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Remembering Muhammad Ali; Aired 2-2:30a ET

Aired June 05, 2016 - 02:00   ET

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


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NATALIE ALLEN, CNN ANCHOR (voice-over): The world remembers Muhammad Ali as more than just a legendary boxer, he revolutionized the idea of what an athlete could stand for in the public eye.

His fiercest battles came outside the boxing ring as he devoted his life to advocating for peace and justice all the while struggling with Parkinson's disease but carrying on.

Hello, everyone. More on the life of Muhammad Ali here on CNN NEWSROOM. I'm Natalie Allen.

And I'm Don Riddell. Welcome to this special edition of CNN NEWSROOM.

Ali passed away at the age of 74 on Friday in Phoenix, Arizona, he died in the company of his family, his body will now be moved to his hometown of Louisville, Kentucky, soon ahead of his funeral later next week.

ALLEN: He was a beloved figure, a man of contrast as well. Even those who have never seen a single fight certainly know the mark he leaves behind. Here is our Polo Sandoval with how he's being remembered.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MUHAMMAD ALI, BOXING CHAMP: I shook up the world! I shook up the world!

POLO SANDOVAL, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): In the boxing ring, Muhammad Ali brought grace and power.

MUHAMMAD ALI: I'll be pecking and a-poking, pouring water on his smoking.

SANDOVAL (voice-over): His wit always packed a punch as well.

MUHAMMAD ALI: Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee!

SANDOVAL (voice-over): He passed away at an Arizona hospital Friday. His family spokesperson says he died of septic shock due to unspecified natural causes. Ali was diagnosed with Parkinson's disease in 1984. His funeral will be in his hometown of Louisville, Kentucky, Friday. It will be open to the public.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Muhammad Ali was truly the people's champion and the celebration will reflect his devotion to people of all races, religions and backgrounds.

SANDOVAL (voice-over): Ali was born Cassius Marcellus Clay Jr. in 1942 and quickly started fighting at the age of 12. After discovering the nation of Islam in the politically turbulent 1960s, Clay changed his name to Muhammad Ali.

He retired in 1981, a three-time world champion and Olympic gold medalist. He won the adoration of fans around the world who admired him for both his boxing accomplishments and his humanitarian work.

One of those fans, President Obama, put out this message on Twitter.

"He shook up the world and the world's better for it. Rest in peace, champ."

Back in Louisville, the city that once segregated African Americans, is lowering flags in his honor. This man says Ali funded his program to help the city's hungry.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He'd been great in the ring but I think he were more greater outside of the ring, encouraging others to be the best they could be.

SANDOVAL (voice-over): In Louisville, Kentucky, I'm Polo Sandoval, reporting.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

RIDDELL: Tributes are flooding in from all over the world. World leaders, athletes and fans are all offering tributes to Muhammad Ali.

The British Prime Minister David Cameron said, "Muhammad Ali was not just a champion in the ring. He was a champion of civil rights and a role model for so many people."

ALLEN: Fellow boxer Manny Pacquiao tweeted his sympathies, saying "We lost a giant today. You will always be the greatest of all time. Our hearts and prayers go out to the Ali family. May God bless them."

RIDDELL: And as you heard in Polo's report just a moment ago, the U.S. president, Barack Obama, says, "He was the greatest, period. Muhammad Ali shook up the world and the world is better for it."

He went on, "We are all better for it. Michelle and I send our deepest condolences to his family and we pray that the greatest fighter of them all finally rests in peace."

ALLEN: The U.S. presidential candidates took time on the campaign trail to share their thoughts on Ali.

Democrat Bernie Sanders praised Ali for his courage not just in the ring but also in his everyday life. Here it is. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. BERNIE SANDERS (I), VT., PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: A bit of a boxing fan and clearly Ali was one of the great heavyweight champs of all time, a beautiful boxer and a great athlete.

But the reason that Ali struck a chord in the hearts of so many Americans was not just his great boxing skill, it was his incredible courage at a time when it was not popular to do so -- and I've been all over this country and I'm talking to Muslim people, who are saying, now, Bernie, our kids are now afraid.

I say to those people, one of great American heroes in modern American history was Muhammad Ali, a very proud Muslim. And don't tell us how much you love Muhammad Ali and yet you're going to be prejudiced against Muslims in this country.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

RIDDELL: Some of Ali's greatest rivals are also paying tribute to him, including George Foreman, who lost the world heavyweight title to Ali in the very famous "Rumble in the Jungle" fight back in 1974. He has been speaking with CNN.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

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GEORGE FOREMAN, BOXING CHAMP: I went to Africa. I had beaten Joe Frazier pretty easily, Ken Norton, all the people who had beat Muhammad Ali. So I thought this would be the easiest $5 million I was going to pick up.

Got into the ring with Muhammad, beat him up for the first three rounds, he hit me a few times. But then after a while, I just knew I was going to knock him out. I hit him hard in the third round and he looked to me as if to say, I'm not going take this.

Then he said no way he's going slug it out with me. And I whaled on him. Then the bell rang and he looked at me as if to say, I made it. And I thought, oh, my God, he made it. And I knew I was in trouble then. The water had gotten -- just gotten deep.

And then about the sixth, seventh round, as he said, he started whispering, "That all you got, George?"

And believe me, that's scary because that was all I had. He hit me with a quick one-two, knocked me down to the canvas and my whole life changed. I was devastated. Little did I know I would make the best friend I ever had in my life. That fight made it that way.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ALLEN: What a nice sentiment there.

RIDDELL: Absolutely. ALLEN: It says a lot, doesn't it?

Guys that can just pummel each other and come away as friends, 41 years after that epic fight between Ali and Joe Frazier, people who were there remember the "Thrilla in Manila" like it was yesterday.

RIDDELL: Yes. Andrew Stevens now introduces us to one man who sat down -- would you believe -- for juice and biscuits with the heavyweight champion.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ALI: I just want to tell you to move. And in my glory, I'm here in my glory, whippin' Joe Frazier.

ANDREW STEVENS, CNN ASIA PACIFIC EDITOR (voice-over): When Muhammad Ali arrived in the Philippines in October 1975 for the "Thrilla in Manila," he was already a household name in this boxing mad country.

Thousands of fans turned out to welcome him and thousands more just to watch him train.

One of them was a young Romy Macalintal, a hardcore fan, who just wanted a signature on his prized possession: a collection of newspaper clippings about Ali. But Romy got a whole lot more than he'd bargained for.

ROMY MACALINTAL, ALI FAN: It was an experience which I cannot now forget, one of the most memorable experiences in my life.

STEVENS (voice-over): Romy ended up not only meeting Ali in private but spending the entire afternoon alone with the boxer, the two of them watching movies.

MACALINTAL: We were just sitting on the carpet watching the movie and in between he would stand up, he would get some cookies, some juice and he would be offering me or serving me.

Imagine the heavyweight champion, serving me at the time with biscuits and juice.

STEVENS (voice-over): Romy didn't get to the fight but like millions of other Filipinos, he watched it on television, a brutal encounter eventually won by Ali and now regarded as one of the greatest bouts ever in boxing.

RECAH TRINIDAD, JOURNALIST: The lights would turn around because of the blood splashing from the mouth.

STEVENS (voice-over): Recah Trinidad was a journalist who watched the fight ringside. For him, the fight wasn't about the sport so much as the politics. The dictatorship of Ferdinand Marcos had been in power for three years and the country was under martial law. Marcos himself had been key to getting the fight staged in Manila.

TRINIDAD: It was something to camouflage, the misdeeds of the martial law as far as the world audience was concerned.

STEVENS (voice-over): But to a young fan, the memories are not of politics, not even the fight but of Muhammad Ali himself.

MACALINTAL: For me, I would always remember him as a very humble, a humble man, a man with humility and a man with a heart, my encounter with the greatest, a very great man, really the greatest champion in the world.

STEVENS (voice-over): Andrew Stevens, CNN, Hong Kong.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ALLEN: What a treasure, huh?

RIDDELL: Some amazing memories from Andrew Stevens there and an incredible fight that anybody who'd had anything to do with it will never ever forget.

A spokesman for Muhammad Ali's family says that his death was caused by septic shock from unspecified natural causes. The boxing great fought a lengthy and public battle with Parkinson's disease.

ALLEN: He was diagnosed in 1984 and out of the ring he became a champion for Parkinson's. CNN's senior medical correspondent Elizabeth Cohen has that part of his story.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ELIZABETH COHEN, CNN SR. MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: The world has lost not just a great athlete but advocate for people with Parkinson's disease. It's hard to remember but back in the '80s and early '90s, people didn't talk about their medical conditions as much as people do now on social media.

But back then, he came out; he was public. He talked about Parkinson's disease. He went on television, even when he found it very difficult to speak and of course --

[02:10:00]

COHEN: -- who can forget when his trembling hand lit the Olympic torch at the Olympics in 1996 in Atlanta.

I know I've spoken to many Parkinson's patients who said that him being so open about it and so optimistic, fighting for treatments that would work and for hopefully a cure for the disease, they said that that really gave them hope.

Now and there is another chapter that people sometimes forget about Muhammad Ali and Parkinson's disease and that is his daughters.

His daughters really became great advocates for new treatments for people with Parkinson's Disease. They said we can never quit, we have to keep fighting, even for controversial treatments, like embryonic stem cell treatments for Parkinson's disease. I spoke with a doctor years ago who knew Muhammad Ali and he said one

of the many things he admired about him was the way that he rallied. He said he might be feeling not well, he might have been weak or had difficulty speaking.

But when it was time to get up on stage at a fundraiser, at a charitable event for Parkinson's disease, he said he rallied and once again he was the greatest -- back to you.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

RIDDELL: Thanks, Elizabeth. And the greatest was also the greatest trash talker of his time, arguably the greatest trash talker of all times.

ALLEN: I think he invented it.

RIDDELL: And nobody has ever been better at it than he was. The power of Ali's words was legendary.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

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

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MUHAMMAD ALI: I must be the greatest! Tell the world!

Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee! Ho, 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 done handcuffed lightning, throw 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. And I'm knocking out all bums. And if you get too smart I'll knock you out.

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

Because they's fat. Look at me now. Don't tell me that ain't a perfect specimen of a man. Look at that body. Slim, trim and on my toes. And I'm -- I don't get hit. I'm the fastest thing on two feet, man. You crazy?

I'm tired of punking.

I'm not only a fighter. I'm a 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 VIDEO CLIP)

ALLEN: Tell it, Muhammad Ali.

RIDDELL: Tell it like it is. Just amazing, yes.

ALLEN: Well, thank you for watching our special coverage. I'm Natalie Allen.

RIDDELL: And I'm Don Riddell. Stay tuned for "MARKETPLACE AFRICA." You're watching CNN.