Born Cassius Marcellus Clay Jr. on 17 January 1942, in Louisville, Kentucky USA, but known worldwide under his preferred name of Muhammad Ali, he was one of the outstanding sports personalities of the 2oth century. Not only did he win the World Heavyweight Boxing Championship three times, but also used his fame and popularity in the ring to become a prominent activist for racial equality in the USA. Muhammad Ali passed away on 3 June 2016 from a respiratory disease, having suffered from Parkinson’s Disease for more than 30 years.
So just how rich was Muhammad Ali? Sources have estimated that Ali’s net worth amounted to more than $50 million, the vast majority of his wealth earned from his outstanding heavyweight boxing career.
Muhammad Ali Net Worth $50 Million
Ali was raised in a working=class family. His mother, Odessa O’Grady Clay, was a housekeeper and his father, Cassius Marcellus Clay, Sr., worked as a painter of billboards. Ali became interested in boxing at the age of twelve when his bike was stolen and he complained about this incident to a police officer, boxing coach Joe Martin. He advised the boy to learn to fight, and began to train him, very successfully as it turned out, as Ali subsequently won six state titles, and two national Golden Gloves titles, the supreme achievement for a US amateur boxer. To crown his amateur career, Ali won the light-heavyweight division at the 1960 Rome Olympic Games.
Ali turned professional immediately after the Olympics, and in the next three years won all 19 of his fights, becoming the highest contender to fight then champion Sonny Liston for the world heavyweight title. It was about this time that Ali earned one of his nicknames, ‘The Louisville Lip’, as he taunted Liston unmercifully before the fight. Ali won the fight when Liston retired after six rounds, at which point Ali declared that ‘I must be the greatest’, earning another nickname of ‘The Greatest’. At that time he was the youngest heavyweight champion ever, at 22 years of age.
Over the next 18 years before final retirement in 1981, Ali had another 40 fights,reclaiming the world title twice, whilst losing only five times. Several were outstanding: a fight against then champion George Foreman in 1974 was called ‘The Rumble in the Jungle’, Ali winning by a knockout over the previously undefeated Foreman. Three against Joe Frazier – one in 1975 dubbed ‘The Thriller in Manila’ – were all memorable, but Ali is most remembered for his speed in the ring, including his speed of punch – assessed as one of the fastest ever, at any weight – as well as his sometimes controversial personality, particularly his ability to deliver monologues which rivalled his physical speed. Certainly his career saw his net worth rise dramatically as he became easily the biggest box office attraction in the boxing world.
Two controversies in particular were his conversion to Islam, at which point he also changed his name to Mohammad Ali, claiming that his birth name was that of a 19th century slave anyway (not true, and actually his father was a prominent activist for racial equality). Then his objection to serving in the US Forces during the war in Vietnam saw him jailed and stripped of his world boxing champion status in 1967; the former decision was overturned some years later.
Regardless, Ali remained largely popular with boxing fans especially, but also perhaps in sympathy, as in 1982 doctors diagnosed Ali with Parkinson’s disease. In 1996 Muhammad Ali was invited to light the Olympic flame at the Atlanta Olympic Games. During these Olympic Games, he was given a replacement Olympic gold medal for the first one which the champion allegedly threw into the Ohio River in protest at racial problems shortly after he won it, but actually had probably simply lost. Ali is considered by sporting authorities to be one of the legendary sportsmen of the twentieth century.
In his personal life, Muhammad was married four times . In 1964 he married waitress Sonji Roi, but they divorced in 1966. A year later he married Belinda Boyd; after ten years of marriage and having four children they divorced. In 1977 Ali married actress and model Veronica Porsche, and they had two children but divorced in 1986. The same year he married Yolanda, and they adopted a son together. Muhammad also had two children out of wedlock.
Muhammad Ali passed away in Phoenix Arizona, and was buried in his hometown of Louisville, Kentucky. Many believe that there will never be another boxer as able and charismatic as ‘The Greatest’.
