SPORT

To say he is merely a famous boxer is to say the sky is always blue. There are so many sides to him his nickname should be Octagon.

Now, he is revered. Passage of time softens and endears. He is ill, and has been since 1984, when he was first diagnosed with Parkinson's. That was just three years after his final fight, when he made one last, mostly pathetic, attempt to convince the world he was still "The Greatest."

Check his bio here

Ali in pictures

He was a daily headline, the bigger ones outside the ring. He was complicated and unpredictable, refreshing and controversial. Millions cheered his name and a like number jeered it. He was impossible to figure, the Rubik's Cube of sports.

He won a gold medal for the United States in the 1960 Rome Olympics and proudly stood on the victory stand. Later, he reportedly threw the medal into the Ohio River after not being allowed to eat in a whites-only restaurant.

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