Ali: A Life Kindle Edition

As the most recognized and most written about athlete in the world, Muhammad Ali's story is well-known--from his days as a flashy, loud-mouthed, self-promoting Olympian, his two unexpected wins over Sonny Liston, his refusal to report for the draft, being stripped of his title and his brutal fights against Joe Frasier.

Author Jonathan Eig covers all the familiar ground, but he adds special focus to Ali's involvement with the Nation of Islam, his marital relationships, financial problems and his decline in the ring.

Eig writes that Ali's willingness to take too many punches, often the result of his rope-a-dope strategy, declining skills and poor work habits, resulted in brain damage. Dr. Ferdie Pacheco says Ali started to show signs of brain damage after his first fight with Joe Frasier.

One of Eig's major contributions is that he requested CompuBox, Inc., researchers to watch every one of Ali's recorded fights and count the punches. As a result, Eig knows how many times Ali was hit over his career and how many times he hit his opponents. The punishment Ali took is devastating and manifested itself in his speech and actions.

Sadly, Ali never knew when to stop. He kept pushing for one more payday, even though his heart wasn't in it. He understood little about his finances and was exploited by promoter Don King and Herbert Muhammad of the Nation of Islam. As an example, King cheated Ali out of $1.2 million for one fight, but Ali chose to accept a suitcase full of cash ($50,000) rather than sue King for what he was owed. To compound matters, Ali agreed to sign with King for another fight.

Ali's last hurrah against the much younger, stronger and skilled Larry Holmes was pathetic and dangerous. It was a sad spectacle. Holmes earned a TKO in 11 rounds. Ali's last fight was a 10-round loss to Trevor Berbick in December 1981.

When Ali died on June 3, 2016, he was remembered as more than an athlete. He was remembered as a man of courage and principle.

Eig writes that "Race was the theme of Ali's life. He insisted that America come to grips with a black man who wasn't afraid to speak out, who refused to be what others expected him to be. He didn't overcome race. He didn't overcome racism. He called it out. He faced it down. He refuted it. He insisted that racism shaped our notions of race, that it was never the other way around."

After I finished Eig's book I spent several evenings watching Ali's fights on YouTube, and I suspect other readers will, too.

Eig, a masterful writer, does a great job adding depth and color to Ali's story. He conducted more than 600 interviews with 200 people for the book.

In the early 90s I read Thomas Hauser's Ali biography, which really transformed my opinion of Ali. When I saw this book in the store, I couldn't walk past it now that Ali has passed on. Eig's biography was even better than Hauser's earlier treatment. Of course he was working with the whole story, but the way that Eig carries us through Ali's life really appealed to me. Of course, there were the stories around each of his fights. But Eig didn't dwell there. He provided just enough detail for a lover of the sport like myself, but didn't get buried in Ali's lower profile fights. Eig's narrative brings us into Ali's life - yes, his life was more than just a boxer, draft resistor/war protester, and celebrity. That's what really appealed here. I felt, after reading the book, that I was given the full measure of the man. The Greatest? Of course he was one of them. Eig puts the arc of Ali's boxing career in very good perspective. Flawed? Certainly, but aren't we all, some like Ali, with some larger flaws than others. But human and someone who really worked in the later years of his life to make right in many ways. All in all, this was one of the better sports bios I've read, particularly because it wasn't just a repetition of the pre- and post-fight details, and nothing more. It was a deep dive into Ali's colorful, incredible life.

The sweet science of boxing can be a vicious, primal and yet beautiful dance between two people in a boxing ring. Muhammad Ali was a man who embodied this paradox in many ways. The author captures this in a biography that illustrates Ali's humanity and great gifts. Muhammad Ali fought in the boxing ring and for his beliefs in a manner that will maintain his name in the public mind. This is a brilliantly written biography that brings The Greatest, as Ali called himself, to life as a man of conviction, naivety, poetry, compassion and yet, at times, lacking in empathy.

The author successfully demonstrated how Muhammad Ali was a man who emerged at a time in American history that was a perfect setting for him. Ali was an embodiment of the conflicts that shook this country. The book depicts him in an honest fashion that leaves the reader recognizing why this man will remain a true champion, in a multiplicity of ways. May he rest in peace.

I highly recommend this book.

I was really excited to read this book. Eig's previous biographies of Lou Gehrig and Jackie Robinson were thorough, sympathetic, and fair.

This one, I'm not so sure.

Eig does manage to uncover some things about Ali that haven't been told before. Eig had access to audiotapes made by sportswriters back in the '60s and '70s that hadn't seen the light of day in decades, so in here is the audio transcript of a car ride shared by Ali and Joe Frazier before their first fight. He had access to government files on Ali, and also paid for a full statistical analysis of every punch thrown by Ali -- and, more importantly, every punch Ali ever caught. I also learned here more of the young Cassius Clay's slow but steady embrace of the Nation of Islam than I'd read in other sources.

But, in spite of the thorough reporting, Eig doesn't seem to give Ali much of the benefit of the doubt on anything. He calls out seeming contradictions in Ali's political beliefs, includes some allegations of spousal abuse, and seems to point out more than once that Ali's symbolism and importance were achieved almost by accident.

It's helpful, after a Titan has died, to explore that Titan's myth. Eig did that before with Gehrig and Robinson, but left both men intact. This book pretty much does to Ali what Ken Norton and Leon Spinks and Trevor Berbick did. I wasn't expected unadulterated hero worship, but I was expecting to find some heroism in Ali. "Ali: A Life" is, however, not the place to find that.