muhammadali calls the rock the peoples champ

“I was 14 years old when I heard Elvis say that, and that made me want to do the same thing,” Ali remembered. He was particularly impacted when Elvis followed through on his promise to buy his mother a car and a house when he became rich. He’s one of the reasons I wanted to entertain people and be loved by the people and make the girls admire me so much.”Īs a young teenager, Ali was influenced watching Elvis become successful during his breakthrough year of 1956. I admired him so much and I decided that if I was going to be famous, I’d do it just like him. “Other kids in the neighborhood were listening to Ray Charles and James Brown, but I listened to Elvis. “When I was 15 years old and saw Elvis on TV, I wanted to be Elvis,” recalled Ali to his friend, Tim Shanahan, author of Running with The Champ. In the 1970s, when asked who his favorite singer was, Ali said that Presley was his second favorite only to Sam Cooke. “It’s not bragging if you can back it up,” Ali once said.īut there was one person (besides himself) who Ali also called “The Greatest” – The King of Rock and Roll, Elvis Presley.Īli was a huge Elvis fan. So I’ll go to jail, so what? We’ve been in jail for 400 years.Muhammad Ali is considered by many to be the greatest heavyweight boxer of all time. “I’m the Greatest” became Ali’s catchphrase even before it was true. I have nothing to lose by standing up for my beliefs. If I thought the war was going to bring freedom and equality to 22 million of my people they wouldn’t have to draft me, I’d join tomorrow. I will not disgrace my religion, my people or myself by becoming a tool to enslave those who are fighting for their own justice, freedom and equality. But I have said it once and I will say it again.

I have been warned that to take such a stand would cost me millions of dollars.

This is the day when such evils must come to an end. “Why should they ask me to put on a uniform and go 10,000 miles from home and drop bombs and bullets on Brown people in Vietnam while so-called Negro people in Louisville are treated like dogs and denied simple human rights? No I’m not going 10,000 miles from home to help murder and burn another poor nation simply to continue the domination of white slave masters of the darker people the world over.

Muhammadali calls the rock the peoples champ