Muhammad Ali, ' The Greatest of All Time ', Dead at 74

The Legend, Muhammad Ali is dead.

Muhammad Ali, the silver-tongued boxer and civil rights
champion who famously proclaimed himself "The Greatest" and then spent a lifetime living up to the billing, is dead. Ali  died Friday at a Phoenix-area hospital, where he had spent  the past few days being treated for respiratory complications, a family spokesman confirmed .

His visit to Nigeria in the 1960s

Ali, in his own words, was the "prettiest, the most superior, most scientific, most skilfullest fighter in the ring".

Elvis Presley was the 20th century's king of Rock 'n' Roll, and Ali was the Elvis of Boxing, he once said.

Most of the time, Ali dispensed with comparisons or complex superlatives. He was, simply, "the Greatest".

If anybody took this self-congratulation for arrogance, Ali had an answer ready. "It's hard to be humble when you're as great as I am," he said.

He died on Friday aged 74, after a decades-long struggle with Parkinson's disease - a slowly worsening brain disorder that never wholly subdued one of the sporting world's biggest personalities.


As a boxer, he will be remembered as a three-time world heavyweight champion who won 56 bouts over a 21-year career.