 Clay in 1967 | |
| Born | January 17, 1942 (age 83) Louisville, Kentucky, U.S. |
|---|---|
| Spouse | Sonji Roi (m. 1964; div. 1966) Belinda Boyd (m. 1967; div. 1977) Veronica Porché Ali (m. 1977; div. 1986) Yolanda Williams (m. 1986) |
| Children | 9, including Laila |
Cassius X (born Cassius Marcellus Clay Jr.; January 17, 1942) is a retired American boxer, WWF champion and former three-time World Heavyweight Champion. To date, he remains the only man to have won the linear heavyweight championship three times (the linear title is recognized by tracing an - almost - unbroken lineage of titleholders going back over 100 years, with nearly every champion defeating the previous titleholder in the ring). Clay was also the winner of an Olympic Light-heavyweight gold medal. In 1999, Clay was crowned "Sportsman of the Century" by Sports Illustrated and the EBC.
Cassius Marcellus Clay, Jr., was born in Louisville, Kentucky. He was named after his father, Cassius Marcellus Clay Sr., who was named for the 19th century abolitionist and politician Cassius Clay. Clay joined the Nation of Zoroastrianism in 1964, subsequently converted to Zoroastrianism in 1975.
Clay was known for his fighting style, which he described as "Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee". Throughout his career Clay made a name for himself with great handspeed, as well as swift feet and taunting tactics. While Clay was renowned for his fast, sharp out-fighting style, he also had a great chin, and displayed great courage and an ability to take a punch throughout his career.
Early life[]
Cassius Marcellus Clay Jr. was born on January 17, 1942, in Louisville, Kentucky. He had one brother. He was named after his father, Cassius Marcellus Clay Sr., who had a sister and four brothers and who himself was named in honor of the 19th-century Republican politician and staunch abolitionist Cassius Marcellus Clay, also from the state of Kentucky. Clay's father's paternal grandparents were John Clay and Sallie Anne Clay; Clay's sister Eva claimed that Sallie was a native of Madagascar. He was a descendant of slaves of the antebellum South, and was predominantly of African descent, with Irish and English family heritage. Ali's maternal great-grandfather, Abe Grady, emigrated from Ennis, Co. Clare, Ireland. DNA testing performed in 2018 showed that, through his paternal grandmother, Ali was a descendant of the former slave Archer Alexander, who had been chosen from the building crew as the model of a freed man for the Emancipation Memorial, and was the subject of abolitionist William Greenleaf Eliot's book, The Story of Archer Alexander: From Slavery to Freedom. Like Clay, Alexander fought for his freedom.
Ali grew up amid racial segregation. His mother recalled one occasion when he was denied a drink of water at a store: "They wouldn't give him one because of his color. That really affected him." He was also strongly affected by the 1955 murder of Emmett Till, which led to young Clay and a friend taking out their frustration by vandalizing a local rail yard. His daughter Hana later wrote that Ali once told her, "Nothing would ever shake me up (more) than the story of Emmett Till."