Muhammad Ali: The Last Great Boxer

Quick - Who's the current heavyweight boxing champion?

Well, there are actually 4 of them, believe it or not, depending on which governing body you're talking about. They are:

Vladimir Klitschko (IBF), Oleg Maskaev (WBC), Ruslan Chagaev (WBA), Sultan Ibragimov(WBO).

Never heard of them? Neither have I. So my question is: Whatever happened to the great heavyweight boxers? Boxers like George Foreman, Ken Norton, Evander Holyfield, Mike Tyson, Floyd Patterson, Sonny Liston, Rocky Marciano, Joe Louis, and of course, the greatest of all time, Muhammad Ali brought a real excitement to the sport. A heavyweight championship fight was a grand event that people talked about for years. Ali, of course, is arguably the most popular athlete of all time, with a compelling life story that most people know about.

Ali (then known as Cassius Clay) met Sonny Liston in 2 historic fights. In the first one (February 1964), Ali was the young unknown fighter who was given virtually no chance to defeat Liston, a hulking monster of a man. But when Liston failed to answer the bell for the 7th round, Ali was the new champion.

This video is the second Ali-Liston fight, a very controversial bout from May 1965, held in Lewiston, Maine. In the first round, Liston went to the canvas from what became known as the "phantom punch," and, after some confusion, Ali was given the TKO because Liston had been on the canvas more than 10 seconds. Rumors have persisted that Liston had bet against himself and taken a dive, a rumor which Liston apparently confirmed in a book called Ghosts of Manila, by Mark Kram.

(Check related videos for more great Ali fight footage.)