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<\/a>By David \u201cThe Journeyman\u201d Vaught<\/strong><\/p>\nWith the recent anniversary of the passing of Muhammad Ali, I would like to talk a little bit about what he meant to me. I was never fortunate enough to meet him in person, but like many of his fans, I definitely felt a close connection to him. I grew up in rural Kentucky on a working dairy farm. My father, Elwyn Vaught, introduced me to the sport of boxing. He accurately predicted that a young man from Louisville Kentucky, known then as Cassius Clay, would become the heavyweight world champion. Muhammad Ali, to me, was part boxer, part legend, and as much of a superhero as Batman or Superman. <\/p>\n
After all, in a DC Comics comic book he had defeated Superman in a boxing match in 1978. I had heard the story of his unlikely win against Charles \u201cSonny\u201d Liston, a man who had been expected to remain at the top of the heavyweight division for the foreseeable future. I saw Muhammad Ali call out people who had doubted him when he said he\u2019d \u201cwhup\u201d George Foreman.<\/p>\n
Add to that the things he\u2019d done outside the ring. For example, his stance against the Vietnam War and the sacrifices he made rather than compromise his principles, or the fact that he\u2019d talked a suicidal man down from jumping off a building in 1981. In that case, Ali heard what was happening and rushed to the scene in downtown Los Angeles. He pulled up in his Rolls-Royce, lights flashing, in true superhero style. He reportedly told the man, who was a Vietnam Veteran, \u201cYou\u2019re my brother, I love you, and I couldn\u2019t lie to you.\u201d He walked out of the building with the man, known only as \u201cJoe\u201d, stopped briefly at the police station, and then took him to a local V.A. hospital. Then there\u2019s the time, on November 23, 1990.<\/p>\n
Ali went to Iraq to negotiate the release of 15 American hostages, and on December 2, 1990, Saddam Hussein agreed to release them. These are the stories I\u2019d heard from as far back as I can remember. Muhammad Ali wasn\u2019t just a boxer; he had become much more than that to me. The funny thing about that is how he had, over time, became almost like a family member, a loved one, someone who I could count on, despite the fact I\u2019d never even spoken to him. I hadn\u2019t fully realized what he had come to mean to me until his death. I had booked a hotel in downtown Louisville Kentucky for an event months before Ali passed.<\/p>\n
The room happened to be across the street from where Muhammad\u2019s memorial was held, and I was there on that day. It was a proud day for Louisville. Ali had planned the funeral, making sure people of all religions and backgrounds were given an opportunity to speak. Ali\u2019s old friend, Billy Crystal, said that we are all lucky to have lived in the time of Muhammad Ali, and \u201cOnly once in a thousand years or so do we get to hear a Mozart, or see a Picasso, or read a Shakespeare. Remember all this Louisville. Once in a thousand years. We have seen nothing like this. We will see nothing like this again.\u201d Crowds lined the streets and tossed flowers at the Hurst as it carried Ali to his final resting place in Cave Hill Cemetery. Muhammad, as a young man. Had said \u201cI used to dream that I was running down Broadway in downtown Louisville, Kentucky, and all the people were gathered in the street waving at me and clapping and cheering my name, then all of a sudden I just took off flying.\u201d The people who were present that day saw his dream come true, Muhammad Ali, like a true-life superhero, flew away to his new home.<\/p>\n
Rest in Peace Champ…<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n [si-contact-form form=’2′]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" [AdSense-A] By David \u201cThe Journeyman\u201d Vaught With the recent anniversary of the passing of Muhammad Ali, I would like to talk a little bit about what he meant to me. I was never fortunate enough to meet him in person, but like many of his fans, I definitely felt a close connection to him. I […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[22371],"class_list":["post-89002","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-boxing-news","tag-what-muhammad-ali-means-to-me-as-a-boxer-human-being"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ringsidereport.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/89002","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ringsidereport.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ringsidereport.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ringsidereport.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ringsidereport.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=89002"}],"version-history":[{"count":-2,"href":"https:\/\/ringsidereport.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/89002\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ringsidereport.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=89002"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ringsidereport.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=89002"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ringsidereport.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=89002"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}