Boxing legend Muhammad Ali is DEAD.
Ali died Friday at a Phoenix-area hospital, where he had spent the past few days being treated for respiratory complications, a family spokesman confirmed to NBC News.
He was 74-years-old.
The heavy weight icon had long battled with Parkinson’s disease since retiring, a degenerative condition that doctors thought was made accelerated by head trauma suffered in the ring.
“After a 32-year battle with Parkinson’s disease, Muhammad Ali has passed away at the age of 74. The three-time World Heavyweight Champion boxer died this evening,” Bob Gunnell, a family spokesman informed the media.
Ali lived the American Dream to the fullest, his life was that of a man who first burst into the national spotlight in the early 1960s as a brash and scrappy young fighter named Cassius Clay. And he soon turned heads and raised some eyebrows when as a young heavyweight champion he converted to Islam, changed his name, and refused to serve in the Vietnam War, transforming him into an emblem of strength, eloquence, conscience and courage.
Ever the showman, his tongue in cheek bravado and dramatic flare were matched only by his mischievous sense of humor.
America embraced him in full for who he was, and the world mourns Ali’s passing tonight, the self proclaimed “greatest of all-time” has just had his legacy submitted to the ages…and the verdict is he was absolutely right.
