Perhaps no other athlete has transcended the way we perceive the character of an athlete like Muhammad Ali has. Cockiness and bravado in those days where unheard of. Especially a black man living in a racially divided country. White America feared him, especially when he joined the nation of Islam. He was a terror that swooped into your living rooms at night with his electric, comical and bold press clippings.

    He won an Olympic Gold medal at the age of eighteen only to throw it into the Ohio River after being told he couldn't eat in a local Louisville restaurant because the color of his skin. He was out of boxing for three years for refusing to enter the Vietnam War Draft stating that their is no reason for him to fight for his country when his country won't even fight for his own civil rights. A noble act which in my opinion, many people would not do. This defiance and self righteousness made Ali the most controversial and popular athlete in the Golden age of boxing.

 Did he invent rap? His pre fight poems he would recite are often contributed to influencing the musical art form of free styling and rap. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LFidzk5MWwE. If you copy and paste this link, it goes into more depth. Either way he gave black people living in America a desire and a pathway to be more independent and powerful in a nation where schools where still divided by your race. Ali was very close with Malcolm X but had a fallen out when the Elijah Muhammed had conflicts with Malcolm X. This forced Ali to stop supporting Malcolm X shortly before he was assassinated. Religion was a massive importance in Ali's life. When he converted to Muslim it was an offensive act to his Christian parents. He even changed his name from Cassius Clay saying it was a slaves name and said he wasn't "praying to no blue eyed, blonde haired Jesus." 

  We could go in depth about all of his great fights, Liston, Frazier, etc. However the most popular one and biggest to his legacy was "The Rumble in the Jungle." At the time, Ali was seven years without the belt which was taken away in an injustice way at the age of twenty-six. He was now facing an immortal beast, George Foreman. A man who never went past the third round because he knocked all of his opponents out before it. For the first time in his life, Ali was an underdog. It was in Zaire, Africa. Every Zaire citizen marveled at Muhammad Ali due to the fact that he refused to go to war with Vietnam which was a third world nation just like Zaire. Ali was more than a hero to these people, he was a God. If he beat the odds and beat Foreman, the country was going to explode with excitement. If an athletes ever felt personal and societal pressure as jacked up as this it would most likely suffocate them. Not Ali though. His unfathomable conviction in himself is unmatched to any athlete I've ever seen. Everyone expected him to dance, he didn't, he invented the rope-a-dope, took a beating, tired Foreman and knocked him out in an unthinkable conclusion. 

    Ali will be remembered by millions of people for millions of reasons. To me he is so remarkable because he talked so much smack talk i got people so pissed off they wanted to see him lose. But he pretty much always won, thus backing up everything he said. He reminded myself and plenty of other people, that the world may doubt you but that doesn't mean you can't do whatever you want to do in life. Happy Birthday champ. I wish I could have gotten to see you fight in person, it truly would have been a spectacular sight.