Sport to many of us, is where the past and the future merge, to meet us at the present.
Sport somehow to many of us, connects us to certain memories or certain points in our life, we associate them with specific milestones and emotions that we have accomplished and experienced.
And its usually the one thing that can always guarantee us happiness, so when the sad times hit, it hits real hard, because all those memories of the past, all those emotions we conjured, all those milestones we accomplished which are connected to this, can be tainted by the grief we feel.
Today we lost one hell of a man, one hell of an athlete – something beyond what any of us deserved. The ultimate sportsman and soul. In Arabic the name Muhammad translates to the “Most Praised One”, while Ali simply means Elevated. So Muhammad Ali truly lived up to his name.
There are thousands of articles out there, with praises and reasoning as to why he was the greatest, and rightly so. To me, he was always my superhero, because he was my father’s superhero.
My father is a mad boxing man, a lot of my childhood memories revolve around punching a bag with my dad, or sitting around the VCR watching old tapes of Ali, Joe Fraizer and Mike Tyson. Or getting immersed in the Rocky fairytale.
I used boxing as a way to treat my anxiety as a teenager, it was my release, the way I regained control back into my life. But its the values and teachings of the ‘King’ that I took to my heart the most, that my dad so heavily emphasised to me.
I was so saddened this afternoon. I had just come on shift, and had the news flash on my phone. I felt comforted that he was at peace, as a health worker I truly could understand the type of anatomic and mental suffering he must’ve experienced for over 30 odd years, but as someone who was raised on his convictions. It was like saying goodbye to a godfather.
Being someone of colour, and someone who shared the same religious beliefs as Ali, he was a superhero of tearing down the walls that can often be placed upon us. He offered us a sense of religious and ethnic pride, he never did any of this with spite or hatred, he did so in a beautifully poetic sense.
His self belief was always backed up with his intense work ethic, desire and discipline, and to many he seemed immortal, except to himself.
He was an ambassador for peace, a had a revolutionary blackness that helped revolutionise not only sport, but society, the global society. He made us all believe in the beauty and ability of ourselves.
For boxing fanatics like myself, he was the most confusing athlete out there. He was a heavyweight champion with the endurance and agility of a lightweight king. His footwork was silky and magical, while his hits to reverberates litres of cement.
It was just pure gold, something that will never be accomplished again, the perfect balance of class, creativity and pure power.
Could anyone imagine, leaving this type of legacy to millions of people around the world, those dead, living and yet to be born, his image and power will live in through generations to come?
His activism and teachings is what spurred me to be raised as a humanist, his will gave me the confidence to overcome every damn issue in my life, and trust me there has been many.
And I ain’t trying to be cliche about this, Ali was part of my upbringing, my father named my brother after him. It is incredible, because my brother has had to continue to fight for his life from the moment he took his first breath, so his name brings a magic sense of fight to those bestowed on them.
In the ring, my favourite fight of his loss to Fraizer in ’71, just purely on the will that got Ali up and up continuously after everything that Fraizer through at him, especially in the last round where Joe caught the King with a very ferocious left hook. The punch threw Ali on his back, and within seconds he was back on his feet with magic speed and stance that was as ferocious as Fraizer’s hook. That never say die spirit, it teaches you so much.
Outside of the ring, it was his fight to not have his standards and beliefs be mocked and tarnished by being scripted into the army, as the most mesmerising. He really put everything on the line, his career, his reputation, for his standards and beliefs and if that doesn’t teach you to stand your ground for what matters most to you, than I don’t know what else could.
We have this beautiful canvas portrait of Mandela and Ali Sparring up in my living room, I look at this with a tear in my eye, and say a prayer for his soul, and his family, they have lost their great one, and that loss if far beyond anything that we may be feeling.
So King as your soul ascends like a butterfly to the upper heavens and the grief stings your loved ones, we pray that you rumble in heaven as you did on this earth.
Rest in Power, King Ali x
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