Click to play videoNew Delhi: Every profession is great that is greatly pursued. Boxing in the early sixties, largely controlled by the mob, was in a moribund state until Muhammad Ali—Cassius Clay, in those days—appeared on the scene.
Floating, stinging, punching, prophesying. He transformed his sport and became the world's most adored athlete.
"I am the greatest," said the young Cassius Clay.
Hollywood actor Will Smith, who portrayed Ali in the film Ali, says: "He says he's the prettiest, He saying he's the funniest, he says the greatest, he's Muhammad Ali."
Born Cassius Clay, a stolen bicycle in his youth prompted him to don the iron gloves. And the world looked on in awe and fear as he destroyed opponents, irrespective of their size or stature.
"Fifteen times I've told the clown what round he's going down and this chump aint no different. He'll fall in eight to prove that I'm great and if he keeps talking jive I'm going to cut it to five," Cassius would say.
As he first taunted, and then assaulted world champion Sonny Liston, Clay served notice to the world. Here was a Black champion, who was different. He believed himself to be equal to the Whites, and better.
Three months after winning this fight, Cassius Clay became Muhammad Ali, one of the most defining moments in sports history. It was then that Ali the Personality transcended Ali the Boxer.
"If Elijah told me and other so-called negroes to go 10,000 miles away from here in America to drop bombs and bullets on other innocent brown people who've never bothered us, I will say directly, no I will not go," Muhammad Ali said.
"What makes him the greatest fighter is that he simply had skills that exceeded anyone's expectations - the fastest, the best, the most positive and they'll never see the likes of him ever again. Maybe the world's greatest athlete of all time," says actor-director Sylvester Stallone.
Following retirement, he developed Parkinson's Disease, an affliction characterised by a loss of motor control.
It was a kind of epiphany that those who watched realised how much they missed him and how much he had contributed to the world of sport.
"Nothing like Muhammad. Never met a person like him," former world champion Mike Tyson says.
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