*WASHINGTON - Legendary boxer Muhammad Ali Clay was remembered on his second death anniversary on Sunday.*
Muhammad Ali — widely known as “the greatest boxer” — was born Cassius Marcellus Clay Jr. on January 17, 1942, in Louisville, Kentucky.
He made his professional debut on October 29, 1960, at the age of 12 when he defeated his first professional boxing opponent, Tunney Hunsaker. He took up boxing and showed considerable promise, spending much of his time training in Smoketown.
In 1964, Clay Jr. converted to Islam. After conversion, he changed his name to Muhammad Ali.
Ali — also nicknamed “The Louisville Lip” — retired from professional boxing June 26, 1979.
He battled Parkinson’s disease for about three decades. Throughout his career, he reportedly took about 29,000 punches to his head. This, doctors said, was possibly the cause of his Parkinson’s disease.
He breathed his last on 3rd June 2016 due to septic shock at the age of 74 in Phoenix.
Ali dedicated his life to helping others. He once said, “Service to others is the rent you pay for your room here on earth.” It’s a sentiment Ali lived by.
The importance of Ali goes beyond boxing. It embeds itself in the chaotic times in the 60s, when the boxer refused military service in Vietnam and called for the equality of all people regardless of religion, social status and skin colour.
Daughter of the legendary boxer, Laila Ali missed her father on this day. She wrote on her Facebook page, “My father passed two years ago today…Although I’m missing him, I know he is happy and free! “
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