10 Reasons Why Muhammad Ali Really Was The Greatest

Despite the debilitating effects of Parkinson’s, Ali continued to live each day with positivity and purpose. As Thomas Hauser, whose biographical work Muhammad Ali: His Life and Times is the outstanding text on an astounding man, has relayed at length, Ali never felt sorry for himself despite his condition, neither did he ever want anyone to feel sorry for him.

He faced the burden of Parkinson’s like every other challenge in the course of his life: head on, steadfast and unbowed. In fact, he once commented that his illness “slowed me down and caused me to listen rather than talk”.

His celebrity and standing would see Ali travel to Iraq after Saddam Hussein’s forces invaded Kuwait, successfully negotiating the release of 15 American hostages. Ali also travelled to Afghanistan in 2002 as an envoy of peace for the United Nations, and few who witnessed it will ever forget the spine-tingling moment he lit the torch to officially commence the 1996 Olympic Games in Atlanta.

As a young man, Cassius Clay had met his idol Sugar Ray Robinson but was left crestfallen when the middleweight wouldn’t sign an autograph. So for as long as he was able, Ali would expend considerable energy signing thousands of autographs in advance, for he never wanted to disappoint a single one of the innumerable fans and well-wishers he encountered day to day.

And that’s what made him The Greatest; Muhammad Ali rarely disappointed anyone.