Boxer who made a savage sport beautiful

Brutal is the game he took to but only to make it beautiful. He is none other than the history's greatest boxer, Muhammad Ali. Yet if he were a mere champion boxer, he would perhaps never have conjured up the imaginations of millions of millions of people around the globe. He was a larger-than-life personality epitomising a perfect blend of a fine athlete and a human being par excellence.
Which of the categories, as defined by Shakespeare, 'some are born great, some achieve greatness and some are greatness thrust upon them' does Muhammad Ali then belongs to? His is a greatness no athlete has come to achieve. Had his bicycle not been stolen in his childhood, he would probably never have become a boxer. It was a chance meeting with a police officer at the police station where he went to lodge a complaint, who told him how he could fight thieves or all bad people.
In his unalloyed innocence, he accepted the officer's advice and took lessons in boxing. The stint of boxing training turned into a life-long vocation. Boxing became an art, a mesmerising physical ability against savages. It is because of this, he fluttered (my preference is flutter as against dance) like a butterfly and stung like a bee. Ali gave boxing a new dialect, a dimension no one ever practised before or after.
Boxing to him was not just a sport, it was philosophy, a kind of religion to him. If anyone else bragged, "I'm the greatest", it would have sounded arrogance, hollow and even sacrilegious. But when Ali declared he was greatest pugilist of all time, it did not seem illogical or unnatural. Stripped of his title as the heavyweight champion on refusal to join the Vietnam war, he was forced to miss the peak period of his sporting carrier. Yet he did not budge an inch. It was because of his conviction, the diktat of his conscience to remain true to his own inner belief that he could disdainfully defy the American government. He was vindicated by the verdict of the highest court in the United States of America. But four precious years were lost from his life.
However, his self-belief was so strong and firm that he staged a successful comeback to regain the title that was wrongly taken away from him. That he could be prophetic in correctly predicting nine out of ten times in which round his opponent would be knocked out shows his prescience and precision of his thought process. It is because of this, his uncanny and unerring instinct told him to stand his ground against the American administration. By his stand, he exposed the brazen imperialistic attitude as well as the racial discrimination against the black people. If acceptance of Islam was his first protest against the flattery of so-called equality of man of that democratic dispensation, the refusal to join the US army against Vietnam was championing human values that only the best of the species feel morally responsible to defend. By doing so he stood taller than the sportsman he was.
His sense of humour was very strong and prompted him to lash out at his opponents and charlatans alike in crisp and stinging words and sentences. It was quite entertaining. Witticism never left him simply because he was one to accept life in its strides. It is because of this, people all around the world looked upon him for inspiration. He became a natural hero for people in the poor and underdeveloped world. Such is his influence among a generation that millions of it feel Nelson Mandela and Ali hold the beacon aloft for them.
His last years were not so happy because of the Parkinson's disease he was suffering from but still he did not complain. Let Ali's journey to the world beyond be peaceful and his soul have a fitting resting place.