By Banji Ojewale
When boxer Muhammed Ali passed on in 2016, George Foreman, one of the sport’s fiercest demolition experts, was approached by CBS This Morning crew in the United States of America to speak on his old ring foe. Knocked out by Ali in their unforgettable Rumble in the Jungle duel in Kinshasa, Zaïre, in 1974, Foreman said what the sport had experienced of Ali defied all known approbatory allusions.
It wasn’t enough to
describe the man born as Cassius Marcellus Clay as the “best fighter’’, he
said. According to Foreman: “…To say he (Ali) was the greatest boxer is a
put-down…He was bigger than boxing. He was bigger than anything…I got into the
ring with him…He didn’t have the best power…the best anything…But his presence…His
greatest power was his presence…Nothing like him…’’
Since the death in December of another sports colossus, Pele of Brazil, the world is experiencing the same dilemma: a dearth of expressions to convey Pele into history. Is it adequate to see him as a legend? These days even flash-in-the-plan celebrities get the tag. How about merely dubbing him the greatest in the field?
