever calls me to a holy war, I want Joe Frazier fighting beside me."All of that was what made Ali a great and inspirational human being.Floyd never risked his life for anything but money in the ring, and he has not, to the best of my knowledge, contributed anything to charity or even done any charitable works OF ANY KIND WHATSOEVER.Floyd repeatedly ran afoul of the law for beating women, not once, not twice, but repeatedly.Since 2002 Mayweather has been accused of violence against women with alarming frequency. (perhaps he learned it from his family - his Uncle has also been charged with incidents of domestic violence)He pleaded guilty in two of those incidents, and in another he was convicted only to have the charges dismissed four years later. The most recent incident, in which he hit his ex-girlfriend in front of two of their children at 5 a.m. in 2010, resulted in a 90-day prison sentence.Those three incidents are:1.Over a five-month span in 2001 and 2002 he pleaded guilty to two counts of battery domestic violence, a search of his criminal record on the Clark County website shows. He received 48 hours of community service and two days of house arrest. Three other charges — stalking, obstruction of a police officer, and violation of a protective order — were dismissed.According to the Las Vegas Review-Journal, Melissa Brim, the mother of Mayweather's oldest daughter, was the victim. She later claimed in a lawsuit that Mayweather "swung open a car door, hitting her jaw, pushed her into the car and punched her several times in the face and body," the Review-Journal reports.That lawsuit was dismissed in 2003, according to the Review-Journal.2. In November 2003 Mayweather was arrested and charged with two counts of battery for allegedly fighting with two women at a Las Vegas nightclub. He was later convicted of misdemeanor battery and ordered to serve 100 hours of community service, the Associated Press reported at the time.According to the AP, one of the accusers, Herneatha McGill, testified that Mayweather "punched [her] on the cheek, and then punched [Kaara] Blackburn on the back of the head as she tried to help her friend."A search of Mayweather's criminal record shows these charges were "dismissed per negotiation" in 2008. (settlements to the victims were reportedly involved)3. In December 2011, Mayweather pleaded guilty to one count of misdemeanor battery domestic violence and no contest to two counts of harassment for hitting the mother of three of his children, Josie Harris. He was sentenced to 90 days in jail and released after 60 days.Mayweather allegedly threatened to kill his ex-girlfriend, Josie Harris, pulled her hair and threw her to the floor at her home. The Clark County criminal complaint alleged Mayweather Jr. told Harris he would make her and her new boyfriend “disappear.”Felony coercion counts were filed, alleging Mayweather Jr. threatened to beat his two sons if they left the residence or called 911 during his verbal and physical attack of Harris.In December, 2011, Mayweather pleaded guilty to one domestic violence charge and no-contest to two harassment charges.One of Mayweather's sons saw the fight, ran out of the house, and alerted a friend of his mother's, who called the police, according to the police report.Harris told Yahoo's Martin Rogers in 2013, "Did he beat me to a pulp? No, but I had bruises on my body and contusions and [a] concussion because the hits were to the back of my head. I believe it was planned to do that, because the bruises don't show."Harris had "redness on her face and a large contusion to the right side of her forehead and chin" when she was examined at the hospital, according to the incident report.CREDIT USA TODAY FOR THIS STORYhttp://i.usatoday.net/sports/Inv...Outside of these three incidents, Mayweather has been accused of domestic violence numerous other times. Deadspin published an exhaustive report of these accusations in 2014.According to their report, which is massively detailed, Mayweather has been accused of violence against women seven times in the last 13 years, including a 2005 incident where he was found not guilty of battery after Harris recanted an allegation that he hit and kicked her outside a club.CREDIT DEADSPIN FOR MAYWEATHER’S HISTORY OF VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMENhttps://deadspin.com/the-trouble...Floyd is the greatest businessman-boxer of all time, and the best boxer of his era, (though not remotely anywhere near the greatest boxer of all time, clearly), but his personal life, for all his money, has been marked by disgraceful bouts of domestic violence.Anthony Mason, boxing writer, said "I think the only way to fairly rank a boxer's place in history is by comparing their résumés. And that does not mean just wins and losses - it is too easy today to fight only has beens or never will be's, and run up the record.”There is simply no comparing Floyd’s record to Ali’s, either in, or out, of the ring.The level of Floyd’s competition, his ducking fighters he thought a danger to him, his insistence on catch weights and other tricks, his fighting a complete amateur and calling it a record breaking fight turn top 10 talent in being about #30 on the all time pound for pound lists…To compare him to Ali is a bad joke.

Ali overrated as what?As a boxer?Ali is generally considered the greatest heavyweight who ever lived, and one of the top 5 pound for pound fighters who ever lived.As a human being?Anyone who is aware of what has happened the last 50 years know that Ali literally risked his life to go out on a ledge and save another man, and he risked it again, while terribly ill, to go to Iraq before the Gulf War to singlehandedly rescue and bring home 19 hostages. He cannot be overrated as a boxer, or a human being.CREDIT PICTURE TO BRITANNICAWhy would anyone think Muhammad Ali was overrated?Five reasons:they never saw him live in the 60’s at the peak of his prowess;they grew up in an era where careful promoting keeps fighters from fighting anyone who could endanger an undefeated record;they don’t understand the real meaning of losses and rematches and the totality of a fighter’s record;they are not aware of his history of helping other people, often at the risk of his own life;some people just harbor an irrational or uneducated hatred of the man.First, most folks never saw Ali fight in his prime yearsMost people only know about Ali from You-Tube, and in that context, they only see his later fights, especially the Frazier and Norton trilogies, and the Rumble in the Jungle with George Foreman.Very few watch his 1960’s fights, such as the 1966 bout with Cleveland Williams, and even if they do, the quality of the film is poor.So they never saw the fastest heavyweight in history moving around the ring like a middleweight, “floating like a butterfly, stinging like a bee, to quote the champ himself.Ali was a marvel to behold, as Cleveland Williams said, "You can't hit him," said Cleveland Williams, "you just cannot hit him!"According to CompuBox, Williams landed only 10 punches the entire fight. Williams said "I threw hooks, I threw uppercuts, I missed them all! Hell, I couldn't even land a jab!"Asked about Ali, and his technique as a boxer, Howard Cosell summed it up best: "The greatest Ali ever was as a fighter was against [Cleveland] Williams in 1966. That night, he was the most devastating fighter who ever lived." Cosell went on to say "no fighter ever lived could beat that version of Ali, no one."Canadian heavyweight George Chuvalo said of Ali, "my plan for the fight was simple: as the shorter guy, I wanted to stay close to Ali, nullify his speed and prevent him from using the whole ring. I also wanted to make it rough. The rougher, the better. But it took all of about 30 seconds for me to realize he was the fastest fighter I’d ever seen. It’s one thing to expect it; it’s another thing to feel it, live it."n his pre-exile form, he was the fastest heavyweight, perhaps fastest fighter, of all time. How fast was Ali? The Muhammad Ali pre-exile was the fastest heavyweight ever. In the May 5, 1969 issue of Sports Illustrated, Ali’s jab was measured with an omegascope. Ali’s jab, it was found, could smash a balsa board 16.5 inches away in 19/100 of a second. It actually covered the distance in 4/100 of a second, which is the blink of an eye. (and a lot faster than Floyd "beat up your Grandma" Mayweather)Jimmy Jacobs, who owned the world’s largest collection of fight films, said that on film tests with a synchronizer Ali’s jab was faster than that of Sugar Ray Robinson, or any middleweight, welterweight, or lightweight, he could measure. Jacobs contended that Ali was not only the fastest heavyweight, but also the fastest fighter he ever saw on film.Marv Jenson, who managed Gene Fullmer, concurred saying, “Ali has the fastest hands on any heavyweight I have ever seen, hell, he has the fastest hands, period."Rocky Marciano, who filmed the "computer fight" with Ali in 1969 while Ali was banned from boxing, said of Ali "the fastest man on wheels, no fighter who ever lived was that fast." Rocky, when asked how good he thought Ali was, said "most would make the guy before they made him stop fighting – the fighter that destroyed Cleveland Williams, before time off took so much of the skip and slip from his legs – a strong favorite over anybody, anytime, anywhere, including me."There was also a deliberate effort to downgrade and denigrate the accomplishments of Sonny Liston - and in doing so, diminish the feat of Ali in facing himSonny Liston was the most avoided heavyweight in history. 14 top 100 fighters refused fights with him. Only one contender actually ran forward to face Liston: Muhammad Ali.Sonny Liston - Skills - Reemus BoxingTime and a deliberate effort by the boxing establishment has downgraded Ali’s incredible victories over the most feared heavyweight in history, Sonny Liston. This is shameful, in that it diminishes an extraordinary accomplishment by the 22 year old Ali, and degrades a generational talent in Sonny Liston.People have forgotten how feared Liston was. By 1964 he was considered unbeatable. He had lost once in 36 bouts – and that defeat in 1954, during which he suffered a broken jaw but ploughed on, merely added to his reputation. One contemporary profile said he was "surprisingly fast, remarkably quick" and noted his punishing jab while the former heavyweight champion Joe Louis admitted, "I'm glad he wasn't around when I was fighting."After Ali’s first victory over Sonny, a Boxing Illustrated editorial remarked: "Nobody wants to be reminded of Sonny Liston. The idea is to forget him." And shamefully, forget him people did, and with that memory loss, went how great Ali’s triumphs were.Fifty years on, Cassius Clay v Sonny Liston remains a pivotal moment | Sean IngleBut the #4 of all ranked Sonny Liston was an incredible talent, according to Springs Toledo in the Gods of War the second most talented heavyweight of all time. His skills were incredible, and in the effort to forget him by the establishment, people have forgotten how extraordinary it was that Ali was the only contender during Liston’s time at the top to actually seek a bout with him.That Ali sought out the two most feared heavyweights in history, LIston and Foreman, ten years apart, and beat them both is the most extraordinary feat ever managed by any heavyweight champion.The vast majority of fans grew up in an era where promoters and managers avoid fights that would endanger an undefeated recordWonder why so many fighter’s today are undefeated?They don’t fight very often, and when they do, they fight tomato cans.Lewis Watson, the boxing writer and historian, speaks of the artificial puffing up of records against cherry picked competition, saying "unbeaten records are fairly padded; you have to look if there are any notable victories coming against first rate competition."Floyd Mayweather avoided 11 of the 17 top welterweights fighting during his time; Ali ducked no one.Compare Ali’s competition to that of Deontay Wilder, Tyson Fury, and Anthony JoshuaAli fought the following fighters in the top 150, and they are ranked by Boxrec:There were 22 top 150 fighters active in Ali’s Era, 23 counting him, and he faced them all:And then we have the Greatest, Muhammad Ali; Ali faced 17 top 100 greats, 22 top 150 fighters, and beat all but one, when he was 39 and ill:#2 Archie Moore (ranked as light-heavyweight but fought for heavyweight title twice)#4 Sonny Liston#13 Joe Frazier#14 Larry Holmes#15 Floyd Patterson#19 George Foreman#20 Bob Foster (ranked as light heavyweight but fought for heavyweight title twice)#22 Cleveland Williams#34 Ken Norton#36 Zora Folley#43 Henry Cooper#44 Ernie Terrell#48 Jimmy Ellis#51 Karl Mildenberger#57 Oscar Bonavena#67 Jerry Quarry#68 Ron LyleAli faced 17 top 100 all time heavyweights in 26 fights, he beat 17 of the 18 at least once, 5 of them twice!Of the 17 top 100 all time heavyweights he fought and beat, 10 were after 1970!Add in from between 100 and 150 all time:#116 Joe Bugner,#118 Doug Jones,#124 Jimmy Young,#131 Mac Foster,#141 Earnie Shavers,and Ali faced 22 fighters in the top 150 and beat 21 of them at least once in 31 fights! That is by far the best competition faced and beaten in heavyweight history.Ali faced better competition than any other heavyweight in history.Over half of his fights were with top 150 competition - no other heavyweight in history comes remotely close to that.Ali faced 17 of the top 100 all time greats plus five more in the top 150! Ten of Ali’s opponents are in the Hall of Fame!Muhammad faced 22 top 150 fighters in 30 fights, a feat not matched by anyone else in history.BoxRec: RatingsAli fought 3 in the top 10 heavyweights, 6 higher ranked than the highest ranked fighter today, (Fury at #25) and 22 in the top 150, and 2 of top 10 light heavyweights! Ali beat 16 of the 17 top 100 fighters he faced at least once, five of them twice, and beat all 5 of the additional fighters ranked from 100–150, beating 21 of 22 top 150 fighters he faced, the most in history for any fighter in any weight division.Anthony Mason, boxing writer, said "I think the only way to fairly rank a boxer's place in history is by comparing their résumés. And that does not mean just wins and losses - it is too easy today to fight only has beens or never will be's, and run up the record.”Over half Ali’s fights were against top 150 of all time opponents, by far the most in history!Most people do not realize 3 of Ali’s 5 losses came when he was over 37, and ill with Parkinson’s.The only two losses that occurred during his prime were to all time greats #10 Joe Frazier, (and Ali had been off going on 4 years, and had taken the Frazier fight only 4 months back over his trainer’s objections), and to #26 Ken Norton, (and Ali had his jaw broken in the early rounds, and still managed to tough out the entire fights to lose on a split decision. He won 2 rematches against both men.Max Kellerman summed up the Ali era: “From 1970, when Ali came back from his forced exile, to 1978, when Ali won back his crown for the final time (against Leon Spinks), Ali shared the very top shelf with Joe Frazier and George Foreman, and the three of them were supported by Ken Norton and Joe Bugner and, in the beginning of the decade, Oscar Bonavena, Jerry Quarry and Jimmy Ellis, and at the end of the decade Ernie Shavers, Ron Lyle and Jimmy Young. Ali fought them all, and many of the others fought each other. The greatest heavyweight era ever.”As heavyweight eras go, this one is very goodAli fought the best competition in history, and in the end, it is who beats who, and when they do it - and he fought them all in their prime except Sonny Liston“When people ask me about who was the greatest of all time, I say look at the records. I fought better competition, over a longer period of time than any other fighter in history.” (Ali himself quoted in “The Greatest”)Angelo Dundee, Ali's and Sugar Ray Leonard's trainer, said; "look at Ali’s quality of opposition. He shook up the world against Liston, then did it again. He shocked the world against Foreman. He won two out of three against Frazier. Same against Ken Norton. He beat Patterson twice. The also-rans on Ali’s record—Jerry Quarry, Ron Lyle, Zora Folley, Oscar Bonavena, Bob Foster, Ernie Terrell—were as good as all but two or three opponents Joe Louis beat during his 11 years as champ."BBC boxing writer and historian Ben Dirs said of Ali compared to Wlad Klitschko and other fighters of this generation, "Ali reigned in the most talent-rich era of heavyweight boxing, winning the title from the fearsome Sonny Liston in 1964, winning it again from the even more fearsome George Foreman 10 years later and beating greats such as Floyd Patterson, Joe Frazier and Ken Norton in between."Ali met great punchers and beat them:Ron Lyle, Earnie Shavers and George ForemanAli met great boxers and beat them:Jimmy Ellis, Floyd Patterson, Zora Folley, Jimmy YoungAli met great boxer/punchers and beat them:Sonny Liston.Ali met the greatest swarmer of them all, and beat him twice:Joe FrazierTo quote Ali, "I whopped them all!"In his book "Going the Distance," Ken Norton said, "out of all the fighters I was in with, Frazier, Foreman, Holmes, Ali was the best." Not only that, Ken said, "he was the best I ever saw, period."Third, fans don’t understand the real meaning of losses and rematches, and the totality of Ali’s recordAli fought 3 fighters in the top 10 of all time, and 22 in the top 150 of all time. Wilder has fought 1 in the top 150, #31.Ali has losses because he fought great fighters. Wilder has no losses because other than his draw with #31 Fury, he fought no one.Anthony Mason, quoted above, also said “look at rematches. “Look at who Great fighters fought. Great fighters who fought other great fighters had losses - but how did they do in the rematches?”Ali was 11-0 in rematches, the best such record in history in the heavyweight division. Ali faced a heavyweight record of 8 Hall of Fame fighters, winning against all but one, and making 11 total fights against Hall of Famers.Wilder fought one guy who might get in the Hall of Fame without buying a ticket and got destroyed by him.Fury drew the first time with the #55 fighter, and his only top 150 win otherwise was a 39 year old who went the distance with him.Most fans not only do not understand the significance of the record of a fighter’s opponents in assessing wins and losses, but they don’t understand the significance of the historical record in general.Ali was and is the first and only three-time lineal World Heavyweight Champion. He was and remains the first World Heavyweight Champion to come back from retirement and regain the undisputed title. He beat 14 world champions, from the years 1962 to 1978, over an incredible 16 year period. Ali won twenty-two World Heavyweight Championship fights over a 14 year period. Ali made a total of nineteen successful title defenses of the undisputed title, nine during his first reign and ten during his second reign, second only to Joe Louis.And incredibly, he did this after three and one half years of his prime were taken away. He worked on adapting his decreased physical abilities to better technique, and the results speak for themselves.Finally, what do other fighters say about Ali?Let's ask Mike Tyson to evaluate Ali as a fighter:Mike Tyson, a student of boxing to this day, and a guy who has probably watched more boxing film than any other boxing historian, said of Ali: “Nobody beats Ali,” he said when asked if he’d have beaten him, prime against prime.Mike explains that those who grew up in the ’80s and ’90s and perceived Tyson as the winner just because he hit harder and had bigger muscles let themselves be fooled by Ali’s physical appearance. “Ali is a fuckin’ animal,”Tyson said. “He looks more like a model than a fighter, but what he is, he’s like a Tyrannosaurus Rex with a pretty face. And fast, Lord God he was fast!”Tyson was asked, in your prime, could you have beaten Ali? “NOBODY beats Ali,” said Iron Mike.Mike went on and explained further why he would never have beaten Ali.Tyson, in a 2012 interview with Thisis50 | If it's Hot it's Here!, described how Ali collapsed to the canvas after stopping Joe Frazier in their third fight in 1975. "He had too much pride. He'd rather die than let somebody beat him," said Tyson.When asked again who would've won between the two had they met at age 20, Tyson didn't hesitate in answering:. "Never stopping and he’s dead tired? I can’t beat that man. Hell fucking no. No fucking way," said Tyson.What about Lennox Lewis, what does he think? "Ali was the greatest heavyweight EVER in my opinion.... I would never put myself in his class...and never have."Fourth, people either don’t know, or don’t care about Ali’s work helping and even saving other peopleAli was a genuinely good and charitable human being, who fed the poor, championed the weak and oppressed, and literally risked his life to save other people.Muhammad Ali (right) leans out of a window of a high-rise building on Jan. 19, 1981, in Los Angeles and talks with a man, later identified by reports as Joe, who threatens to jump. Credit Picture to Boris Yaro/Los Angeles TimesCredit also details of the event to Boris Yaro and the Los Angeles TimesAlso credit the New York Times, which carried details of this story:When Muhammad Ali Met a Man on a LedgeThe story of Muhammad Ali going out on a ledge, literally, to stop a man from jumping to his death is preserved forever by Los Angeles Times photographer Boris Yaro. On Monday, Jan. 19, 1981, Yaro was monitoring a police scanner in LA and heard a report of a suicidal jumper. His editor at the LA Times was not interested, but Yaro drove over to Los Angeles’s Miracle Mile, where the man had been reported on a ledge despite that,There, Yaro found a young black man in jeans and a hoodie, on an office-building fire escape nine floors above the ground.The young man, “Joe,” as he was named in reports, had evidently been up there for hours. The police at the scene said, “he seemed to think he was in Vietnam with the Viet Cong coming at him.” A crowd had grown, of course, on the street below, and was happilly screaming to “Joe” to jump to his death.Police officers, a police psychologist and a chaplain was stationed at a window close by, begging him to come inside. “I’m no good,” he shouted, moving to the edge and hanging out when it appeared someone was going to intervene. “I’m going to jump!”In a twist of fate, Muhammad Ali’s best friend, Howard Bingham, was there that day, and called Ali, who at that time was living in LA not far from the Miracle Mile. “About four minutes later,” Bingham would later recall, “Ali comes roaring up the wrong side of the street in his Rolls with his emergency lights blinking.”Boris Yaro watched in amazement as Ali talked briefly with the police, then saw the former champ run into the building. Yaro’s pictures, including the one above, recorded the rest of the incident for history.Ali, in a dark suit and tie, is seen leaning out of a nearby window, trying to see the young man threatening to jump. Just a few feet away, Joe is perched dangerously on the ledge, holding a pillar as he leans out over empty space.By The Los Angeles Times’s account, Ali leaned out and shouted to Joe: “You’re my brother! I love you, and I couldn’t lie to you.” Dodging back inside, Ali found his way to the fire escape, came out, put an arm around Joe and lead him back inside. The two walked out of the building together, got in Ali’s car and drove, after a stop at a police station, to a nearby V.A. hospital.Ali, deflected credit for saving the young man’s life, saying the first responders were the heroes.But of course nothing is ever quite what it appears, and though the police reported that Joe was “badly disturbed,” a few days later when the Los Angeles Times published a story on Joe, it was found that he had never served in Vietnam.Nonetheless, on Wednesday, Jan. 21, at a news conference for a company he was endorsing, Ali announced that he was going to buy Joe clothes and travel with him to his home state, Michigan.Robert Lipsyte, who spent a large part of his life chronicling Ali’s says any claim that Ali was doing it for acclaim was, even if true, only possible one part of why he would try to talk a man off a ledge. “The other part was he was capable of acts of kindness; almost casual acts of kindness,” Lipsyte said at the time. Lisyte believed Ali showed up to the office building not only because he thought he could help Joe, but because he wanted to. “In some sort of ways, he talked a lot of people off the ledge,” Lipsyte says. “I think about a guy who made people brave. That’s what he did.”Acts like these were common in Ali’s life. Angelo Dundee once recalled an incident that took place after Ali’s last fight before his almost 4 year exile in 1967.On September 10, 1966, a young Ali defended his title in Frankfurt Germany against Karl Mildenberger as part of his "European tour." He was tired and stressed by a return to the USA to continue his fight against the military draft, but he won the fight nonetheless. In the 12th round, with Mildenberger on the ropes, referee Teddy Waltham stopped the fight. At the airport the next day, Waltham’s fee of 1,000 pounds was stolen. Waltham, who was counting on the money to pay his mortgage and bills, was distraught. When Ali heard, he gave Waltham the money from his own pocket.When asked about the incident, Ali shrugged it off, saying "man, don't make this a story, he needed the money more than I did."But perhaps nothing sums up Ali's life, and who he was, than what he did in 1990. That year, Ali went to Bagdad as the first Gulf War was looming, to try and free 15 American hostages being held by Saddam Hussein. Ali, already badly ill with Parkinson's, ran out of his medications while in Bagdad, and endured very real suffering, yet refused to leave, and persevered until Saddam allowed him to take all 15 American hostages home to their families.On Dec. 2, 1990, Ali and the hostages flew out of Baghdad, headed for JFK.The men remain overwhelmed to this day. “You know, I thanked him,” said former hostage Bobby Anderson. “And he said, ‘Go home,’ be with my family . . . what a great guy.”Ali asked the media not to make the story about him, but about the hostages and their reunited families.The New York Times, after Ali rescued the 19 hostages in Iraq in 1990, said "however great he was in the Ring, Ali is greater as a human being. Despite being ill, the Champ has given millions of his own money, raised tens of millions more for charity, to feed people, for medical treatment, and perhaps most importantly for a man who is ill, he donates his time to help others. His recent trip to Iraq to rescue hostages held there, during which he ran out of medications he must take, and which caused him considerable suffering, is an example of one man reaching out to help others with no regard for his own health or safety."After retiring from boxing in 1981, at age 39, Ali focused on religion and charity, until his declining health prevented him from public appearances. Ali donated millions to charity organizations and disadvantaged people of all ethnic, racial and religious backgrounds. He helped raise tens of millions more. Ali helped to feed more than 22 million people afflicted by hunger across the world. He never asked for, or wanted, praise for these efforts.Among his many charitable efforts, Ali worked with the Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson's Disease to raise awareness and encourage donations for research. In 1987, the California Bicentennial Foundation for the U.S. Constitution selected Ali to personify the the U.S. Constitution and Bill of Rights. Ali rode on a float at the following year's Tournament of Roses Parade, launching the U.S. Constitution's 200th birthday celebration.In 2012, Ali was awarded the Philadelphia Liberty Medal in recognition of his lifelong efforts in activism, philanthropy and humanitarianism.Make no mistake, Ali was human enough, and he made plenty of mistakes. He himself regretted the rest of his life not standing by Malcolm X when Malcolm left the Nation of Islam, and he also regretted the way he had treated Joe Frazier.Ali said it best: "Ali: "I'm sorry Joe Frazier is mad at me. I'm sorry I hurt him. Joe Frazier is a good man, and I couldn't have done what I did without him, and he couldn't have done what he did without me. And if God ever calls me to a holy war, I want Joe Frazier fighting beside me."All of that was what made Ali a great and inspirational human being, but the haters never mention a word of that, instead they lie about Ali being a racist...Finally, there are people who just hate Ali, for no good reasonLike Ol’ Never was, who makes up slanders and slurs about Ali on practically a daily basis, there are just a few who hate him because they hate him. He ducked the draft, they say, and when you ask how they can say that when the Supreme Court said he did not duck the draft, they babble.Or they say he didn’t do anything for anyone but himself - and you point out he literally went out on a ledge in 1980 to save a man’s life, and he literally went to Iraq before the first Gulf War, and personally saved the lives of 19 people!How do they answer that? They bluster and make up more lies.The New York Times, after Ali rescued 19 hostages in Iraq in 1990, said it best about Ali: "however great he was in the Ring, Ali is greater as a human being. Despite being ill, the Champ has given millions of his own money, raised tens of millions more for charity, to feed people, for medical treatment, and perhaps most importantly for a man who is ill, he donates his time to help others. His recent trip to Iraq to rescue hostages held there, during which he ran out of medications he must take, and which caused him considerable suffering, is an example of one man reaching out to help others with no regard for his own health or safety."In September of 2015, after Joe Frazier was long gone from this world, the City of Philadelphia, thanks mostly to Larry Holmes and Bernard Hopkins, finally put up a long overdue statue of Joe Frazier in Philadelphia, and Ali’s business manager, Gene Kilroy went to the ceremony. He and Marvis Frazier, Joe’s oldest son, then went to Frazier’s grave and laid a wreath inscribed with a message from Ali.The wreath and message from Ali said “To Joe Frazier from Muhammad Ali, Rest in peace, Joe, until we meet again. Next time we’re not going to fight, we’re just going to hug each other.”For all the reasons above, Ali was certainly not overrated either as a boxer, or a human being.CREDIT TO:All rankings and statistics to BoxrecCREDIT FOR QUOTES AND DETAILS TO THE FOLLOWING:Ali: A Life by Jonathan EigCox’s Corner by Monte CoxGhosts of Manila: The Fateful Blood Feud Between Muhammad Ali and Joe Frazier by Mark Kram,Gods of War by Springs ToledoListon and Ali: The Ugly Bear and the Boy Who Would Be King by Bob MeesSonny Liston - Skills - Reemus BoxingThe Greatest: My Own Story by Muhammad Ali

The fighter most universally revered as the greatest boxer of all time, pound for pound, was, then and now, Sugar Ray Robinson.CREDIT PICTURE YOU-TUBEThe heavyweight fighter most universally revered as the greatest heavyweight of all time BEFORE Muhammad Ali was Joe Louis, though Rocky’s iconic feat of retiring undefeated, along with his humbleness, earned him a place up there as well. Ali, is, of course, almost universally recognized as the greatest heavyweight of all time today, and many consider him the greatest boxer of any weight of all time.Sugar Ray RobinsonSugar Ray Robinson, born Walker Smith, is considered by most historians, and most fighters and trainers, to be the greatest boxer of them all, pound for pound.Sugar Ray Robinson was named Fighter of the Year for 1942 and 1951 by The Ring. He was named Fighter of the Year for 1950 by the Boxing Writers Association of America. He was named Fighter of the Decade for the 1950s by The Ring. He was inducted into The Ring Boxing Hall of Fame in 1967, the World Boxing Hall of Fame in 1981, and the International Boxing all of Fame in 1990.Sugar was named Welterweight Fighter of the Century, Middleweight Fighter of the Century, and Fighter of the Century by the Associated Press. Ring Magazine ranked Robinson as the best fighter of the last 80 years. Ring also ranked Robinson as the 11th greatest puncher of all-time in 2003. Historian Bert Sugar ranked Robinson #1 in his 2006 book Boxing's Greatest Fighters.ESPN ranks Robinson as the greatest fighter in history.The original Sugar Ray threw down against 12 future Hall of Famers over 29 fights. If you’re looking for some perspective, Muhammad Ali took on eight Hall of Famers over 13 fights and went 10-3. Sugar Ray stopped 8 Hall of Famers, including Jake LaMotta, one of the toughest men to ever set foot in a ring.Robinson beat seven undisputed champions, winning the undisputed title six times. (the first time he fought the welterweight champion, he pounded the undisputed champ, who, knowing he could not defeat Sugar Ray, prudently made it a non-title fight, Robinson was finally given a title shot when Marty Servo vacated the title, and of course, Robinson became welterweight champion).Robinson’s professional record, in his early years, will also never be matched - he had a nine year winning streak undefeated with 91 fights in a row.Robinson fought (and beat) a murder's row of opponents, including Hall of Fame fighters Jake LaMotta, Randy Turpin, Carmen Basilio, Bobo Olson, Gene Fulmer, Kid Gavilan, Fritzie Zivac, Joey Giardello, Rocky Graziano, and Henry Armstrong. And all of these, except Armstrong, who he fought at welterweight, were at middleweight, when he himself was a natural welterweight.Incredibly, the greatest welterweight and middleweight who ever lived started his career as a lightweight!Former heavyweight champion Max Schmeling once said of Robinson after seeing him fight, “He was the greatest. A distance fighter. A half-distance fighter. An in-fighter. Scientific. He was wonderful to see.”Another former heavyweight champion, Joe Louis, known as “The Brown Bomber” and considered by many to be the best heavyweight boxer ever until Ali took that title, once called Robinson again after watching him fight, “The greatest fighter ever to step into the ring.”The Boxing Writers of America were of the same opinion, voting Robinson the Best Fighter of All Time.Anthony Mason, boxing writer, said "I think the only way to fairly rank a boxer's place in history is by comparing their résumés. And that does not mean just wins and losses - it is too easy today to fight only has beens or never will be's, and run up the record. Case in point, Floyd Mayweather." He went on to name his number one of all time, Sugar Ray Robinson.Thornton Clifford writes of comparing Mayweather's "5 division championships to Hank Armstrong's feat of holding 3 titles simultaneously, "back then there were eight titles, eight weightclasses, total, and he held three of them at once! That would be equivalent to Mayweather holding six of today's weight class belts at once if there was only one title in each weightclass, and if you factor in five organizations awarding titles, he would have to have held 24! There is no comparison to Armstrong or Ray Robinson and their accomplishments!"In 1997, The Ring ranked Robinson as the best pound-for-pound fighter in history, and in 1999 he was named "welterweight of the century," "middleweight of the century", and overall "fighter of the century" by the Associated Press.In 2007 ESPN.com published a story called "50 Greatest Boxers of All Time", in which it named Robinson the top boxer in history. Robinson was also ranked as the top welterweight and the number one pound-for-pound boxer of all time by the International Boxing Research Organization.Ray Leonard, a guy who calls them the way he sees them, says Robinson was the best ever.In a recent story for Bleacher Report, Ray Robinson is listed as number one of all time.The Top 50 Pound-for-Pound Boxers of All TimeJoe LouisJoe Louis held the unofficial title as Greatest Heavyweight of all time until Ali took that spot.Louis held his place in history because of his fistic prowess, and what he meant to the American people during the Great Depression, and World War II.Louis repaired the damage Jack Johnson had done in becoming, by his humbleness, and blue collar image, the first Black man to fight for the title in 25 years. Louis, was, according to historians, one of the first black athletes to be accepted by ‘White America,’ in part because of his humble, kind, personality, and blue-collar image and work ethic.Louis still holds the records for most heavyweight championship title defenses with 25, and longest undisputed heavyweight title reign, 11 years.Born Joe Louis Barrow, Louis fought through one of the most troubling times in our nation's history. First, the Great Depression, then World War II was in full swing in Europe and the War was on its way to the states. Joe's career lasted from 1934-51,and over that time he had a record of 68-3 with 54 of the those fights coming by way of knockout. Nicknamed the Brown Bomber, he helped bring boxing back into the mainstream after the Jack Dempsey era had concluded.Before one of his biggest fights, a rematch against German Max Schmeling, Louis traveled to the White House where President Franklin D. Roosevelt was quoted as saying, "Joe, we need muscle like you to beat Germany." Joe Louis was also featured on recruiting posters all over the country to help build America's forces to defend Democracy against Adolf Hitler and the Nazi's.Joe Louis won his first world heavyweight title in 1937 and held that title for eleven years, eight months and seven days. Successfully defending his undisputed title a record 25 times, he retired as the champion in the later part of 1949.Joe’s bond drives, and other work for the military during WW2 made him an iconic figure in American Society, and perhaps nothing typifies Louis better than his reply to a report who asked him, in 1942, whether God was on our side in WW2. Louis quietly responded, “no sir, we are on God’s side.”It was a great record, and it took a greater one to replace him, that of:Muhammad AliAli is the first and only three-time lineal World Heavyweight Champion. He was and remains the first World Heavyweight Champion to come back from retirement and regain the undisputed title. He beat 14 world champions, from the years 1962 to 1978, over an incredible 16 year period. Ali won twenty-two World Heavyweight Championship fights over a 14 year period. Ali made a total of nineteen successful title defenses of the undisputed title, nine during his first reign and ten during his second reign.Another record he set which stands today, he has a record of 11-0 in rematches. Ali faced a heavyweight record of 8 Hall of Fame fighters, winning all but one, and making 11 total fights against Hall of Famers.Ali was named Ring "Fighter of the Year" for 1963, 1966, 1972, 1974, 1975 and 1978. Ali was named the Boxing Writers Association of America "Fighter of the Year" for 1965, 1974 and 1975. Ali was named Sports Illustrated "Sportsman of the Year" for 1974. Ali was named The Ring "Fighter of the Decade" for the 1970s. Ali was inducted into the U.S. Olympic Hall of Fame in 1983. He received the Boxing Writers Association of America James J. Walker Memorial Award for 1984.Ali was inducted into the World Boxing Hall of Fame in 1986. He was inducted into the The Ring Boxing Hall of Fame in 1987. Ali was inducted into the International Boxing Hall of Fame in 1990. Ali was named "Athlete of the Century" by GQ magazine in 1998. He was named "Sports Personality of the Century" by the BBC in 1999, and "Sportsman of the 20th Century" by Sports Illustrated in 1999.In his pre-exile form, he was the fastest heavyweight, perhaps fastest fighter, of all time. How fast was Ali? The Muhammad Ali pre-exile was the fastest heavyweight ever. In the May 5, 1969 issue of Sports Illustrated, Ali’s jab was measured with an omegascope. Ali’s jab, it was found, could smash a balsa board 16.5 inches away in 19/100 of a second. It actually covered the distance in 4/100 of a second, which is the blink of an eye. (and a lot faster than Floyd "beat up your Grandma" Mayweather)Jimmy Jacobs, who owned the world’s largest collection of fight films, said that on film tests with a synchronizer Ali’s jab was faster than that of Sugar Ray Robinson, or any middleweight, welterweight, or lightweight, he could measure. Jacobs contended that Ali was not only the fastest heavyweight, but also the fastest fighter he ever saw on film.Marv Jenson, who managed Gene Fullmer, concurred saying, “Ali has the fastest hands on any heavyweight I have ever seen, hell, he has the fastest hands, period." Pre-exile Ali would have moved and jabbed Mike to pieces.Pre-exile Ali stopped Sonny Liston, who would have eaten Anthony Joshua for lunch, munched on Tyson Fury for dinner, and polished off Deontay Wilder for a bedtime snack. Post exile Ali stopped Foreman, the same Foreman who Mike Tyson refused to fight when he was 42!Post-exile Ali had one of the best chins of any heavyweight in history, and was able to adapt and shift tactics against all types of fighters. He fought and defeated 7 Hall of Famers, including Frazier, the greatest swarmer ever, Foreman, the strongest man and best at cutting the ring off, and Earnie Shavers, the best one punch hitter of all time. He beat great swarmers, great sluggers, and great boxers. To quote Ali, "I whopped them all!"Mike Tyson, a student of boxing to this day, and a guy who has probably watched more boxing film than any other boxing historian, said of Ali: “Nobody beats Ali.”And anyone who seriously espouses Anthony (the living statue in the ring) Joshua, over Ali knows absolutely nothing about boxing, period. Asked about Ali against modern fighters, Joe Frazier said, "you got to be kidding me!"Ali was also a beloved and inspirational figure for three reasons, his stand against the War, and his staying and risking prison, his greatness and courage in the ring, and most importantly, his fearless acts of courage, charity, and decency to help others, ranging from giving money to a referee in an airport when he needed it himself, raising millions to feed the poor, to going out on a ledge, literally, to save a man’s life, to flying to Baghdad, when he was badly ill, to save 19 hostages.The story of Muhammad Ali going out on a ledge, literally, to stop a man from jumping to his death is preserved forever by Los Angeles Times photographer Boris Yaro. On Monday, Jan. 19, 1981, Yaro was monitoring a police scanner in LA and heard a report of a suicidal jumper. His editor at the LA Times was not interested, but Yaro drove over to Los Angeles’s Miracle Mile, where the man had been reported on a ledge despite that,There, Yaro found a young black man in jeans and a hoodie, on an office-building fire escape nine floors above the ground.The young man, “Joe,” as he was named in reports, had evidently been up there for hours. The police at the scene said, “he seemed to think he was in Vietnam with the Viet Cong coming at him.” A crowd had grown, of course, on the street below, and was happilly screaming to “Joe” to jump to his death.Police officers, a police psychologist and a chaplain was stationed at a window close by, begging him to come inside. “I’m no good,” he shouted, moving to the edge and hanging out when it appeared someone was going to intervene. “I’m going to jump!”In a twist of fate, Muhammad Ali’s best friend, Howard Bingham, was there that day, and called Ali, who at that time was living in LA not far from the Miracle Mile. “About four minutes later,” Bingham would later recall, “Ali comes roaring up the wrong side of the street in his Rolls with his emergency lights blinking.”Boris Yaro watched in amazement as Ali talked briefly with the police, then saw the former champ run into the building. Yaro’s pictures, below, record the rest of the incident for history.Ali, in a dark suit and tie, is seen leaning out of a nearby window, trying to see the young man threatening to jump. Just a few feet away, Joe is perched dangerously on the ledge, holding a pillar as he leans out over empty space.By The Los Angeles Times’s account, Ali leaned out and shouted to Joe: “You’re my brother! I love you, and I couldn’t lie to you.” Dodging back inside, Ali found his way to the fire escape, came out, put an arm around Joe and lead him back inside. The two walked out of the building together, got in Ali’s car and drove, after a stop at a police station, to a nearby V.A. hospital.Ali, deflected credit for saving the young man’s life, saying the first responders were the heroes.Muhammad Ali (right) leans out of a window of a high-rise building on Jan. 19, 1981, in Los Angeles and talks with a man, later identified by reports as Joe, who threatens to jump. CreditBoris Yaro/Los Angeles TimesBut of course nothing is ever quite what it appears, and though the police reported that Joe was “badly disturbed,” a few days later when the Los Angeles Times published a story on Joe, it was found that he had never served in Vietnam.Nonetheless, on Wednesday, Jan. 21, at a news conference for a company he was endorsing, Ali announced that he was going to buy Joe clothes and travel with him to his home state, Michigan.Robert Lipsyte, who spent a large part of his life chronicling Ali’s says any claim that Ali was doing it for acclaim was, even if true, only possible one part of why he would try to talk a man off a ledge. “The other part was he was capable of acts of kindness; almost casual acts of kindness,” Lipsyte said at the time. Lisyte believed Ali showed up to the office building not only because he thought he could help Joe, but because he wanted to. “In some sort of ways, he talked a lot of people off the ledge,” Lipsyte says. “I think about a guy who made people brave. That’s what he did.”Acts like these were common in Ali’s life. Angelo Dundee once recalled an incident that took place after Ali’s last fight before his almost 4 year exile in 1967.On September 10, 1966, a young Ali defended his title in Frankfurt Germany against Karl Mildenberger as part of his "European tour." He was tired and stressed by a return to the USA to continue his fight against the military draft, but he won the fight nonetheless. In the 12th round, with Mildenberger on the ropes, referee Teddy Waltham stopped the fight. At the airport the next day, Waltham’s fee of 1,000 pounds was stolen. Waltham, who was counting on the money to pay his mortgage and bills, was distraught. When Ali heard, he gave Waltham the money from his own pocket.When asked about the incident, Ali shrugged it off, saying "man, don't make this a story, he needed the money more than I did."But perhaps nothing sums up Ali's life, and who he was, than what he did in 1990. That year, Ali went to Bagdad as the first Gulf War was looming, to try and free 15 American hostages being held by Saddam Hussein. Ali, already badly ill with Parkinson's, ran out of his medications while in Bagdad, and endured very real suffering, yet refused to leave, and persevered until Saddam allowed him to take all 15 American hostages home to their families.On Dec. 2, 1990, Ali and the hostages flew out of Baghdad, headed for JFK.The men remain overwhelmed to this day. “You know, I thanked him,” said former hostage Bobby Anderson. “And he said, ‘Go home,’ be with my family . . . what a great guy.”Ali asked the media not to make the story about him, but about the hostages and their reunited families.The New York Times, after Ali rescued the 19 hostages in Iraq in 1990, said "however great he was in the Ring, Ali is greater as a human being. Despite being ill, the Champ has given millions of his own money, raised tens of millions more for charity, to feed people, for medical treatment, and perhaps most importantly for a man who is ill, he donates his time to help others. His recent trip to Iraq to rescue hostages held there, during which he ran out of medications he must take, and which caused him considerable suffering, is an example of one man reaching out to help others with no regard for his own health or safety."After retiring from boxing in 1981, at age 39, Ali focused on religion and charity, until his declining health prevented him from public appearances. Ali donated millions to charity organizations and disadvantaged people of all ethnic, racial and religious backgrounds. He helped raise tens of millions more. Ali helped to feed more than 22 million people afflicted by hunger across the world. He never asked for, or wanted, praise for these efforts.Among his many charitable efforts, Ali worked with the Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson's Disease to raise awareness and encourage donations for research. In 1987, the California Bicentennial Foundation for the U.S. Constitution selected Ali to personify the the U.S. Constitution and Bill of Rights. Ali rode on a float at the following year's Tournament of Roses Parade, launching the U.S. Constitution's 200th birthday celebration.In 2012, Ali was awarded the Philadelphia Liberty Medal in recognition of his lifelong efforts in activism, philanthropy and humanitarianism.Make no mistake, Ali was human enough, and he made plenty of mistakes. He himself regretted the rest of his life not standing by Malcolm X when Malcolm left the Nation of Islam, and he also regretted the way he had treated Joe Frazier.Ali said it best: "Ali: "I'm sorry Joe Frazier is mad at me. I'm sorry I hurt him. Joe Frazier is a good man, and I couldn't have done what I did without him, and he couldn't have done what he did without me. And if God ever calls me to a holy war, I want Joe Frazier fighting beside me."All of that was what made Ali a great and inspirational human being.Amen to all three iconic champions, may they rest in peace.