Muhammad Ali

Watch the highlights of boxing legend Muhammad Ali’s life and career, from his boyhood in Louisville, Kentucky to his stunning upset of Sonny Liston, his exile from boxing for refusing induction into the U.S. Army to his epic, triumphant comeback.

Cassius Clay’s professional boxing career begins with his signing by The Louisville Sponsoring Group. His unorthodox boxing style and the development of his bold, witty, poetic and abrasive public persona, endeared him to a younger generation of boxing fans and earned him the enmity of some established boxing writers.

Explore how Muhammad Ali’s views on religion and racial integration in 1965 were polarizing during the mid-1960s civil rights movement. In November 1965, Ali fought against former champion Floyd Patterson, who cast his bout with Ali as a social, political and religious battle.

After a 3-year exile for refusing induction into the Army during the Vietnam War, Muhammad Ali’s epic boxing comeback begins with an easy victory in Atlanta, Georgia over Jerry Quarry in October of 1970, followed by a knockout of Oscar Bonavena in New York City in December, which set up the first Ali-Frazier fight.

Follow Muhammad Ali’s path from a gym in Louisville to boxing successes, conversion to Islam, opposition to the draft, exile from the ring, comeback fights, Parkinson’s disease and his inspirational re-emergence at the Atlanta Olympics.