Boxing: So mean, I make medicine sick

He was the most accomplished doctor of the sweet science, a pioneer, innovator, and artist.

His poetry may not have been that of Frost, but his was not only the road less traveled, but one absent of footprints altogether. And the more successful he became, the more notorious he became as well.

The loud, arrogant, unpatriotic Muslim who so much of the American public longed to see put in his place. He never was.

Never before, and never since, has their been a fighter who could be considered a peer of Muhammad Ali.

When Ali stepped into the ring, he brought with him the speed of light, size of a mountain, power enough to dwarf even the most devastating earthquake, and the cunning to know just how to combine all of these elements into a compound more deadly than any disease, flood, or famine.

Fearsome and heralded fighters the world over would step into the ring with Ali as champions, they would leave bloodied and battered, defeated almost with almost humiliating ease. And most importantly, without their titles.

After compiling a staggering 100-5 amateur record, six Kentucky Golden Gloves Championships, two National Golden Gloves titles, two National AAU titles, and an Olympic gold medal at the 1960 Games in Rome, an inspired Cassius Clay would take his show to the big time.

With a record of 19-0, the boisterous and arrogant young Clay, self-proclaimed "greatest of all time," had a date with destiny on the 25th of February, 1964. His first major bout, his first shot at the world heavyweight title, his first shot at infamy. And on that day in Miami Beach, Cassius Clay would prove himself more a prophet than simply a young, arrogant braggart.

Guarding the doorway to stardom was a destroyer, the most brutal and punishing fighter alive, a battle-toughened ex-con named Sonny Liston. So strong and powerful was Liston that when fight night arrived, Clay's own cornermen secretly mapped out routes to the closest hospitals should their fighter befall the same fate as so many before him. Victory was not an option, and there were not even a set of contingency plans for a victory celebration because to everyone but Cassius himself, defeat was inevitable.

What would follow over the course of the bout's first four rounds would leave everyone in attendance in sheer awe. Clay bounded around the ring, disappearing like a ghost before any of the champ's punches could land, and while it was known he possessed great speed as a fighter, what the world, and Sonny Liston in particular, would soon find out was that he packed a might punch as well.

Almost wholly disinterested with the body, Clay went after the champ's head, landing blow after blow, battering Liston's face and finally drawing blood beneath his left eye. Desperate and in shock, Liston's gloves were juiced, laced with some sort of irritant after the fourth round (whether or not Liston knew this is still subject to debate however), and it would take only seconds into the fifth round for a glancing punch to mix Clay's sweat with the irritant, almost totally blinding him.

Running, dancing, dodging, just trying to stay alive, Clay managed to avoid disaster despite his inability to see more than abstract, blurry figures, and though he lost the round, his devoted cornermen cleaned his eyes after the round and sent their warrior back into battle.

For the sixth and seventh rounds, Clay would not just return to form, but step it up yet another notch, picking apart Liston like a vulture, utterly destroying the champion of the world as the crowd watched in amazement. When Sonny Liston collapsed onto his stool after the seventh round, bloody and weak, he told his men that was it. The deadliest fighter alive, the heavyweight champion of the world, laid down his gloves, for a 22-year old Cassius Clay had given him a beating so severe that relinquishing his championship was a better fate than returning to the ring to be only further humiliated.

Two days later, upon publicly announcing his faith in Allah and devotion to Islam, the new champion of the world changed his name, and Muhammad Ali was born.

Just over a year later, Ali and Liston met again, with the result of the rematch being a brutally convincing first round knockout of Liston. This would be just the first of Ali's 19 successful title defenses over his career, one in which he captured the heavyweight title three times, compiled a 56-5 record (with 37 knockouts), and fought in 14 different countries on four continents. Muhammad Ali was truly the world's champion, essentially a god among men.

There was hardly a fighter who could beat Ali in his prime, and in fact only three to be exact. Joe Frazier, Ken Norton, and Leon Spinks. Each of these men would meet Ali in the ring again, some more than once, and never again did a single one of them ever leave victorious. In fact it took what is widely considered the greatest fight of the modern era (Ali vs. Frazier I, March 8, 1971, Madison Square Garden) for Ali to feel his first taste of professional defeat. Among the greats who were never able to beat Ali (or come even remotely close in most instances), Floyd Patterson, George Foreman, Archie Moore, and of course, Sonny Liston.

Now, let me dispel the Tyson issue before it can take flight. Iron Mike could never touch Ali, nor could he remain standing more than six rounds against the great one. Boxing historians should back me up on this, due in part to the fact that on nearly every front, Tyson is a perfect reincarnation of Sonny Liston -- powerful, overwhelming, but unable to handle Ali's versatility, or keep him from getting inside their head. Not only was Ali stronger, faster, smarter, and more aware than any recent champion, he would have both a height and reach advantage on anyone except for Lennox Lewis, who would do himself in against Ali through his chronic passivity, lack of killer instinct, and inability to adapt during a bout

A Hall of Famer, a five time Ring Magazine Fighter of the Year, and hands down the greatest athlete of the 20th century.

For Michael Jordan's accomplishments to equal that of Ali, he would have had to been the best ball handler, passer, shooter, rebounder, shot blocker, and ball stealer in the game for twenty years, leading the league in each respective category. And he would have had to do it all surrounded by a team roughly as talented as the 1984 Sacramento Kings.

Even Tiger Woods would have to win some seventy percent of the tournaments he played, and take at least two major titles a year.

There will never be another athlete like Muhammad Ali, and that makes us all the more fortunate to have shared an era with him that will never again be repeated.