Ali was the first boxer to use his loud mouth and overconfident attitude to draw crowds, and get fights. He was not modest about his skills at all, but instead paraded around, and proclaimed that he was the best, and used slogans like: AFloat like a butterfly, sting like a bee@, AI am the

Ali brought people to watch his fights who didn=t know what boxing was and Ali made them into fans. He was the only boxer they ever watched. At first people thought he was a joke, because he did not fight in the traditional manner, the way everybody else fought. In fact, he did not necessarily have a Astyle@. His style was how he felt before the fight. He brought his personality into the ring with him (Reemtsma 49). Ali had a trainer named Archie Moore in his early days of fighting who was pressuring Ali to change his fighting style to the traditional way. This was the way that Moore, a professional fighter himself, taught and fought. Ali fired Moore after a short time and hired a different trainer by the name of Angelo Dundee. Later in his boxing career, Moore challenged Ali to a fight. Moore proclaimed that he wanted to show Ali that the traditional style of boxing is the best and was confident that he could beat Ali, given a little luck and no mistakes. Ali, in his normal fighting mood, predicted the fight as AMoore in four.@ Ali only upheld his prediction by holding back in the earlier rounds (Reemtsma 25-26). Along with his boxing style and attitude came a certain amount of foolishness. A good example is Ali=s first fight with Frazier. Ali fought Frazier three times throughout his career. All three were good fights with the two boxers trading wins back, and forth without a single knockout. In the first fight, Ali lost on points and it was not considered a decisive victory. However, the referee in the ring felt that Ali could have won if he had not played around too much (Miller 21).

Ali commanded worldwide respect and thus his statement regarding the Vietnam War AWar is wrong, people get killed in wars@ embarrassed far more people than if anybody else would have said it (Hauser 509). Ali was the first public figure of the time to openly oppose the Vietnam War. He felt that the war was not his argument and he did not need to fight for something that he did not believe in. This began Ali=s problems with the army draft. In the beginning of the Vietnam War, Ali was called to the draft. He refused to go and was relieved of the hassle because he was unable to pass certain requirements on the intelligence part of the test. However, later when the army lowered their standards because of the need for more troops, Ali was qualified and was expected to be enrolled or to volunteer. He did not and only treated it like a small annoyance. He said that he Adidn=t have no quarrel with the Veit Cong@ (Reemtsma, 39). The public was not at all happy with his statement and said that he had no respect for his country. He ignored them and continued fighting, but he was starting to be banned from being able to fight in cities all over the USA because of his remarks regarding the war. He took many out of country fights and traveled around the world to box in Canada, England and Germany. He came back to America about a year later, and though his issue with the draft had died down a bit, it was still there. The draft board finally called him in. He used the reason that he was a member of the Nation of Islam and he was no longer required to be drafted, but his world championship title was revoked and his boxing license was taken away for three years, at the peak of his career. Even though half of America was mad at him over the problem with the draft, Bertrand Russell called him and congratulated him on the stand he had taken on the Vietnam situation (Reemtsma 6). Ali standing up for his rights

Muhammad Ali was not just a boxer. He changed the world in two ways. He changed the way people looked at boxing. It will be very difficult for someone to do what he did in the boxing community. He changed the way that people regarded blacks, and helped the racial struggle. Apart from this, on his own, and to his family he was a great man, a good father, and a loving husband. It=s no wonder that he is regarded as a myth, and the best boxer in history.<

Some topics in this essay:
Muhammad Ali, Bear@ Liston, Davis Miller, Nation Islam, Kinshasa Zaire, Leon Spinks, Colorful Fighter@, Angelo Dundee, Liston Ali=s, Sutherland Neill, muhammad ali, nation islam, vietnam war, boxing career, world championship, ali boxer, ali=s fight, hana 12, 6 ali, ablack hope@, fight racial implications, changed muhammad ali, liston foreman ali, name cassius clay, racial implications fight,