The nation of Islam were not as noble as the ANC but Jim Crow laws were just like apartheid, Ali joined the nation after being refused service at a whites only restaurant.
Who really can fault Ali He won Olympic gold & came home a hero. He was invited to the White House for Dinner with the President.. A week or so later he was denied service in a diner in his home town of Louisville Ky. He was told pick up your food at the back door That is why he threw his Gold Medal in the river. He said "One day I'm a hero dining with the President, the next I'm refused service in a diner due to the color of my skin.. That medal was worth nothing
Mandela sat in a cell for decades. Ali didn’t box for a few years. Mandela became the leader of his nation, helped end apartheid, and won a Nobel Peace Prize. Ali helped out with a hostage situation and carried the Olympic torch. Not really in the same league.
I have to add WImpy Halstead. They say he was wimpy but he was anything but. That said, and with all due respect, the love this guy gets on this site is effing bananas. There was a thread on here just yesterday about how Halstead's rear-hand hook was so sensational that it made women and girls pregnant. I mean, for one, that's just a weirdly crass statement that I don't even think makes literal or figurative sense. But, for another, was it even that much above an average one? I don't even know where to begin. PowerPuncher says that with modern training and nutrition Halstead would essentially just be a bigger, better version of Art Linkletter. And that he would've gotten Loni Anderson pregnant with even his left. Is that even true?
He claimed later in life that he didn't throw his gold medal into the river. The gold medal in the river story was a fabrication of Jabir Muhammad for that nonsense book they published. One interesting thing is raised here though and that is: where is the medal? Ali claimed to have "lost it" which, I'll admit, immediately made me assume that Bundini had snaffled it. Probably pawned at some point for the silver content, sadly. Probably melted down and some cat tiara now or something.
Same fascist ideology, Ali`s people suffered greatly at the hands of the US government, specifically in the south, lets not split hairs, far more blacks suffered worse than Mandela in South Africa and in the US, Mandela was a symbol of hope.
Evander Holyfield, Ruelas brothers, Johnny Bumphus, Pinklon Thomas, Marlon Starling, Sugar Ray Leonard, Don Curry, Pernell Whitaker, to name a few
Ali didn’t do anything in the hostage situation, he was just there. He was also a wife beater, slept with underaged girls and was pro race segregation.
Yeah, dominated might not be the right word for his 70's career, since he had a few losses and a few close ones. But he beat everyone he faced in that decade and he faced almost all of them. Not many that can say that about any decade.