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<\/p>\nEven as he lay dying, Muhammad Ali continued to amaze those around him.<\/p>\n
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\u201cAll of his organs failed but his heart wouldn\u2019t stop beating,\u201d his daughter Hana wrote on social media. \u201cFor 30 minutes \u2026 his heart just [kept] beating. No one had ever seen anything like it.\u201d<\/p>\n
The world paid tribute Saturday to the boxing legend, remembering the man in all his glory and contradiction \u2014 as a warrior pacifist, a heavyweight with a lightweight\u2019s grace, a butterfly who, with words and fists, decisively stung.<\/p>\n
\u201cMuhammad Ali shook up the world. And the world is better for it. We are all better for it,\u201d said President Obama in a statement on the death of Ali, who died Friday night at the age of 74.<\/p>\n
\u201cHow fortunate we all are that The Greatest chose to grace our time,\u201d the president added.<\/p>\n
The legendary athlete, a native of Kentucky, became the most famous man in the world, known as much for his feats in the ring and way with words as for his conversion to Islam and defiance of the Vietnam War draft.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t have to be what you want me to be,\u201d he said in 1964, after beating Sonny Liston for the first of his three heavyweight titles. \u201cI\u2019m free to be who I want.\u201d<\/p>\n
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Later, as Parkinson\u2019s disease robbed him of his speech and steadiness, he became known for his humanitarian work, including a 1990 meeting with Saddam Hussein after which 15 American hostages were freed.<\/p>\n
\u201cAli will never die,\u201d said famed boxing promoter Don King. \u201cLike Martin Luther King his spirit will live on, and he stood for the world.\u201d<\/p>\n
He could not win his final 30-years-long bout with the degenerative disease. Ali was admitted to a Phoenix hospital last week and died at 9:10 p.m. Arizona time Friday, succumbing to septic shock. His entire immediate family was at his bedside as his children reassured him that it was OK to \u201cgo,\u201d Hana wrote.<\/p>\n
\u201c\u2018We will be okay. We love you. Thank you,\u2019\u201d they told him, Hana wrote on social media.<\/p>\n
\u201cAll of us were around him hugging and kissing him and holding his hands, chanting the Islamic prayer.\u201d<\/p>\n
A public funeral procession is planned for Friday in his hometown, Louisville, followed by an interfaith service during which Ali will be eulogized by former President Bill Clinton, sportscaster Bryant Gumbel and comedian Billy Crystal, who called Ali \u201cthe greatest man I have ever known.\u201d<\/p>\n
Flags in Louisville flew at half staff Saturday, but the whole world \u2014 including presidents and kings \u2014 mourned.<\/p>\n
\u201cI gave Ali the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2005 and wondered aloud how he stayed so pretty throughout so many fights,\u201d said former President George W. Bush. \u201cIt probably had to do with his beautiful soul.\u201d<\/p>\n
Clinton remembered a man \u201cwho, through triumph and trials, became even greater than his legend.\u201d<\/p>\n
King Abdullah II of Jordan called the athlete \u201ca great unifying champion whose punches transcended borders and nations.\u201d<\/p>\n
In Great Britain, 28,000 people signed an on-line petition to award Ali an honorary knighthood.<\/p>\n
The 6-foot-3, 210-pound pugilist amassed 37 knockouts in a soaring career that included many of the most memorable bouts in history, in such far-flung places as Africa and the Philippines. He finished with a 56-5 record.<\/p>\n
Ferdie Pacheco, Ali\u2019s longtime personal physician and corner man, said hitching his wagon to the boxer\u2019s rising star when he was still an amateur known as Cassius Clay was like being \u201ctouched by Fate.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cFrom Miami Beach to the last Ali\/Frazier fight I felt like I had a comet by the tail,\u201d Pacheco told The Post. \u201cIt is hard to put into words how amazing it was to be in the company of probably the most famous person in the world.\u201d<\/p>\n
His beginnings were humble. And as a 12-year-old weighing 89 pounds.<\/p>\n
He reported the theft of his bike to a local cop, Joe Martin, and vowed to find the thief and \u201cwhup\u201d him.<\/p>\n
Learning how to box might help, Martin offered.<\/p>\n
By the age of 18, he\u2019d won an Olympic gold medal \u2014 but the achievement didn\u2019t shield him from racism back home, where he was derisively called \u201cthe Olympic n\u2014-r\u201d and refused service in a restaurant.<\/p>\n
He claimed the heavyweight championship belt in 1964, his agility and quick, dancer-like movements in the ring mesmerizing fans.<\/p>\n
By 22, he\u2019d announced what would become his signature: \u201cI am the greatest.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ali loved the hot lights of stardom, and was as sharp with his mouth as he was with his fists.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m so fast that last night I turned off the light switch in my hotel room and was in bed before the room was dark,\u201d he once said.<\/p>\n
He converted to Islam in 1964. Rejecting Cassius Clay as a \u201cslave name,\u201d he became Muhammad Ali.<\/p>\n
When fighter Ernie Terrell inadvertently called Ali \u201cClay\u201d during a 1967 match, Ali didn\u2019t take it lightly.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat\u2019s my name?\u201d he demanded in each of 15 rounds as he pummeled Terrell.<\/p>\n
The same year he became a political lightning rod when he refused to be drafted into the US Army.<\/p>\n
\u201cI ain\u2019t got no quarrel with them Viet Cong,\u201d he said. \u201cNo Viet Cong ever called me n\u2014-r.\u201d<\/p>\n
Convicted of draft evasion, he was banned from boxing and lost three years of his prime. He was sentenced to five years in prison but never served it, remaining free on appeal. The US Supreme Court eventually overturned the conviction, and Ali returned to the ring.<\/p>\n
Ali helped change the world with his politics, former NBA superstar Kareem Abdul-Jabbar said.<\/p>\n
\u201cAt a time when blacks who spoke up about injustice were labeled uppity and often arrested under one pretext or another, Muhammad willingly sacrificed the best years of his career to stand tall and fight for what he believed was right,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
His fights with Joe Frazier and George Foreman were historic, living up to their hyped monikers \u2014 \u201cThe Fight of the Century,\u201d \u201cThe Thrilla\u2019 in Manila\u201d and \u201cThe Rumble in the Jungle.\u201d<\/p>\n
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Doctors believe the price Ali paid for the brutality of boxing was Parkinson\u2019s.<\/p>\n
\u201cJust like the rest of us \u2014 sometimes you don\u2019t like what the doctor prescribes,\u201d Pacheco said. \u201cI told Ali he must quit because of the damage the doctors were seeing to his brain.\u201d<\/p>\n
By the time Ali came out of retirement to fight Larry Holmes, his former sparring partner, in 1980, the years and the disease had taken their toll.<\/p>\n
After 10 bruising rounds, Holmes won by a technical knock out when Ali\u2019s trainer, Angelo Dundee, refused to let the legend finish his second-to-last fight.<\/p>\n
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\u201cI didn\u2019t want to get to him and hurt him and whatever,\u201d Holmes told The Post. \u201cI said, \u2018Why are you taking all these goddamn punches, what the f\u2013k\u2019s wrong with you? He cussed me out.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI never heard Ali swear until he got in the ring with me,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
After the fight, he went to Ali.<\/p>\n
\u201c\u2018Man, I still love you man,\u2019\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Ali answered, \u201cIf you love me, why\u2019d you whup me like that?\u201d<\/p>\n