January 17, 2007 @ 10:03 am

Happy Birthday, Champ!

John DeMarchi

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Muhammad Ali turns 65 today.

In a 21-year pro career, Ali fought 61 times, winning 56. Bob Arum promoted 25 of those bouts. "I feel terrible about what happened because for better or worse I played a part in it," Arum told the Associated Press. "Not that it wouldn't have happened if somebody else was involved. But I feel I played a part in his physical decline.... Here was a guy who my memories of him were larger than life. He was full of life, like nobody I've ever seen in my life.... Now to see what is essentially a shell of what was is hard. Every time I see him I'm glad to see him, but I feel terrible." Muhammad Ali (born Cassius Marcellus Clay, Jr. on January 17, 1942) was crowned "Sportsman of the Century" in 1999 by Sports Illustrated. He won the World Heavyweight Boxing championship three times, and won an Olympic gold medal. He was born in Louisville, Kentucky and was named after his father, Cassius Marcellus Clay, Sr., (who was named for the 19th century abolitionist and politician Cassius Clay). Ali later changed his name after joining the Nation of Islam (in 1967); he converted to Sunni Islam in 1975. (Source: Wikipedia) HERE ARE SOME OF ALI'S MOST FAMOUS QUOTATIONS:
"Now Clay swings with a right - what a beautiful swing - and raises the bear straight out of the ring; Liston is rising and the ref wears a frown, for he can't start counting 'til Liston comes down. Now Liston disappears from view, the crowd is getting frantic. But our radar stations have picked him up somewhere over the Atlantic. Who would have thought when they came to the fight that they'd witness the launching of a human satellite?" - before the first Sonny Liston fight, 1964. "Yes the crowd did not dream when they laid down their money that they would see a total eclipse of the Sonny." - before first Sonny Liston fight, 1964. "Cassius Clay is a slave name. I didn't choose it and I don't want it. I am Muhammad Ali, a free name. It means beloved of God, and I insist people use it when people speak to me and of me." - announcing his conversion to the Muslim faith after first Liston fight. "I ain't got no quarrel with them Vietcong." - after refusing induction to the U.S. Army during the Vietnam War, 1967. "I'm so fast that last night I turned off the light switch in my hotel room and got into bed before the room was dark." - before George Foreman fight, 1974. "Float like a butterfly sting like a bee, his hands can't hit what his eyes can't see." - before Foreman fight, 1974. "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, hospitalized a brick; I'm so mean I make medicine sick." - before Foreman fight, 1974. "That all you got, George? That all you got?" - during Foreman fight, 1974. "It will be a killer and a chiller and a thriller when I get the gorilla in Manila." - before third Joe Frazier fight, 1975. "We have one life; it soon will be past; what we do for God is all that will last." - interview with Howard Cosell, 1977. ALI TRIBUTES FROM AROUND THE WEB: USE SHOPVIBE TO GET:

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