Opinion: How Muhammad Ali Changed My Life

Editor’s note: The views and opinions expressed below are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of Sherdog.com, its affiliates and sponsors or its parent company, Evolve Media. It was inescapable, but I still couldn’t brace myself for the emotional impact with which I was to be hit when it was announced Friday that Muhammad Ali had passed away at the age of 74. For the past few years a story would surface every so often about Ali’s ailing health, but “The Greatest” managed to fight off the inevitable. Death finally caught up with the three-time heavyweight champion and left the world to mourn his passing with the gravity reserved for one of the greatest individuals this universe has ever known. For this particular writer, Ali was one of the greatest men to ever walk the earth. As a young African American male, Ali was my everything. Although I was too young to witness him in competition, the legacy he left behind was one that affected me immensely and ultimately led to my becoming a combat sports writer. What he taught me were valuable lessons I would carry throughout my life, and one of those lessons was to fight for everything you believe in and never, ever compromise, no matter the cost. The other was that you aren’t limited by your profession and can strive to be so much more. Oh, and he also taught me that there’s nothing wrong with embracing my blackness, no matter how uncomfortable it may make others feel. To be pro-black isn’t the same as being anti-white. It just meant that Ali loved and embraced his people and ultimately wanted equality for all, although America didn’t quite believe that everyone deserved to be treated equally. You see, we all talk today about Ali the humanitarian and he’s known as the greatest boxer of all-time, but there was a time when Ali was one of the most reviled individuals in sports. Here was a man — a black man — who was considered a loudmouth, arrogant, selfish jerk who just so happened to have remarkable ability as a boxer. Ali existed in an America that was knee deep in the civil rights era. He won Olympic gold a mere six years after Brown vs. Board of Education and four years before the Civil Rights Act of 1964 abolished segregation. Racism in America was still a thing, and Ali refused to compete as a compliant black man. I don’t need to delve too deeply into Ali’s exile from boxing after he refused to be drafted to army service in the Vietnam War. We all know the story. Some of us wholeheartedly agreed with him while others still consider him a draft dodger who doesn’t care about his country. This was the part of Ali that weighed on me the most. As an African American who fought in a country that consisted of individuals who despised people because of the color of their skin, it …

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