Boxing great Muhammad Ali dies at 74

Former world heavyweight champion Muhammad Ali, whose record-setting boxing career, unprecedented flair for showmanship, and controversial stands made him one of the best-known figures of the 20th century, died on Friday aged 74, media reports said.

US President George W. Bush awards boxing legend Muhammad Ali with the Presidential Medal of Freedom, as Ali's wife Lonnie watches, during a ceremony in the East Room of the White House in Washington in this November 9, 2005 (Reuters)

Family spokesman Bob Gunnell told NBC News that Ali died in a Phoenix-area hospital. Reuters could not immediately confirm the report.

Muhammad Ali and his wife Lonnie follow the super-middleweight fight of his daughter boxer Laila Ali against Asa Sandell of Sweden, in Berlin, in this December 17, 2005 (Reuters)

"My heart is deeply saddened yet both appreciative and relieved that the greatest is now resting in the greatest place," boxer Roy Jones Jr. said on Twitter.

Muhammad Ali poses with gloves in this undated portrait (Reuters: Action Images / Sporting Pictures/File Photo)

Ali was hospitalized this week for a respiratory ailment. The former prize fighter had long been suffering from Parkinson's syndrome, which impaired his speech and made the once-graceful athlete almost a prisoner in his own body.

Reuters

Ali proclaimed himself ‘the greatest’ - as well as ‘the boldest, the prettiest, the most superior, most scientific, most skillfullest’.

Muhammad Ali cuddling his daughters Laila, (L ) and Hana (R) at a Hotel in London, Britain December 19, 1978 (Reuters: Action Images / MSI/File Photo)

Few could argue with him at his peak in the 1960s. With his dancing feet and quick fists, he could - as he put it - float like a butterfly and sting like a bee. He was the first person to win the heavyweight championship three times.

Reuters

Ali became much more than a colorful and interesting athlete. He spoke boldly against racism in the '60s, as well as the Vietnam War.

Soccer player David Beckham and Muhammad Ali pose for a photograph during the Beyond Sport Summit in London in this July 24, 2012 (Reuters)

Ali was born in Louisville, Kentucky, on January 17, 1942, as Cassius Marcellus Clay Jr., a name shared with a 19th century slavery abolitionist. He later changed his name after his conversion to Islam.

Reuters

Ali is survived by his wife, the former Lonnie Williams, who knew him when she was a child in Louisville, along with his nine children.   

ALSO READ: Eight facts about Muhammad Ali

Follow Emirates 24|7 on Google News.