On September 15, 1978, boxer Muhammad Ali defeated Leon
Spinks at the Louisiana Superdome in New Orleans to win
the world heavyweight boxing title for the third time in his
career, the first fighter ever to do so. Following his victory,
Ali retired from boxing, only to make a brief comeback two
years later. Ali, who once claimed he could “float like a
butterfly, sting like a bee,” left the sport permanently in
1981.

Muhammad Ali (Cassius Marcellus Clay Jr.)
(January 17, 1942 – June 3, 2016)

CAMILLE
BOHANNON

Van Morrison, is a Northern Irish singer, musician
and songwriter is 78 years old today. His recording
career spans seven decades.        
        
        
        
       

On June 28, 1997, Mike Tyson bit Evander Holyfield’s ear in the
third round of their heavyweight rematch. The attack led to his disqualification from the match and suspension from boxing,
and was the strangest chapter yet in the champion’s roller-
coaster career.

Holyfield was examined but the fight continued after the bite.

Muhammad Ali, the reigning world heavyweight boxing champion, entered the combative ring of politics and culture by refusing to
serve in the United States military at the height of the Vietnam
War on this day in 1967.

"I ain’t got no quarrel with those Vietcong," Ali famously said the
year before, the exact quote the source of some dispute, in a
battle that made it all the way to the United States Supreme Court. 

He later wrote, "I refuse to be inducted into the Armed Forces
of the United States because I claim to be exempt as a minister
of the religion of Islam."

On March 25, 1958, Sugar Ray Robinson defeated Carmen
Basilio to regain the middleweight championship. It was the
fifth and final title of his career. Robinson is considered by
many to be the greatest prizefighter in history. No less an
authority than heavyweight champion Muhammad Ali once
said, “My idol will always be Sugar Ray Robinson, who was,
and remains, one of the best pound-for-pound fighters to
have ever lived in this century.”

Sugar Ray Robinson was born Walker Smith, Jr. in Ailey,
Georgia, on May 3, 1921. Smith got his boxing name when
he borrowed his friend Ray Robinson’s Amateur Athletic
Union (AAU) card to enter a boxing tournament at the age
of 16. He won that tournament and, still using the assumed
name, turned professional in 1940, winning his debut bout–
the first of 40 consecutive victories. Robinson won his first championship in 1946 when he defeated Tommy Bell for the
welterweight title.