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Boxing Legend Muhammad Ali Dead at 74. Aired 3-3:30a ET

Aired June 4, 2016 - 03:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.


(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

NATALIE ALLEN, CNN NEWSROOM HOST: Welcome back to our ongoing coverage of the life and death of Muhammad Ali. I'm Natalie Allen along with my colleague, Don Riddell, from the world of sports.

We're trying to grasp the loss of Mohammad Ali this evening. It's quite hard. One of the most legendary and iconic boxing greats of all time has died. People all around the world mourning the death of Muhammad Ali.

The three-time world heavyweight boxing champion passed away Friday evening in Phoenix, Arizona where he had been hospitalized. He was 74. He had been at the hospital since Thursday with what a family spokesman called a respiratory issue. Family members, we're told, had gathered to be at his side.

Don King, the boxing promoter whose history with Muhammad Ali went back decades, told us that Ali's spirit will go on forever, and that's what he wants to emphasize even during the sadness of losing Muhammad Ali.

A spokesman for the family also issued a statement. Bob Gunnell said, quote, "After a 32-year battle with Parkinson's disease, Muhammad Ali has passed away at the age of 73. The three-time heavyweight champion boxer died this evening. Muhammad Ali's funeral will take place in his hometown of Louisville, Kentucky. The Ali family would like to thank everyone for their thoughts, prayers and support and asks for privacy at this time." Don?

DON RIDDELL, CNN WORLD SPORT ANCHOR: Yes, Muhammad Ali was always at his best in the ring but also in the front of the microphone. He had a way with words like no one else before or frankly, since.

Ali used that talent to back up his other one, his skill in the ring. And he wouldn't just beat his opponent. He'd tell them how he was going to do it before they'd even stepped in the ring. Take a listen to one of his best.

I'm afraid that we don't have that sound bite for you. But just take my word for it. He used to do it a lot. He used to name his round, and more often than not, he would deliver on it.

ALLEN: And he delivered it in rhyme, too, when he was threatening his opponents.

RIDDELL: Yes.

ALLEN: We want to turn now to David McKenzie. He's one of our correspondents kind of gauging the reaction from around the world. David, to talk about one of Ali's most famous bouts, 1974's rumble in the jungle against George Foreman there in Africa.

And you're joining us now, live from Nairobi. Hi there, David.

DAVID MCKENZIE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Natalie, you know, and Don, George Foreman was considered to be the greatest at that time. Ali had obviously lost his previous bout and had been stripped of his title after controversy in the U.S.

And it ascended here in the African continent in then Zaire in Kinshasa. It became known as the "rumble in the jungle," and it was immortalized in the film "When We Were Kings." You know, throughout Africa today, there have been tributes, commemorations pouring in from politicians, from ordinary citizens, from celebrities remembering the great man and remembering how he made Africa the center of the world's attention, particularly Zaire.

At that time in Kinshasa, it was an extraordinary boxing match between Ali and Foreman. Very few people thought that Muhammad Ali at age 32 could beat the undefeated Foreman in early in the morning in that stadium in Kinshasa with 60,000 Conganese (ph) fans universally shouting in support of Muhammad Ali.

He did win in a late knock out in that match. And Ali had an even deeper connection, I must say, to one of Africa's biggest icons, Nelson Mandela, famously sparring with him, with the great man who himself was an amateur boxer before he entered politics.

You know, Mandela said that Muhammad Ali was one of his greatest sporting heroes and admired him not just for his prowess in the ring but also for his moral conviction and his steadfastness through controversies in the U.S. Natalie? Don?

ALLEN: Right. And the two of those -- you know, Muhammad Ali grew up in the Civil Rights era, and he was quite close with many civil rights proponents and activists, including Nelson Mandela. It's nice to see that photo of them there together.

Thank you so much. Thank you so much, David. We appreciate it. We'll talk with you again.

Well, as impressive as Ali's punches were in the ring, of course, we've been talking about it, his trash talk, legendary. Here are some of Ali's best moments.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MUHAMMAD ALI, PROFESSIONAL BOXER: I don't like fighters who talk too much.

I must be the greatest. I own the world.

Float like a butterfly and sting like a bee. Oh, rumble, young man, rumble.

I'm the greatest fighter in the ring today. That's my label.

And this might shock and amaze you, but I will destroy Joe Frazier.

I'm so bad. You know what I've been doing? Last week I went out to the jungle. I wrestled with an alligator. I tussled with a whale. I handcuffed lightning and threw thunder in jail. I'm bad, man.

Can I dance? Is the Pope a Catholic?

The man to beat me hasn't been born yet.

I'm the greatest. I'm knocking out all the bums, and if you get too smart, I'll knock you out.

Last week I murdered a rock, injured a stone, hospitalized a brick. I'm so mean I make medicine sick.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They say he's fat.

ALI: Look at me know. Don't tell me that ain't a perfect specimen of a man. Look at that body, slim, trim and on my toes.

I don't get hit. I'm the fastest thing on two feet, man. Are you crazy? I'm tired of talking.

I'm not only a fighter. I'm poet. I'm a prophet. I'm the resurrector. I'm the savior of the boxing world. If it wasn't for me, the game would be dead.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ALLEN: You can just kind of listen to these old clips forever.

RIDDELL: Yes, I mean, they make me laugh, just seeing how much confidence he had. And I think he cranked himself whilst doing them on them --

ALLEN: Sure.

RIDDELL: -- on several occasions. You see the look on his face, like, you know, can I got away with this, can I get away with this. And he sees the, you know, people are into it, and, you know, everybody's --

ALLEN: The media's eating it up.

RIDDELL: -- hanging on every word. Absolutely.

But, you know, he was able to use this to really take a lead on defining his own personality. You know, some journalists, sports journalists will kind of write what they think they see. With Ali, it was obvious what you were seeing, and he was defining his persona in front of their very eyes. And, you know, that was huge for him and his celebrity. ALLEN: Yes, absolutely. Yes, absolutely. Anyone that might be having

trouble with self-confidence right now might want to just continue to watch Muhammad Ali.

(CROSSTALK)

ALLEN: Right.

Well, reaction, of course, continuing to pour in on social media. On Twitter, singer Lionel Richie tweeted, "You will always be my hero."

Former boxer, Oscar De La Hoya, tweeted this out, "RIP @muhammadali, a legend who transcended sport and was a true champion for all."

UFC and mixed martial arts fighter, Chuck Liddell, took to Twitter to say in part, "My heart hurts to hear the news just now about one of my heroes and one of the greatest boxers."

And Bernice King, daughter of the late civil rights leader, Martin Luther King, Jr., tweeted, "Thank you, #MuhammadAli. You were a champion in so many ways. You 'fought' well. Rest well."

He certainly deserves to rest well after what a life that he led. And I like something else that Don King said to us earlier about the fact that here was a man who loved the challenge, didn't want to give up, was a fighter all through his life and was a fighter through decades of having Parkinson's disease, and still had that manner about him that said he was enjoying life. And being able to deal with that just goes to show what this man was made of.

RIDDELL: Yes, you could see in the later years when physically he was really struggling and clearly his health was ailing. But if you just look into his eyes, you can see the sparkle was still there. You could still see the kind of fire inside, you know, burning really quite brightly.

And, you know, we've seen George Bush presenting him with the Medal of Freedom basically saying when you talk about the greatest, everybody knows exactly who you mean.

ALLEN: Everybody knows.

RIDDELL: He was still the the imposing presence in the room. He still commanded so much respect and attention. And, you know, he just had it.

And it is a tragedy, because when you look at some of the earlier fights and what he was able to achieve, and after the rumble in the jungle, the journalists who were covering that fight saw the way he was interacting with the people in Zaire and Congo, and they were saying, wow, this guy is a political figure. You know, he could have achieved so much had this illness not gotten the better of him.

And in the end, the fight was kind of his own private fight. But it's a real shame, because we were robbed of another 30, 40 years of greatness that we could have had from Muhammad Ali that was the denied just by his illness, which more than likely was brought on by, you know, the ferocious amount of hits he took during his career in the ring.

ALLEN: Right. And it's so interesting. What was the -- what was the moment that everyone knew? Yes, I know that his trash talking and all of that made him so interesting. No athlete had ever done it like that. You know --

RIDDELL: Yes.

ALLEN: -- I mean, he started just defending himself and talking about himself. But what was the moment in the boxing ring that everyone knew, whoa, we've got something here?

RIDDELL: Well, I mean, I think they knew he was special from the age of 22 when he took Sonny Liston's title. I believe he was the youngest at that time to take the title off a defending champion.

It was the way he conducted himself in the ring and the way he conducted him out of it. And, of course, it was his very principled stance that he took, standing up for what he believed in, refusing to fight for the American military in Vietnam, a stance for which he could have ended up going to jail. And he was prepared to stick to his guns on that one.

And it cost him the best years of his career. I mean, he wasn't able to fight for three to four years between 1967 and 1970. And it's an even greater credit to him that after being made to sit on the sidelines for so long, he was able to get his license back, get his fitness back --

ALLEN: Not the quitter.

RIDDELL: -- get back into the ring --

ALLEN: Right.

RIDDELL: -- become world champion again for a second time and then laterally for a third time. So, I mean, it's a part of the great Muhammad Ali story that he went

through that. But that is why for so many people, he is this inspirational figure, that he was so principled and he stood for really what is right and what is good.

Of course, before he was a boxer, he had so many challenges in his life growing up where he did, racial injustice. You know, he really wanted to fight for that. He wanted to fight for religious freedom, for civil rights in general. He inspired so many people of his generation.

ALLEN: Right. Someone earlier told us that he got his rage out through boxing.

RIDDELL: Yes.

ALLEN: What a positive thing to use, and look what the world's got as a result. Ali had a larger than life personal, a quick wit to match.

Here's CNN's Wolf Blitzer with a look at the champ.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ALI: This is the legend of Muhammad Ali. The greatest fighter there ever will be.

WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR (voice-over): He proclaimed himself "The Greatest," and millions of fans around the world agree.

ALI: Float like a butterfly and sting like a bee.

BLITZER: Those phrases became Ali's motto. His wit and charisma outside the ring was also make him one of the world's best-known personalities.

ALI: It's going to take a dead man to whoop me. You look at me. I'm loaded with confidence. I can't be beat. I've had 180 amateur fights, 22 professional fights, and I'm pretty as a girl.

BLITZER: But his persona began to emerge long before he captured his first heavyweight championship. He was born Cassius Marcellus Clay Jr. in Louisville, Kentucky during an ugly era of racial segregation in America.

At 12 years old, Ali's world would change forever when a local police officer introduced him to boxing. It became an outlet for his rage.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Cassius Clay of Chicago challenges Gary Joyce.

BLITZER: It also offered Ali an opportunity to develop his remarkable talent. Just six years later, Ali would bring hem a gold medal from the 1960 summer Olympics games in Rome.

He turned pro at the age of just 18. And at 22, he stunned the boxing world, defeating a fighter the experts thought was invincible, Sonny Liston.

ALI: I shook up the world. I shook up the world.

BLITZER: Ali had arrived, and Liston would never be the same. To prove the point, Ali put Liston away a second time in a rematch the following year.

The '60s were glory days for Ali, but the Civil Rights era would also become a controversial and polarizing period in his life. He renounced his given name and joined the volatile black separatist Nation of Islam.

Almost as quickly as he had arrived, Ali's heavyweight title was gone, revoked after he claimed conscientious objector status and refused to serve in the Vietnam War.

At the peak boxing age of 25, Ali also gave up millions of dollars in endorsements and faced five years in prison, all in defiance of a war he called "despicable and unjust."

ALI: My intention is to box to win a clean fight. But in war, the intention is to kill, kill, kill, kill, and continue killing innocent people.

BLITZER: Ali began a three-and-a-half-year exile from championship fights until the U.S. Supreme Court overturned his conviction on a technicality.

ALI: Everybody that watches and trains says no contest. You better not fight like that with Ali.

BLITZER: But the world would soon learn that even superman has his off days. Ali was barely back in the ring when his undefeated professional record came to an end. He lost to Joe Frazier in a 1971 match dubbed "the fight of the century. " It was the first of three fights with Smokin' Joe.

ALI: Joe's going to come out smokin', but I ain't gonna be jokin'. I'll be peckin' and a pokin' pouring water on his smokin'. This might shock and amaze you, but this time I retired joe Frazier.

BLITZER: And retire him he did. The famous "thrilla in manila" fight ended after Frazier's trainer stopped the fight following the fourteenth round, giving Ali a technical knockout. Ali was a roll again.

But his greatest athletic comeback was in Kinshasa in what was then Zaire.

ALI: Only last week, I murdered a rock, injured a stone, hospitalized a brick. I'm so mean, I make medicine sick.

BLITZER: Ali knocked out the heavily-favored young champion, George Foreman. It was called "the rumble in the jungle." His last fight in 1981 would mark the beginning of another battle that Ali admitted was his toughest, the diagnosis that he was afflicted with Parkinson's disease.

After two decades of redesigning the heavyweight division, Ali was forced to retire. His lifetime record, 56 victories, just 5 defeats. But he never retreated from living a very public life.

In 1996, Ali provided one of the most poignant moments in sports history. With three billion people watching, he lit the Olympic flame at the summer games in Atlanta, his hands trembling but never waving.

Ali remained the consummate showman. As his condition grew progressively worse, Ali struggled each day to whisper a word. His hands and legs shook, and his voice quivered.

ALI: I am the greatest.

BLITZER: Yet his spirit was never shaken, and he never slowed down from serving as an ambassador for peace and a mediator in world conflicts. In 2005, Ali was presented with a presidential Medal of Freedom award,

the nation's highest civilian honor.

GEORGE W. BUSH, FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: When you say the greatest of all time is in the room, everyone knows who you mean.

(APPLAUSE)

BLITZER: And tributes for the champ continue.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: How do you feel about getting the honor tonight?

ALI: Long overdue.

BLITZER: Ali was one of the most gifted and unique personalities in sports history. The world may never see the likes of him again.

In the final chapter, few would argue that Ali needed the crowds as much as they needed him. Not for mere validation, but because each saw in the other the best in themselves.

ALI: Ali's got a left. Ali's got a right. If he hits you once, you'll sleep for the night. And as you lie on the floor while the ref counts 10, hope and pray that you never meet me again.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

RIDDELL: Amazing memories there.

ALLEN: Can't get enough of it.

RIDDELL: You know, I tell you, even if you're not a fan of boxing, you know Muhammad Ali.

ALLEN: Absolutely.

RIDDELL: And I'm sure that you will have heard of the "rumble in the jungle," "the thrilla in Manila" even if you don't know about those fights or what they --

ALLEN: You heard that just growing up.

RIDDELL: You've heard the phrases. You know, they're used so many times.

We can talk to a man now who was very much at the heart of the "thrilla in Manila." Ronnie Nathaniel joins us now on the line. He's a veteran sportscaster and boxing commentator. He actually served as Muhammad Ali's liaison officer during that fight in Manila.

Ronnie, thanks so much for being with us. What are your thoughts today on learning the news that the great Muhammad Ali has passed on?

RONNIE NATHANIEL (via telephone): You know, by a strange coincident, it was only last night that I was going to (inaudible) story I had written on Ali's (inaudible), which I am going to publish in a book. And I was going through some memorable photographs of both of us together in different situations.

This morning, around noontime, I received a call from the Associated press from a young man called Jim Gomez, interviewing me about Ali, saying Ali was -- you know, his health was deteriorating and what I remembered about the "thrilla in Manila."

So it gets to be a long conversation. After he thanked me and put the phone down, two, three minutes later the phone rang again, and he said, Ronnie, while we were talking, Muhammad Ali passed away.

ALLEN: Oh, my goodness.

NATHANIEL: To me, a distressing moment. I was totally distraught when I heard the news, because he had been very -- we had been very close to each other. Our friendship grew through the years.

I saw him, like you mentioned, in Atlanta when I covered the Olympic games, and I saw him light the torch. His hands were quivering, but his spirit was strong.

And again, I met him at the NBA all-star game in New York, which I was covering for (inaudible) television. I told my companion on the coverage, I said, Muhammad Ali has just arrived. I'm leaving you. I'm going over there to see him. And I went, and I said don't get up, champ.

We embraced, and then I could see a tear rolling down his cheek. He remembered. And Lonnie is his wife, was the one who did the talking, because he couldn't talk anymore. That was another memorable moment that I shared with him and will never forget.

RIDDELL: Amazing memories, Ronnie. The fight in Manila of which you were a key part really has helped to define the legacy of Muhammad Ali. For those who may be watching who don't remember the fight or who don't necessarily know very much about it, why was this fight so important? What was it about this fight that has gone down in history as one of the most iconic fights of all time?

NATHANIEL: Well, for one thing, there was a stage in the fight that Ali wanted to quit. I think it was in the thirteenth round when he was getting battered to the body by Joe Frazier, who was a tremendous body puncher. And he wanted (inaudible). He wanted to quit.

And then (inaudible) pushed him down to his stool and said, no, you're going to fight. So he went out and fought. And he ultimately won by a TKO in the fourteenth round when the left eye of Joe Frazier was closed shut, and he couldn't see the right hook of Ali. (Inaudible) decided rather than hurt Frazier anymore, he decided to call it off. And Ali said right after that fight, it was the closest thing to dying.

RIDDELL: He took a lot of punishment that night. If you watch the fight back, it's actually quite brutal to watch.

NATHANIEL: Oh, yes, it is. RIDDELL: To what extent to you think that that fight that evening

might have impacted the illness from which Muhammad Ali has been suffering for the last 32 years?

NATHANIEL: Yes, you know, he told me before the fight he was (inaudible). In the third round, he had Joe Frazier in all sorts of trouble, but he didn't push it because his intention was to entertain the fans and the fans meant Mr. Marcos, Mrs. Marcos, the entire cabinet, his children, government officials, the Armed Forces were in there. There were about 20 to 25,000 people in that venue, and it was hot and humid.

But he wanted to continue. He wanted to put on a show. And he did put on a show, and it's called probably the greatest victory of all time in the heavyweight division.

ALLEN: Well, we thank you so much. Ronnie Nathaniel's talking with us. We know you're in the Philippines now. And thank you for your reflection on that fight and your friend, Muhammad Ali. We appreciate you talking with us.

We'll have more right after this.

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ALLEN: Welcome to our breaking news. It was about five hours ago that we learned that Muhammad Ali was gravely ill. We knew he was in a hospital in Phoenix, Arizona.

And that is where CNN's Dan Simon joins us now to talk about what we know about the death of Muhammad Ali. Hello, Dan.

DAN SIMON, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, hi, Natalie. We know that Muhammad Ali died sometime this evening at this hospital behind me in Scottsdale, Arizona. We should tell you that Phoenix really became Muhammad Ali's home. This is where he lived with his wife Lonnie for the past several years, and he really loved this community, and the community loved him back.

We know he had been in ill health for the past, I guess, last few years. He'd been in and out of the hospital. But no one, I don't think, really expected this to happen so suddenly. The last word we got was that he was in fair condition, that he was brought here to the hospital yesterday with some kind of respiratory issue.

And then, of course, tonight we got the horrible news. I think the speed at which this occurred real caught a lot of people off guard, Natalie.

ALLEN: And thankfully, Dan, it's true, he had his family with him there tonight.

SIMON: That's right. His family was at his side. We are told that they are asking for privacy. But we do know that tomorrow afternoon in Phoenix there is going to be a briefing for the news media to go over some of the funeral details. We don't know when it's going to be, but we know that it will take place in his hometown of Louisville, Kentucky and expect those details sometime tomorrow, Natalie.

ALLEN: All right. Dan Simon in for us live in Phoenix. Dan, thank you.

We want to continue now our breaking news coverage of the life and death of Muhammad Ali. Up next here, "Remembering The Greatest," A CNN special report.

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