Remembering Muhammad Ali 8 years after his death

“To be a great champion you must believe you are the best. If you’re not, pretend you are,” -Muhammad Ali-

Throughout history, the world has known Greats. Men and women who have confounded stereotypes. They did not hesitate to defend their ideals and their beliefs.

Muhammad Ali stands out. A man who fought for equality of races. Muhammad surprised his country and the entire world after announcing his new faith in the 60s. He also refused to fight in the Vietnam war.

Ali converted to Islam, he leave behind the name of Cassius Clay which he believed was a slave name, in order to become Muhammad Ali.

His mission: Defending the causes of his belief. He is placed alongside Jim Brown- football player, basketball players, Oscar Robertson and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Jackie Robinson, who was the first black baseball player to get into the Major League baseball. Each and every one of them fought for equality.

Muhammad believed in the words of his friend Martin Luther King, who struggled peacefully against segregation and racial discrimination in the US “I have a dream, one dream, keep dreaming. Dream of freedom, justice dream, dream of equality and hopefully no longer had need to dream them.”

Muhammad Ali lived according to his principles. He thought freely defining his life, he was always convinced of his beliefs.

Experiences were rooted in his childhood. He did not understand why “good” things always were white and the”bad ones” black. For Ali, color was not a factor; a small kid who did not understand why his ancestors were slaves; men and women of African origin who were brought by force and sold in America, beings deemed property of their masters, who could be bought or sold, and even marked or mutilated to prevent them from escaping, living subjugated.

That child who knew consciously and unconsciously that we were not different, a kid who was able to predict the future: “I am the greatest. I even told myself when I knew I was not. ”

Ali not only dazzled the world with his brilliant boxing skills, but also with his sincerity and loyalty to his ideals. The proof is that when he won the gold medal at the 1960 Summer Olympics, in the light heavyweight category, but he threw the medal to the Ohio river. The reason?, the “Olympic black” as they used to call him, was still the “black guy,” discriminated against , no matter the merits…only the color of the skin.

Muhammad did not sit to watch time pass, he didn’t wait to see if the world was going to change. He put the gloves on and he went to fight with everything he had. He impressed everyone with his personality, sometimes irreverent, sometimes too honest!

“Serving others is the rent to be paid for a room on Earth,” this how the “King of Boxing” defined his actions.

Devotee of Islam, Allah, his God, is the only one (in the words of Ali) able to judge actions, which would decide his future life in heaven or hell, belief that led him to do the good in so many ways.

A fact that made him one of the most heard voices inside and outside the ring. He was able to gaze and focus beyond black or white, and in his journey, he discovered that the world was full of colors, beliefs, traditions and ways of thinking. All of them worthy of being respected.

Influential, in November 1990, he met Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein in Baghdad on a “goodwill visit” he made to negotiate the release of 15 Americans who were being held prisoners in Iraq.

A man who fought in the courts and in the Congress to create in 1999 “Boxing Reform Act Muhammad Ali”, which protects the rights and welfare of boxers. He did not allow the Warriors of the ring to be abused by unscrupulous promoters who took advantage of the lack of education of the fighters to deceive and steal the purses they deservedly earned.

The child born in Louisville, Kentucky, on January 17, 1942, found his vocation combatting poverty and discrimination. His motivation was to change the world by making himself heard.

Muhammad Ali had the vocation of boxing in his veins. The seeds were germinated after another child stole his bike.

Joe Martin, a policeman in the town, who started his boxing training, knew how this little “Rascal” came enraged, warning him to face the “thief” but so much better to learn how to box, and evolve his ethos of float like a butterfly, sting like a bee.

So, the time passed and he became known for his distinctive style, agile, with incredible reflexes. He was like no other fighter seen of his era or ever since.

Endowed with a speed never seen before in a heavyweight division, he was able to move like a lightweight.

Being one of a kind who shone with his own light, he set fame, money and his glittering career aside in order to defend his ideals, refusing to be part of the Armed Forces of the United States at the Vietnam War.

A Refusal for which paid a very high price, because he was not only stripped of his world title, but also he was held apart from all activity for more than three years. He was even close to being sent to prison.

He was aware about the possible consequences. Not to follow the struggle would be be betraying his beliefs. He always was willing to stand up for those beliefs, while respecting others.

He was Muhammad Ali, a genuine warrior able to see the world in a different way. A gifted man, who never denied his roots, gifted with linguistic talent and agility.

He conveyed his strengths to all those who had the fortune to know him. He always gave a hand to everyone, with humbleness, kindness and without distinctions. A man who decided to be free, who broke the chains and inspired millions.

Ali, left the body that locked him for more than 30 years in a cage. An illness that stole his motor skills but a condition that never could affect his spirit and much less weaken his heart .

“Impossible is just a big word thrown around by small men who find it easier to live in the world they’ve been given, than to explore the power they have to change it.

“Impossible is not a fact. It’s an opinion. Impossible is not a declaration. It’s a dare. Impossible is potential. Impossible is temporary. Impossible is nothing.” – Muhammad Ali-