Muhammed Ali is highly touted as the greatest boxer to have ever lived, but some were not so keen on the heavyweight sensation.
Ali ended his career with a record of 56-5 and avenged all but his final two losses to Trevor Berbick and Larry Holmes. Mike Tyson would defeat Holmes after promising Ali he would.
He may be adored and rightly recognized for his pugilistic greatness now, with Ali becoming one of only two men to defeat Joe Frazier, but many were unsure of the heavyweight boxer at the time due to his ties with Islam.
One of these critics was Floyd Patterson, who, in the build-up to the fight in 1965, would declare in Sports Illustrated that his upcoming fight with Ali was a ‘moral crusade’ as ‘the image of a Black Muslim as the world heavyweight champion disgraces the sport and the nation’.
Patterson was a Christian man and saw it as his duty to dethrone Ali. One music icon shared this view and backed Patterson all the way against the all-time great.
Frank Sinatra wanted to see Muhammed Ali lose
Frank Sinatra was a vocal supporter of Patterson who told Esquire how on the night of his fight with Ali ‘Sinatra was very nice that morning, very encouraging, he told me I could win, how so many people in America were counting on me to win back the championship from Clay.’
Patterson would go on to lose the fight by TKO in the twelfth round, and when he apologized to Sinatra for letting him down, the music icon ‘got up and walked all the way over to the other side of the room, and he sat down there, so far away that I could hardly talk to him.’
In fact, not only did Sinatra completely shun Patterson, but when Ali arrived at the suite is said to have congratulated Ali and attempted to befriend him.
Tim Shinahan, who writes of Ali in his book, ‘Running with the Champ’ wrote that Ali took a strong dislike to how Sinatra treated Patterson and that he considered Sinatra to be arrogant.
Shinahan writes that Ali ‘never forgave’ Sinatra for that.
What did Ali say to Patterson in the clinch?
During their fight, it became clear Ali was the far more skilled fighter, with Patterson stating, ‘it was all I could do to stand up that night.’
Patterson’s jibes at his religion angered Ali and, during a clinch, called Patterson an ‘Uncle Tom’, that is to say, a black man with allegiance to white men. This is not the first time ‘The Greatest’ has exchanged words in the ring, as Ali spoke to George Foreman during the ‘Rumble in the Jungle’ clash.
Patterson and Ali did meet in the ring again, with Ali defeating Patterson, who was the first-ever heavyweight to lose a title and regain it following a letter from rival Archie Moore.
Since then, the pair have met outside of the ring, and despite Patterson refusing to call Ali by his name, instead calling him Cassius Clay, the two have gotten along just fine.
Patterson tells of how Ali ‘gave me a big bear hug when I walked in the door, had a big smile on his face, and there was real warmth there’.