Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee. Rumble young man, rumble. (Cassius Clay)
The now iconic quote the then Cassius Clay gave out in the pre-fight build up to his challenge to reigning world heavyweight champion Sonny Liston was a taste of things to come from the future boxing great.

Muhammad Ali is renowned for his self-promotion, showmanship and the societal impact of the stances he took throughout his life but particularly as part of the 60’s counter culture movement. However none of the larger than life activity would have counted nearly half as much if it were not for the fact that in the ring Ali consistently produced performances of the highest calibre and this at a time when the heavyweight scene was at a high water mark for quality. He was involved in fights to which the frequently overused epithet ‘Fight of the Century’ genuinely applied. He is widely regarded as one of if not the best heavyweights ever. He is the only three-time lineal-champion. His joint records of beating 21 boxers for the world heavyweight title and winning 14 unified title bouts stood for 35 years. He is the only fighter to be named The Ring magazine Fighter of the year six times. Sports Illustrated had him as the greatest heavyweight boxer of all time, and as the greatest athlete of the 20th century. Several of his bouts were iconic and he frequently broke box office records. The Rumble in the Jungle with George Forman has been called ‘arguably the greatest sporting event of the 20th century’ and was watched by a record estimated television audience of 1 billion viewers worldwide. Whatever hyperbole Ali came out with outside the ring he could back it up in the ring.

Ali’s first significant fight came in 1964 as the then Cassius Clay. He was number one contender for the heavyweight title held by the Sonny Liston. Former convict Liston had beaten previous champion Floyd Patterson twice, both with first round stoppages. His rough upbringing and mob links, he was reported to have acted as a mob enforcer, lent him an air of significant menace but he was also a capable fighter being resistant to punishment, having a long, fast, jab and a crushing left hook. He was widely regarded as unbeatable at the time and was undefeated in eleven years. The fight was set for February 25, 1964, in Miami Beach. Ali hadn’t looked particularly good in his previous two fights and was a 7-1 underdog. Liston predicted a two round win, the boxing cognoscenti agreed with him, and it's difficult to appreciate now how little chance he was given in the pre-fight predictions.

Ali however didn’t share the sentiment that he was doomed and he taunted a perplexed Liston throughout the build up to the fight using his proto-rap poetry to predict an eighth round win. The weigh-in descended into chaos as Ali ratcheted up his taunts. Many on-lookers said Ali was afraid. As the first bell rang however Ali showed a speed and mobility nearer to that of a middleweight. Liston was made to miss clumsily and by the third round Ali’s stinging jab had opened up a cut and a combination had Liston wobbling. This was the first time Liston had ever been cut or troubled in the ring; this wasn’t in anyone’s except Ali’s script. At the end of the fourth however there was more drama as Ali complained his eyes were stinging. The suspicion was a substance had been applied to Liston’s gloves, two of his previous opponents had complained of similar symptoms. Even half blinded Ali avoided the worst of Liston’s 5th round onslaught and by the 6th sweat and tears had cleared his eyes so that Ali again dominated catching and troubling Liston repeatedly. As the 7th round opened Liston refused to answer the bell claiming a shoulder injury. The genuine nature of the injury is contentious even today, what is clear is that Ali had the physical and psychological beating of Liston and Liston knew it. Ali, referring to the journalists pre-fight predictions that he would be beaten, shouted for the press to eat their words and proclaimed ‘I am the greatest! I shook up the world. I'm the prettiest thing that ever lived.’ In winning this fight at the age of 22, Ali became the then youngest boxer to take the title from a reigning heavyweight champion. Ali defended his title nine times until he was stripped of it in 1967 due to his stance against the Vietnam War. He lost almost four prime athletic years to the revocation of his boxing licence.

After successful appeals against his conviction and revocation of licence Ali fought again winning two more bouts before his first epic 1971 clash with fellow great Joe Frazier. The pre-fight theatrics were off the scale and involved some spite on the part of Ali. The fight itself lived up to its billing as ‘ Fight of the Century.’ Frazier with his upper body movement worked his way to the inside where he landed more blows on Ali than Ali had taken in any previous fight. In the final round Frazier caught and knocked down a retreating Ali with a vicious left hook. The veteran referee Arthur Mercante said it was as hard as he’d seen one man hit another. Ali showed tremendous resilience by rising at three. He did however lose by unanimous decision, his first professional defeat.

Following this first defeat Ali fought ten more times successfully before losing and then winning a re-match against Ken Norton. In his loss he fought much of the bout with a broken jaw. One further win saw him lined up for a re-match with Frazier who had recently lost the title to the ferocious power punching of George Forman. In the early rounds of the rematch a sharper Ali had Frazier in trouble. As the fight progressed momentum shifted between the fighters but Ali had learned to circle to the left denying Frazier the opportunity to land the most powerful shot in his armoury. Ali won a unanimous points decision.

The win against Frazier set Ali up for a tilt at the title now held by one of boxing’s hardest ever punchers, George Foreman. The bout was to be staged in Kinshasa and literally no fight commentator gave Ali a chance. Foreman had handed down second round stoppages to both Frazier and Norton and Ali was now 32 years old having lost speed and slowed up on his reflexes. Ali was his usual showman self in the pre-fight build up and was hugely popular with the crowd unlike the sullen, intimidating Foreman. As the fight progressed into the second round and to the consternation of everyone including his corner Ali lay covered up on the ropes and allowed the huge hitting Foreman to open up on him. He mauled Foreman with clinches and stung him with sharp counters. Foreman became angry, Ali was talking to him throughout the fight. He threw wilder punches that Ali easily deflected. Those that got through Ali took well demonstrating his tremendous resilience. As the fight progressed Ali landed more punches and in the eighth put Foreman down. George didn’t make the count. It was his first loss in 40 fights. Comments made later by Foreman showed how much Ali had beaten him mentally before he beat him physically.

Ali fought three more times before agreeing to the rubber against Frazier in the "Thriller in Manilla". Again Ali built the fight up with his usual gusto. After all the goading Frazier was determined to win the decider. He applied constant pressure landing many scoring shots but sustaining effective Ali counters. By the 12th Fraziers eyes were cut and swollen and Ali began to dominate. Frazier’s trainer pulled his fighter at the start of the 15th as he could no longer see. Ali was too exhausted to celebrate. Ali later said that the fight was the closest thing to dying that he had known.

Ali fought on winning six more bouts though we has starting to ship a lot more punishment than he had in his early career. In the seventh and eighth post Frazier fights he lost but then regained the world title against the limited Leon Spinks. He retired on becoming three time champion.
That should have been that but Ali made an ill-fated come back famously losing in an attempt to regain the crown for a fourth time from new champion Larry Holmes. In 1981 a shadow of his former self he lost a 10 rounder against future champion Trevor Berbick.
There’s little doubt that the punishment Ali took contributed to his later life Parkinson’s Disease however for most of his career he demonstrated a combination of ring savvy, bravery, resilience, skill and will to win that are pretty much unmatched in the history of boxing and for as long as there are boxing historians the best of Ali’s fights will be regarded as some of the greatest of all time.