Muhammad Ali, born Cassius Clay, was probably the greatest sportsman of all time. Ali began amateur boxing in 1954 and he won the Light Heavyweight gold medal at the 1960 summer Olympics in Rome. When he turned professional, his brilliance, brashness and determination, combined with a mastery of psychological warfare, enabled him to defeat opponents of considerably greater physical power.

He began using short rhyming poems to predict the exact round when he would defeat his opponent. However, although he got many of these prophecies right, this was a risky business. In 1963, before his fight with British boxer Henry Cooper, he said, "This ain't no jive, Cooper shall go in five," but it was Ali, then Clay, who was knocked down in the fourth round. Nevertheless, he still went on to defeat Cooper in round five as predicted. Ali went on to win the world heavyweight title from Sonny Liston in 1964 after 7 rounds.

Ali's fighting art was executed with such grace and beauty that it resembled the finer nuances of strategy and tactics applied in the military arts. His famous boxing maxim was, "float like a butterfly, sting like a bee." Floating, expressed the way he danced around his opponents in the ring; he did so in completely unexpected, almost feminine, ways. Indeed, at times, his moves resembled the courtship dance of a bird that entrances its object of desire into a hypnotic and submissive state. The agility of his feet and legs disoriented his greatest opponents, whom he would then "sting like a bee" with a combination of jabs. This tested their weaknesses and vulnerabilities in advance of a more general assault. Occasionally, the dance was interspersed with the famous "Ali shuffle" where he shuffled his feet to and fro at great speed as he weighed up the ripeness of the moment to attack or retreat.

He also became friends with Malcolm X, a Black Nationalist and revolutionary who would be assassinated in 1965. Ali became a politically conscious Muslim associated with the group called the Nation of Islam, which he later disavowed. He changed his name to Muhammad Ali from Cassius Clay, which he said was the name of a slave. And for the rest of his life he used his influence to stand up for justice and the rights of oppressed people.

In 1967, Ali was drafted to fight in Vietnam but he refused. He said "no Vietcong ever called me nigger" and he was prepared to go to prison for his conviction. When press critics and others challenged him about his opposition to the Vietnam War, Ali explained, "They say actually every time that I enter the ring I am actually going to war. They say to me, you are a prize fighter what's the difference? There is one hell of a lot of difference between fighting in the ring and going to war in Vietnam. Boxing is nothing like going to war with machine guns, bazookas, hand grenades and bomber airplanes. My intention is to box and win a clean fight. But in war the intention is to kill, kill, kill and continue killing innocent people." Ali eventually won his appeal against the draft but not before he had been stripped of his world boxing title.

Ali's long march to regain this world title would take him seven years. He lost a title fight with Joe Frazier in 1971. Frazier then lost his crown to a formidable fighting machine called George Foreman. Ali would fight Foreman for the world title in 1974. This contest took place in Kinshasa, Zaire (now the Democratic Republic of the Congo) and it was billed the "Rumble in the Jungle."

George Foreman appeared to be made of nothing but pure brute force. Indeed, he had won all his professional fights, most of them by a knock out. So, when Ali entered the ring no one expected what was to come. He leant against the ropes and encouraged Foreman to hit him as hard as he could. Ali parried and defended his body and head as best he could against a barrage of punches. But Ali's strategy played off. By round eight, Foreman had punched himself to exhaustion. At that moment, Ali bounced off the ropes to deliver a ferocious series of knock-out punches. In a matter of seconds, Foreman was out cold. This was undoubtedly the greatest victory in boxing history.

In 1978,Ali lost his world title to Leon Spinks but won it back shortly afterwards. However, age and the impact of blows to the head affected his health and he retired in 1981 several years after he should have. Thereafter, Ali used his fame as a boxing genius to assist the struggle for equality of all people.

In China, boxing was banned in 1959 as a capitalist sport due to its brutality and the way it exploited the working class. However, the German Marxist playwright Bertolt Brecht loved boxing. He believed that it engages the spectator in a critical assessment of the objective strengths of the boxers and their trainers. He believed that a new didactic theatre designed to help change the world should adopt this art. And this would cultivate the spectator to consider alternative scenarios, not only for the performance itself, but also in society as a whole.

When Ali first visited China in 1979 he discussed the sport with Deng Xiaoping, who told Ali, "As long as people like it, we will develop it." When Ali returned to China and was questioned about the violence of the boxing, he pointed to the fact that motor racing and skiing are even more dangerous sports. Then in 1986, China officially recognized boxing as a sport again, thanks largely to Ali's intervention.

When Ali was asked how he'd like to be remembered, he said, "As a man who never looked down on those who looked up to him… who stood up for his beliefs...who tried to unite all humankind through faith and love."

Heiko Khoo is a columnist with China.org.cn. For more information please visit: http://china.org.cn/opinion/heikokhoo.htm

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