In Their Own Words

legend of Cassius Clay, the most beautiful fighter in the world today.

There'll never be another Muhammad Ali.

He was something fresh.

He was something we'd never seen.

ACTOR: (AS ALI) This I predict and I know the score, I'll be champ of the world in '64.

NARRATOR: Since he first fought his way to public attention, he's been among the most charismatic and polarizing cultural figures on the world stage.

Big mouth, loud mouth, Louisville lip.

BOTH: Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee.

Ahhh!

You said, "Muhammad Ali," you said, "Voice, mouth."

And this might shock and amaze ya, but I will destroy Joe Frazier.

Ali is the people's champ.

Ali is the revolution.

Cassius Clay is a name no more, is that right?

Yes, sir, it's Muhammad Ali.

Here was this young kid from Louisville telling the truth about the way things were.

He was gonna be very vocal about the problems this country had.

NARRATOR: In a turbulent time, he fearlessly fused sports, politics, race and religion.

When Ali refused induction into the United States army...

So many people were ready to crucify him for his stance.

NARRATOR: Stripped of his title and exiled from the ring, he became a symbol of principled defiance.

LL COOL J: Three and a half years out of the game because he did what he believed was right.

NARRATOR: In an epic comeback, he beat the odds, his stunning victories transcending the sport itself.

JIM BROWN: When have you ever had a fighter become bigger than life, defy the government and win and then come back and become champion of the world again?

NARRATOR: This is the story of Muhammad Ali.

ACTOR: (AS ALI) I am the greatest!

NARRATOR: On the night of July 19th, 1996, the whole world watches as 54-year-old Muhammad Ali sets the cauldron ablaze at the Olympic games in Atlanta.

The sight of the Olympic gold medalist and three-time heavyweight boxing champion defying Parkinson's disease to light the Olympic flame warms public affection for a man who, three decades earlier, was a racial and political lightning rod.

BROWN: It was a great thing for the country, and it was a great thing for Muhammad Ali.

But if he were not sick, would America have allowed him to do the same thing?

Muhammad Ali has been beatified in some ways because he's no longer threatening to the establishment.

People forgot that there was a time when Muhammad Ali was very dangerous.

NARRATOR: He was dangerous in the ring.

ANNOUNCER: If he goes down again, it's over!

Hey, I'm the greatest thing that ever lived!

I shook up the world!

I shook up the world!

NARRATOR: But some saw him as dangerous outside the ring.

Out of all people, it takes a Uncle Tom negro to keep continually calling me by a slave name, which is white name, Cassius Clay.

He was against the war when for the first time, we, as Americans, actually said, "No this isn't right."

He was a champion when we were gaining black pride and civil rights.

He was our moral conscience, he was our athletic dream.

Muhammad Ali epitomized what we were all about in the '60s.

He was on a spiritual quest.

Breaking out, coming out of Louisville, going on that search for meaning, going to the Olympics, coming back, meeting the dark forces.

Three and a half years of exile while he's fighting for his life.

And then coming out on top.

It's the hero's journey, man.

ACTOR: (AS ALI) I'm going to save boxing.

I'm good looking, clean living, cultured, and I am modest.

(AUDIENCE LAUGHING) NARRATOR: The man who would become Muhammad Ali is born Cassius Marcellus Clay in Louisville, Kentucky in 1942, the era of the segregated Jim Crow South.

You know, a black man was always supposed to be subservient.

Always supposed to say, "Yes, sir, boss."

And you're supposed to just, you know, play that game forever.

When we woke up in the morning, the first thing that comes to your mind is that your blackness is gonna be what white America is gonna look at and judge you by.

THOMAS HAUSER: Blacks, if they were lucky, could aspire to be teachers, but that was the top of the social strata.

Most often it was the black citizens of Louisville who raked manure into the backstretch at Churchill Downs.

NARRATOR: Cassius and his younger brother, Rudy, are raised in Louisville's struggling black middle class.

Cassius Clay didn't grow up in a ghetto.

His family lived in a very modest but comfortable house.

He had two parents at home.

There was always enough to eat.

He always had money for clothes.

NARRATOR: Clay's father is a skilled sign painter.

A proud and volatile man.

MAY MAY ALI: You know, my grandfather, Cassius Clay Sr, you know, he's kind of my father's genes, you know?

Very extroverted and bold and loved himself, so he got a lot of that from his father.

HAUSER: Odessa Clay was a very sweet nurturing woman.

And when you looked at Cassius, you saw the two parents fused into one personality.

NARRATOR: As with many classic heroes, the origin of Muhammad Ali involves a twist of fate.

In 1954, 12-year-old Cassius Clay rides his brand new bicycle to a black business expo in downtown Louisville.

Cassius spent some time walking around, getting free candy, seeing what was there.

When it was time to leave, he went outside, and his new red and white Schwinn bicycle had been stolen.

Somebody told him there was a policeman in the basement of the building teaching youngsters how to box.

NARRATOR: Furious young Clay finds Officer Joe Martin in the Columbia Gym.

Clay is ready to fight whoever stole his bike.

Martin calms him down and suggests that if he wants to fight, he should first learn how.

Martin teaches the 89-pound Clay how to box.

And his teenage student is eager to learn.

Within weeks, young Clay wins his first amateur bout.

It's the start of something bigger than either of them can possibly imagine.

There was another black trainer at a black gym named Fred Stoner who he also worked with.

But Joe Martin was the person that was held up and put out front for the publicity.

Here's the white policeman.

He taught this young fellow how to box.

It's a feel good story.

NARRATOR: Ambitious, driven, Cassius Clay becomes a National Golden Gloves champion.

ANNOUNCER: It's a TKO decision for Cassius Clay.

NARRATOR: Rock and roll pioneer Lloyd Price often gigs in Louisville.

But despite the fact that his song, Stagger Lee is topping the charts, he's got to find lodging in a guest house on the black side of town.

LLOYD PRICE: There was a corner spot called Rivers Lounge.

And I would go there because it wasn't far from the guesthouse.

And this young Cassius Clay would always come by there.

And him and his brother, Rudolph was his name.

And, uh, he said that he's gonna be the champion of the world.

He always had a big mouth, you know.

"I'm gonna be the champion of the world."

You know, he had all this energy.

And he was ambitious and young guys at that time, uh, wasn't thinking like he was thinking.

NARRATOR: John F. Kennedy is running for President in May of 1960 as 18-year-old Golden Gloves champ Cassius Clay wins the US Olympic trials in San Francisco, then goes on to take the light heavyweight gold medal at the summer games in Rome.

1960, I'm in the Olympic Village in Rome, and this person is sitting on some steps, and he's got a gold medal around his neck, and he's talking about what he's going to do with his life in very loud terms.

And the thing that caught me about him, I noticed, all the women turned around when they got five yards away to take a second look.

NARRATOR: But despite all the attention he gets in Rome, Clay finds that Olympic gold still won't buy him a place at the table in his own hometown.

Here we were being idolized as competing athletes on one hand, and then on the other hand there were certain restaurants you couldn't go in.

You know, it's not fun for people to tell you, "Yo, you can't eat here."

It's irritating when people try to hold you down.

You don't get up and start chanting, you know.

(CHUCKLES) You know, you get up and start swinging.

NARRATOR: Boxing in 1960 has been a notoriously corrupt sport, rife with mob influence and crooked managers.

Into this cesspool step 11 prominent Louisville businessmen, backing their hometown Olympic hero.

BOB ARUM: The Louisville Sponsoring Group, were composed of white men, uh, who had good intentions.

DAVE KINDRED: They were gonna help Clay be something, keep him out of the clutches of evil.

NARRATOR: With the sponsoring group in his corner, the former amateur Olympian begins his professional career on October 29th, 1960.

Tunney Hunsaker is the first to fall victim to Clay's raw talent.

Realizing their promising young fighter needs an experienced professional trainer, the group sends Clay to Miami to work with Angelo Dundee, who had trained world champion Carmen Basilio.

BOBBY GOODMAN: Few people in the history of our game were ever finer cornermen than Angelo Dundee.

Angelo used to say, "This kid does everything wrong, "does everything wrong.

"But it comes out right."

He did everything, what they would characterize as being wrong fundamentally.

He kept his hands down, he swayed back and forth.

He'd just pull out punches just by millimeters.

NARRATOR: Over the next two years, Dundee guides the unorthodox Clay to 19 victories in a row against a parade of heavyweights.

Some are a challenge for the flashy young fighter.

Most are not.

Heavyweights were not known to be that fast and that mobile and that fluid.

And guys couldn't hit him, especially heavyweights.

He might be big and he might be tall, but if he mess with me he sure will fall.

NARRATOR: Gaining self-confidence, Clay starts predicting the round his opponents will fall.

PRICE: That he's gonna knock 'em out in the fourth.

He did it.

He's gonna knock 'em out in five.

He did it.

Seven, he did it.

You know, that self-confidence, it's amazing what it will do to you.

You want to make a prediction in rhyme or are you gonna work on that for a while?

Well, it'll have to be in rhyme every time.

MAY MAY: My father had to market his fights and doing poetry and making rhymes and...

I'll never forget.

I said, "Dad, where did you get that from?"

And he says, you know...

He goes, "There was a wrestler, Gorgeous George."

BELINDA ALI: Gorgeous George.

He would say, "He was pretty and he would comb his blond hair "and have two chicks on his arm..." "And people would just hate him."

"They would just fill the whole auditorium just to see this guy get hit."

NARRATOR: Inspired by Gorgeous George, Clay creates his own supremely confident persona.

BOTH: Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee!

Ahhh!

Rumble, young man, rumble!

Ahhh!

LL COOL J: Ali's the archetype for a rapper.

Cockiness, the brashness, the offensiveness, the abrasiveness.

Hip-hop is about revolution.

Hip-hop is a voice for the people.

Ali is the people's champ.

Ali is the revolution.

The real dive will come on November, the 16th and in your heart you know I'm right.

He's new to this game, he's got all these microphones and cameras in his face.

He knows that there's a portion of the country that despises him and hates him.

Ali was completely hip-hop.

NARRATOR: By 1963, Clay's audacious antics make him unpopular with many sportswriters and boxing fans.

There wasn't much that the older generation liked about Cassius Clay.

The way he dissed them, laughed at their questions.

A hint to the wise is sufficient.

I remember seeing a Joe Lewis fight.

Um, they asked him his reaction, he said, "I glad I win."

Suddenly there was this guy who was not only articulate, but almost poetic and with a great deal of braggadocio to boot.

ACTOR: (AS ALI) I am the man this poem is about, the next champ of the world, there isn't a doubt.

(AUDIENCE LAUGHING) If he told funny poems, it would be one thing, but he tells funny poems, he tells you how great he is to have written them and how great a fighter he is.

And he's the greatest of all time.

That rubbed some people the wrong way.

He was the best at everything, he was the most beautiful and he hadn't really proven himself yet.

So all the people are looking at him like, "Who does he think he is?"

NARRATOR: But the example of a proud, confident black man appeals to a young generation who admire the fact that Clay isn't afraid to represent.

To African Americans, he was a source of pride in that he took great delight in who he was and in broadcasting it to everyone.

Just to say that you love yourself and have self-pride, showed people that they can do the same.

He made me feel proud to be a black man.

He just represented a symbol of strength to me.

ACTOR: (AS ALI) I am going to make boxing popular again, me with my beautiful, colorful personality.

NARRATOR: 21-year-old Clay is eager to prove he's more than a pretty face.

Now a top heavyweight contender, he campaigns to fight the reigning champ, Sonny Liston.

He went after Sonny with a vengeance.

I want that bear.

-And what's going to happen to him?

-I want that bear.

REPORTER: What's gonna happen to him?

He might be great, but he'll fall in eight.

He's driving a bus onto Sonny's lawn and he's yelling, "I want the bear!

"Get the bear out here.

Come on, bear."

It was starting to get under Sonny's skin.

That big, ugly bear.

I'm tired of hearing this.

And everywhere I go they're talking about Liston.

I can't wait for him and he's gonna fall in eight.

HAUSER: He really tormented Liston.

And finally Liston said, "Yeah, I'll fight him.

"It'll be easy money."

Everybody believed that Liston would annihilate this guy because he was all talk.

If Sonny Liston whoops me, I'll kiss his feet in the rain!

NARRATOR: With a record of 36-1, Liston is a fearsome champion, a former mob enforcer with ties to organized crime.

BRYANT GUMBEL: He was frightening.

Sonny was a guy who was meant to hurt people.

Sonny Liston was Godzilla.

Sonny Liston was going to reign for 1000 years.

NARRATOR: Adding to the foreboding sense of drama was the presence of members of the controversial Nation of Islam.

Nation of Islam was an isolationist group.

Uh, Elijah Mohammad wanted his own nation inside the United States.

You know, so it was...

It was scary.

NARRATOR: For the past few years, Clay has been studying the tenants of the Nation of Islam, as espoused by its leader, Elijah Muhammad, who preaches that white people are devils created by an evil scientist.

But Clay is drawn to the basic message of black empowerment.

It made him understand and promote, "What is your history?

"What is your African history?

Who are you?

"What is your name?

Why do you have that name?"

I'd never heard anything like I heard going to the meetings with Ali.

About, you are somebody.

A black man got as much right to live as any other man.

For the first time in my life, as a grown man who had been a star, had sold millions of records, you start to feel like you are somebody.

And I can understand how he got hooked.

NARRATOR: Clay is inspired by the Nation's assertion of black pride, but the presence in his camp of the Nation of Islam's controversial Malcolm X threatens the Liston fight.

Malcolm X, I want to talk with you briefly about your affiliation with Cassius.

How long have you known him?

About three years.

NARRATOR: Just months before, Malcolm X caused an uproar by suggesting that President Kennedy's assassination was a case of quote, "The chickens coming home to roost."

REPORTER: You did not say that you were glad the President was killed?

No, that's what the press said.

NARRATOR: The promoter fears that negative publicity will kill ticket sales.

So Clay's camp gets Malcolm to leave Miami until the day of the fight.

February 25th, 1964.

Boxing experts and fans agree that Liston will clobber the Louisville Lip.

They thought, "Well, even if it's gonna be fast, "it's gonna be really ugly and bloody, "just what we fight fans want."

NARRATOR: It was fast and it was bloody, but it was not what most fight fans expected.

ANNOUNCER: The challenger from Louisville, Kentucky, Cassius Clay!

ROBERT LIPSYTE: When the two men entered the ring, we suddenly realized that David was bigger than Goliath.

ANNOUNCER: Another jarring right hand attack.

There goes another one!

Sonny wobbles!

Sonny wobbles!

Cassius has him hurt.

NARRATOR: Clay dominates Liston from the bell, dancing around the slower champion, and opening a cut under his left eye.

After seven punishing rounds, Liston claims an injured shoulder and won't come out for round eight, making Cassius Clay the new heavyweight champ.

I don't have a mark on my face, and I upset Sonny Liston, and I just turned 22 years old.

I must be the greatest.

I told the world.

There were a number of people who immediately said, "Oh, the fix was in."

HAUSER: Sonny Liston quit against Cassius Clay.

He was just getting beaten up.

He didn't like it.

He was a bully and he couldn't take it.

NARRATOR: After his stunning upset of Liston, Clay holds a press conference that would only amplify the shock factor.

Somebody said, "Are you a card-carrying member of the Black Muslims?"

And he blew up.

NARRATOR: Clay confirms that he's a member of the Nation of Islam.

And he said, "I don't have to be what you want me to be.

"I'm free to be who I want."

This is about as revolutionary a statement as I've ever heard in sports.

NARRATOR: Now the heavyweight boxing champion, Cassius Clay, is free to be himself.

No one could get their mind around the idea that this great kid from Louisville raised by a Baptist mother was suddenly announcing that he was a member of the Nation of Islam.

NARRATOR: A few weeks later, public opinion of the new heavyweight champ goes from bad to worse.

Cassius Clay is a name no more, is that right?

Yes, sir, it's Muhammad Ali.

Muhammad means "worthy of all praises" and Ali means "most high" in a Asian-African language.

LIPSYTE: This was the toughest guy on the planet.

He turns his back on Christianity.

He turns his back on his family name.

And it began the split between people who loved him and people who hated him.

My name is Muhammad, you all keep calling me Cassius.

I'm tired of telling you.

You know, you're intelligent.

My name is Muhammad Ali.

Not Cassius.

Is there anybody special who gave you the name?

Yes, sir, my leading teacher, the most honorable, Elijah Muhammad.

NARRATOR: Elijah Muhammad's influence is growing.

Not only does he give Ali his new name, he introduces him to Sonji Roi, who becomes Ali's first wife in August of '64.

IZENBERG: Muhammad Ali had four wives.

Sonji, Khalilah, Veronica and now Lonnie.

I found the first wife, in a strange way, maybe the most interesting.

She was very firmly in love with him.

Their honeymoon is short-lived.

HAUSER: We no longer had Cassius Clay.

We now had Muhammad Ali who was a member of the Nation of Islam, which made him very unpopular.

It was getting very hard to find a place where he could fight.

Originally the Liston rematch was set for Boston, then Muhammad suffered a hernia.

The fight was postponed.

Boston washed its hands of it, and it finally wound up in Lewiston, Maine, which is one of the few places that would take it.

NARRATOR: Then, two months before the rematch, Malcolm X, who had broken with Elijah Muhammad to embrace orthodox Islam is gunned down by members of the Nation of Islam on February 21st, 1965.

HAUSER: Muhammad Ali had broken from Malcolm and sided with Elijah Muhammad, so there was concern that Malcolm's followers might exact retribution against Ali.

The rumor had been spread that there was a carload of gunmen coming up from New York to kill Muhammad Ali in the ring.

HAUSER: Ali-Liston Two was a mess.

It was a mess outside the ring and it was a mess once the fight started.

NARRATOR: Midway through round one, Ali hits Liston with a blow that would become infamous as the "Phantom Punch."

ANNOUNCER: Did you see the punch?

Did you see it?

Was it the punch heard around the world?

It wasn't even a punch seen around the world.

HAUSER: The punch was hard enough to knock Liston down, but he thought Liston could've gotten up.

IZENBERG: It took about eight seconds after nine and 10 that the crowd began to chant, "Fix!

Fix!

Fix!"

NARRATOR: Ali's second disputed win over Liston does little to win over his boxing critics.

He has other critics as well.

BROWN: A certain portion of black America loved him.

Another portion of black America did not love him.

The black community was divided, those who thought integration was a great thing and those who did not think of integration in that way, but thought of equal rights and our freedom, equality and justice.

I'm not out there marching and going places I'm not wanted.

Those of us who were young, who understood our manhood and who took pride in it, we were not asking to be a part of white America, but demanding our rights just like any other citizen.

NARRATOR: Ali's support of the Nation of Islam's separatist policy alienates many in the Civil Rights Movement, including Floyd Patterson, who turns his November '65 bout with Ali into a social, political and religious battle.

LIPSYTE: He said that a Black Muslim has no place being heavyweight champion in America.

And that he, as a Catholic, was going to bring the title back to this country.

BROWN: Floyd was a nice man, but his approach was what we call an Uncle Tom approach, doing all the things that white America wanted you to do.

You ain't nothin', but an Uncle Tom for white people.

What's my name Uncle Tom negro?

I'll jump on you now.

What's my name?

When Muhammad Ali got him in the ring, he became pretty cruel in his beating of Floyd.

He was really giving him a lesson, talking to him.

Hitting him and talking to him.

HAUSER: Ali would disable Patterson, then step back, admire his work, and then beat on him some more.

ANNOUNCER: I believe they're gonna stop it.

NARRATOR: Ali beats Patterson by technical knockout.

Two months later, he sues his wife Sonji for divorce.

She'd lost favor with her husband's increasingly influential Muslim inner circle.

IZENBERG: They said it was 'cause she wore makeup.

She wore daring dresses.

They didn't want her 'cause they had already picked out Khalilah, who was working in a Nation of Islam restaurant.

NARRATOR: His brief marriage now over, so is his six year contract with the Louisville Sponsoring Group.

Herbert Muhammad becomes Ali's manager.

KINDRED: Herbert Muhammad was the son of Elijah Muhammad who Muhammad Ali counted as his spiritual father.

Uh, Herbert was an extension of that.

NARRATOR: Herbert Muhammad joins with pro football superstar Jim Brown and lawyer Bob Arum to form their own boxing promotion company, Main Bout.

What we said was the heavyweight champion of the world is boxing and we should control basically boxing.

NARRATOR: But Main Bout can't control the US draft board.

Ali was rejected for service in '64 when he failed the written test.

But the Vietnam war is escalating in February of '66 and the army has lowered its standards.

Weeks before his bout with Ernie Terrell in Chicago, Ali is notified that Uncle Sam wants him.

The fight was doing extraordinarily well when the US government reclassified Muhammad Ali from 1Y and made him 1A.

And a television reporter went to Ali who was training in Miami before anybody could reach him.

I just don't understand yet how I can be reclassified as 1A without testing me in no way, just calling me like this and I just don't understand it.

In other words, you think they called you only because you're the heavyweight champion?

And a Muslim, too.

And that's when Ali said, "I got nothing against the Viet Cong, "they never called me the N-word."

Everything hit the fan.

NARRATOR: Ali declares that if he's drafted, he won't fight in Vietnam.

KINDRED: Ali put it in racial and religious terms that made him a hero to millions of people who thought that it was a bad war.

When he basically said, "I ain't goin."

Um, a lot of us were kind of like, "Yeah baby, I ain't going either.

"I'm just trying to figure out another way of doing it, "so that I don't have to go to jail in the process."

MAN: You're not apologizing for the unpatriotic statements that you made?

That'll be taken up with the government.

NARRATOR: Ali's unpopular stand causes Chicago politicians to scuttle the Terrell fight, leaving his management looking for another fight in a new venue.

We wanted to fight in, uh... Pittsburgh and they ruled it out there.

And then they tried Maine, but they didn't want us in Maine.

NARRATOR: The growing controversy over his anti-draft stand makes Ali toxic in the US, forcing him to win his next four fights in Canada and Europe where he's a bigger draw than ever.

A point not lost on one Texas millionaire.

I got a call from this real character, Judge Roy Hofheinz, who owned the Astrodome in Houston.

And he said, "You bring that boy down here.

"Nobody is gonna tell him he can't fight here."

NARRATOR: Ali knocks out Cleveland Williams before a record-setting indoor crowd.

Smelling another box office bonanza, New York hosts Ali's next victory over Ernie Terrell.

Ali is now 28-0 in the ring and still 1A in the draft.

In April of '67, he finally gets his draft notice and reports to the induction center in Houston to begin one of the longest, toughest fights of his life.

JOURNALIST: Former world heavyweight champion Cassius Clay refused to take the oath of induction into the army.

The Black Muslim fighter, who's also known as Muhammad Ali, was immediately stripped of his title by the World Boxing Association.

When a guy says he's not going to fight for his country, that irritates a whole lot of people.

He moved from the sports pages to the front pages.

NARRATOR: Within days, Ali is stripped of his license to box in all 50 states.

JOURNALIST: Nine top negro athletes meet with Cassius Clay to discuss his anti-draft stand.

Jim Brown and Bill Russell organized a summit meeting in Cleveland.

JOURNALIST: Clay's induction refusal cost him his title and he faces a possible five-year prison sentence.

BROWN: The army was willing to make a deal.

They were willing to guarantee that he would go on Special Services and he would be able to box.

Behind the scenes, Herbert Muhammad, as a businessman, looked upon that as a possible option.

The meeting started with them talking to Ali about accepting the deal.

You wouldn't have to worry about being a soldier as such.

You can do public relations.

But Ali's attitude was, "Nope.

"Mmm-mmm.

Don't wanna deal."

NARRATOR: Two weeks later, Ali is convicted of draft evasion in federal court.

Sentenced to five years in prison and banned from boxing for three years, he remains free while his case is appealed.

Whatever suffering or punishment I may have to take, it'll all be because of my religion.

He was unafraid of the political repercussions, unafraid of any cultural repercussions, unafraid of losing money.

He said he would probably fight again, but it was okay if he didn't.

Long as he believed that he was the people's champ, that was good enough for him.

NARRATOR: A month after his conviction, Ali marries 17-year-old Belinda Boyd with the approval of Nation of Islam leaders.

She fully supports her husband's refusal to be drafted.

He said, "I can't kill anybody."

I just said, "Trust me, "you'll be greatest man ever who lived if you don't go."

NARRATOR: Facing five years in prison and unable to fight while appealing his case, newly-wed Ali needs to earn money.

So, he embarks on a college lecture tour.

I would like to hear this from you!

And I want the world and the cameras to hear it!

Who's the heavyweight champion of the world?

(ALL CHEERING) HAUSER: The student audiences loved his opposition to the war in Vietnam, but they were very much opposed when he spoke to them against the idea of interracial dating, against the idea of living in the same community.

During those three and a half years that he wasn't fighting, basically the only two things that he was doing, uh, was going on college campuses and the other was being on television with Howard Cosell.

REPORTER: What do you say to that?

ALI: I predict that the fans will be angry at the experts for misleading them so much.

I think that his relationship with Howard Cosell was critical to his acceptance by America.

DON MISCHER: Howard had the deepest respect for the champ.

Howard many times privately, um, defended Ali and Ali's right to express himself, and the right to feel the way he felt about where we were with civil rights at those times.

But Howard also didn't take any punches.

If he felt like Ali had overstepped his bounds, he would confront him.

It was part of the chemistry of these guys.

You had two gigantic egos.

NARRATOR: After three and a half years in exile, Ali remains free as his appeals proceed in federal court.

And while politics cost Ali his boxing license, politics provides a chance to fight again.

Georgia has no state boxing commission.

Individual municipalities can sanction a fight.

So, black state senator, Leroy Johnson strikes a deal with Atlanta's white mayor, Sam Massell.

Leroy Johnson said, "I want this fight to happen.

"I carry a lot of votes with me."

NARRATOR: Thus, Ali's comeback begins, surprisingly, in the Deep South.

Here's an African American reviled around America, suddenly Atlanta is embracing him.

BELINDA: He said, "I got my license.

"And I'm gonna fight in Georgia, "I'm gonna fight in Georgia."

I said, "In Georgia?"

(LAUGHS) I said, "Down south?"

He said, "Yeah."

I said, "Oh, Lord.

"We in trouble now."

NARRATOR: Ali returns to the ring on October 26th, 1970.

ANNOUNCER: I don't believe that anybody is happier than this young man to once again step into the ring.

NARRATOR: 28-year-old Ali was stripped of his title, but he's never lost a fight and Jerry Quarry is not considered competitive.

Ali opens a cut over Quarry's eye in round three... And the fight is stopped.

SUGAR RAY LEONARD: Inactivity is deadly for any fighter.

And for Muhammad Ali to have come back and still display the incredible hand speed and fluidity, that he showed was amazing.

NARRATOR: While Ali's draft evasion appeal works its way up to the Supreme Court, the NAACP sues the New York State Athletic Commission in federal court, arguing that their ban on Ali is discriminatory.

Their ban is lifted.

Free to fight in New York again, Ali stops Oscar Bonavena at Madison Square Garden in December, 1970... ANNOUNCER: It's over!

Ali is the knockout winner!

NARRATOR: ...setting up a title shot against Joe Frazier for an unprecedented five million dollar purse.

And now we have a chance to see who the real champion of the world is.

That was revolutionary.

You know, 2.5 million apiece?

Wow.

Back then, that was a vast sum of money.

Even Mickey Mantle was not making that much money.

Let Joe Frazier talk all he want.

We got a few miles to straighten all this mess up.

He brought people to the sport that didn't even necessarily follow boxing.

They just liked Muhammad Ali.

I have fixed up the round that Joe Frazier will go down!

LAILA ALI: You got this person who's standing up and he's been stripped of his title.

People wanted to see, "Who is this guy?"

His fights meant more than just the sport of boxing.

His fights were like a fight for justice.

Ali was carrying the weight of everything.

I don't think it's possible to overstate how much Ali embodied the hopes, aspirations, beliefs of young people in general and young African Americans in particular.

Joe's gonna come out smokin' and I ain't gonna be jokin'.

NARRATOR: The bout is set for March 8th, 1971.

As the fight approaches, the battle between two unbeaten heavyweights becomes far more than a boxing match.

Get your hands off of me!

If you were a liberal, you were rooting for Ali.

If you were a conservative, you were rooting for Joe.

GUMBEL: It was a clash of cultures.

There were the people who were, uh, demanding civil rights, who were against Vietnam and the people who thought Vietnam was right.

Then, "Damn it, we're gonna put our views in the ring and settle it once and for all."

March 8th, '71.

The world flat out stopped.

The apartment that we lived in was going crazy for that fight.

KINDRED: We were glued to the radio.

I can still see Ali leaning back over the ropes saying, "No contest!"

Meanwhile Frazier's pounding him, you know, 20 times.

Ali absorbed an enormous amount of punishment, gave out an enormous amount of punishment.

Yeah, and when the 15th came and they said he'd been knocked down, it was like... "This can't be."

NARRATOR: Ali gets quickly to his feet, but the damage is done.

Ali suffers his first loss.

It's Frazier by unanimous decision.

GUMBEL: This can't have happened.

This is impossible.

And it was impossible not because we didn't believe Joe Frazier could beat Muhammad Ali.

It was impossible because his beating him meant they were right.

And they couldn't be right.

And the right wing idiots, and the hard hat guys, and the ugly Americans, they were standing in the way of history.

They were standing in the way of change.

They were on the side of wrong.

And so they couldn't be right, they just couldn't.

In the first blush of defeat, Ali was gracious and elegant.

He was perfect in giving Frazier credit.

I've been always handing out the defeat, so now I'm defeated, and now I see how other people felt.

And when I do come back, if I ever do, I'll have more of a hungrier determination, which is something you lose in intoxication of so-called greatness.

By the next morning, he had been robbed.

IZENBERG: He went on every late night talk show.

He convinced half of America or more that he had won the fight, and it killed Frazier.

He was the only one who believed, coming out of that fight, that he would be champion again.

NARRATOR: Four months after his unanimous loss to Frazier, Ali wins a stunning, unanimous decision in the Supreme Court, which overturns his conviction for draft evasion.

I mean, nobody would've believed that that could've happened when Ali refused to step forward.

NARRATOR: With prison no longer looming, Ali is free to renew his quest to reclaim the title that had been taken from him, a title now held by George Foreman.

Ali's momentous match against Foreman is an event unlike anything boxing has ever seen.

In 1974, promoter Don King and a consortium of backers make a deal with Zaire's strongman President Mobutu Sese Seko to host a worldwide live satellite broadcast of The Rumble in the Jungle.

Ali basically showed that he could transcend the sport.

He brought half of the media of the world to Kinshasa, Zaire.

NARRATOR: 10 long years after he first shook up the world, 32-year-old Ali is once again challenging a heavily favored champion.

Foreman was, uh, the second coming of Sonny Liston.

ARUM: Remember this wasn't an ordinary heavyweight.

This was a guy who could knock down walls.

Everybody felt that Ali was gonna get hurt.

This was a... You know, this was a monster.

I was so afraid that George Foreman was gonna kill Ali.

NARRATOR: Both fighters train in Zaire for the bout on October 30th, but it's Ali who is embraced by throngs of African fans.

PRICE: It's unreal the amount of people, ten to fifteen thousand people in the crowd, following him, just shouting his name.

"Ali, bomaye!"

"Ali, bomaye!"

He'd say, "Stop the car."

And then he'd get out, and he'd, "Bomaye!

Bomaye!"

He just wanted to create a crowd.

Pretty soon you couldn't even walk across the street.

LL COOL J: All of that worked in Ali's favor.

I mean, he was playing psychological games, he's punching voodoo dolls, he's got people beating on drums.

"The champ is here!"

(IMITATING DRUMS) "The champ is here."

Me and maybe one other person thought he could beat George Foreman.

He believed it.

He believed it.

NARRATOR: Ali's confidence isn't shared by many boxing experts.

But during the fight, Ali would add "rope-a-dope" to the lexicon, and a great new chapter to his legend.

ANNOUNCER: Ali stands back, eyes this man up, leans on the rope.

Ali goes back on the ropes, and the ropes go back more.

And Foreman misses by that much.

ANNOUNCER: That wild left hand is not working.

Angelo sends his corner guys around to the corners.

He says, "Tighten the ropes, tighten the ropes."

And Ali's saying, "No, leave 'em, leave 'em."

(CHUCKLES) Ali formed in his mind, he formed the rope-a-dope right there and then.

To take that kind of punishment from a guy like George, you know, who knocked most guys out like they were rag dolls.

I can't fathom taking those kind of blows from a guy who punches that hard.

Those punches could crack ribs.

How could you take this in your body?

And Ali was taking it.

And Foreman was punching himself out.

I had predicted that Foreman was gonna annihilate him.

And inbetween rounds when he started to wear George down, he said, "Hey, big fellow, what do you think now?"

(CROWD CHEERING) He knocked George out.

ANNOUNCER: Muhammad Ali has done it!

LEONARD: When Muhammad Ali put George down, he had proven that he is indeed the greatest.

ANNOUNCER: This great man has done it!

Ali beats Foreman, humiliates him.

He stops and he says, "Fellas, you'll never know what this means to me."

(CLICKS FINGERS) That should've been his retirement.

How can you top that.

BELINDA: You've went through the trials, your ups and your downs, your glory times, this is the time to retire.

He had proven the point, you can't go any further once you prove the point.

And, there's something about the romance of athletics that is hard for people to give up.

For him every fight was another drama, another circus, and he loved every minute of it.

LIPSYTE: All those available ladies, all this love and admiration, it's very hard to walk away from that.

NARRATOR: When Elijah Muhammad dies in February of '75, his son Wallace leads the majority of the Nation of Islam toward traditional Sunni Islam.

Ali, who has always had white men in his corner, embraces the change.

LL COOL J: Prejudice is a two-way street, you know?

He was driving down one side of it at one point in his life, not unlike Malcom X who had a similar journey, and he evolved.

He said, "Whites can become Muslims now."

He says, "So you can become a Muslim."

And he hugged me.

There wasn't any racism in Ali.

NARRATOR: Later that year, Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos plays host to the third Ali-Frazier fight, The Thrilla in Manila, on October 1st, 1975.

GUMBEL: They'd been the two most dominant fighters of their time.

Towards the end of their career, oh, here they are again in this big fight and this is going to be the culmination of it all.

NARRATOR: For both fighters, it would also mark the beginning of the end.

The fight took place at about 11 am Manila time.

Outside, the hot Philippine sun was beating down.

And inside, this fight between these two great athletes was going on.

PRICE: And these two guys was going at each other like they was gonna just kill each other.

They both took an enormous beating.

They were both heroic that night.

NARRATOR: After 14 rounds of battle in the sweltering heat, Frazier and Ali, both mentally and physically spent, go to their corners to await the final round.

That moment that you're sitting on your stool, your eyes swollen shut, your legs are gone.

(SIGHS) You're totally exhausted.

You look across and see your opponent and he is just as in bad shape as you are.

All of a sudden your mind and your heart says, "You ready to go?"

And either you answer "yes" or "no."

Most guys say "no."

The special ones say "yes."

Ali was the one who said "yes."

PRICE: Joe couldn't answer the bell.

And Ali just passed out in the ring.

And he said it was the nearest thing to dying.

NARRATOR: In the year after his punishing victory over Frazier, Ali defends his title four times, including a brutal 15-round win over Ken Norton.

His longtime ring doctor, Ferdie Pacheco, sees the writing on the wall.

KINDRED: Pacheco went to Norton's locker room and told him, "Congratulations, you just ended Ali's career."

Norton had lost, but Ali was physically beat up.

NARRATOR: The following year, his speed and skills diminished, Ali survives a 15-round slugfest with Earnie Shavers... ANNOUNCER: Muhammad Ali, not down but hurt.

NARRATOR: ...the hardest hitting heavyweight in boxing.

He said that, Earnie Shavers hit me so hard that my ancestors in Africa turned over in their graves.

Which was a fabulous line, except the way that he said it was just the beginning of a slur in his speech.

NARRATOR: In February of '78, Ali loses his title to Leon Spinks, a novice with just seven fights under his belt.

But he's not done yet.

He fights Spinks again, beats him, regains the title.

And then Don King gets Ali to fight Larry Holmes.

And I was absolutely horrified.

NARRATOR: The Holmes bout is set for October 1980, a year after Ali's last fight against Spinks.

His deterioration is evident.

Even to those of us who'd never looked at Ali with clear eyes, it was clear that he was done.

NARRATOR: Holmes wins by TKO in the 11th round, the first time Ali has ever failed to go the distance.

KINDRED: Whatever damage had been done to Ali in all of these 12, 15 round fights, all of that had come together to leave him a shell of what he once was.

NARRATOR: A year later, Ali steps into the ring one last time to fight Trevor Berbick on December 11th, 1981.

MARYUM: The whole family went.

And up until the fight, we were begging him in his hotel room, "Don't fight, you don't need to do this anymore."

NARRATOR: After the loss to Berbick, Ali finally calls it a career.

LEONARD: It's hard to tell a champ that it's time, it's over.

Because we always believe we can always win that fight.

Ali fought.

That's what he did.

And we who loved him really had no say in it and no right to say, "No, we don't want you to fight anymore "because it ruins our memory."

Well, he had a right to say, "I will choose when I'm gonna leave it."

And he did.

The first few years of retirement were hard for Ali.

He was no longer in the spotlight as heavyweight champion of the world.

But the worst thing was that the Parkinson's syndrome was becoming clearer and clearer.

LAILA: When you stay in the ring too long, it's gonna really start wearing down on you.

And that's exactly what happened to my father.

NARRATOR: Ali's Parkinson's syndrome is made public in 1984.

It's really hard for me and everyone else to see a man who used to be so great with words, and now that's one of the things that he can't do.

It's a sad thing because you wonder what he would be saying now.

PRICE: We need that Louisville Lip because there's nobody speaking for African-Americans or Americans like Ali spoke.

That voice just isn't there.

When Ali stopped really talking in public and really doing whole Ali thing, he had said so much that it still echoes.

I have enough inside here and inside here to replay it for life.

We're in a hotel room in Las Vegas at an event, and this is like '90s, so the Parkinson's is...

He can still walk, but he's talking very soft.

And he goes, "You know I wanna make it to heaven, "and I wasn't a perfect person, and this Parkinson's shut me down.

"I can't do nothin' wrong now, you know!"

But he said, "I'd rather suffer now, than in the hereafter."

NARRATOR: By 1986, Ali is five years into retirement and on his third marriage.

He and his second wife, Khalilah, were divorced in 1975.

KHALILAH: He was doing a lot of cheating.

He's weak for women.

I just didn't know how weak he was.

NARRATOR: Ali's next marriage to Veronica Porsche, would last 10 years.

My father would say he was the best Muslim he could be.

Given that he was this gorgeous, Adonis boxer, (CHUCKLES) that all the women loved.

NARRATOR: In the summer of '86, Ali and Veronica are divorced.

Later that year, he marries his fourth wife, Lonnie Williams, who he first met in Louisville back in 1963.

NARRATOR: In 1996, Ali would make a memorable return to the global spotlight.

We were thinking, "Who would be an American Olympian "who could light the cauldron that would mean the most "to people watching around the globe?"

Ali was the guy who made the most sense.

And it was not met with wide-open endorsement.

There were some people who said, "Well, you know... "He was a draft dodger, wasn't he?"

NARRATOR: Mischer and Ali's longtime friend Howard Bingham work out a deal, in which they agree to keep Ali's torch-lighting role a secret.

Howard Bingham calls me, "Your dad's lighting the torch, "don't tell anyone!

Just call your sisters and brothers."

And I'm in the control room at the bottom of the stadium with 26 cameras and, you know, directing the world feed.

But even down there, in the bowels of the stadium, I could hear what was going on up there.

And I never dreamed that it would be that strong and that powerful.

You know, when my father gets nervous, he shakes more.

So, he's shaking the torch, and I'm like, "Oh, Lord, Dad gonna burn down the stadium!"

(LAUGHING) There was a part of me saying, "Oh, my God, look at Muhammad."

Feeling sorry, but then, the other part of me said, "For God's sake, that's Muhammad Ali."

MISCHER: To have predicted in 1967, how much Ali and his personality would resonate around the world, twenty or 30 years later, there were a lot of people that would have said, "That will never happen."

The transformation of Ali from the most hated man in America to this beatified Ali of today... A complete reversal.

But those of us who believed we were in the right back in the '60s, this simply validates it.

That, "Hey, you finally came around.

"You know, you couldn't stop the march of history."

"He saw where it was going.

"He pointed the way.

"You hated him for it, but you couldn't stop it."

NARRATOR: Ali is awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in January, 2005.

Later that year, the non-profit Muhammad Ali Center opens in downtown Louisville, not far from where his bike had been stolen over 50 years before.

His legacy is that when you believe in yourself, no matter what the odds are, if you're on the right side of history, and if you perfect your craft, you can accomplish anything.

He stood up on a level that nobody else stood up, and he had a platform that no one else had.

Risking his personal success and his personal wealth to basically tell the truth.

People today are fond of saying, "Yes, Muhammad Ali stood up for his principles."

But there's been a determined effort to wipe away cognizance of what those principles once were.

Don't wipe out the memories of what Muhammad stood for in the 1960s.

Take it, build on it, and show how Muhammad Ali and America both changed, and came together in the end.

He was no saint.

He was no devil.

He was Muhammad Ali, and nobody else ever was or ever could be.

"Muhammad Ali: In Their Own Words" is available on DVD.

To order, visit shopPBS.org or call 1-800-PLAY-PBS.