American Legends: The Life of Muhammad Ali
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Narrated by:
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Bret Kennedy
About this listen
"To prove I am great, he will fall in eight." - Muhammad Ali
A lot of ink has been spilled covering the lives of history's most influential figures, but how much of the forest is lost for the trees? In Charles River Editors' American Legends series, listeners can get caught up to speed on the lives of America's most important men and women in the time it takes to finish a commute, while learning interesting facts long forgotten or never known.
The sports world has never suffered from a shortage of self-promoters, but none have ever walked the walk and backed up the talk like Muhammad Ali, boxing's greatest icon and possibly history's most famous athlete. Indeed, even referring to Ali just as a boxer does a disservice to the transcendent figure he has become around the world as a living legend.
Of course, the legend of Ali begins in the squared circle, where a young, brash kid named Cassius Clay rose to the top of the boxing world with a style so unorthodox that anyone else attempting it would all but assure he'd get knocked out. But Ali became the heavyweight champ by keeping his hands low, "floating like a butterfly and stinging like a bee", and outboxing heavyweight champions like Sonny Liston, Joe Frazier, George Foreman, and Floyd Patterson. In his early years, Muhammad Ali truly was the Greatest, and he could only be stopped by the Vietnam War, when his refusal to enter the armed forces resulted in his arrest and the stripping of his title.
Ali also lost three years of his fighting prime before returning to the ring, but his most iconic fights were still ahead of him, including the "The Thrilla in Manilla" and "The Rumble in the Jungle".
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- Narrated by: Aaron Abano
- Length: 9 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
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Here Edgeofsports.com sportswriter Dave Zirin shows how sports express the worst, as well as the most creative and exciting, features of American society. Zirin explores how Janet Jackson's Super Bowl flash-time show exposed more than a breast, why the labor movement has everything to learn from sports unions, and why a new generation of athletes is no longer content to "play one game at a time" and is starting to get political.
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Interesting read
- By sosnows8 on 08-16-20
By: Dave Zirin
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A Flame of Pure Fire
- Jack Dempsey and the Roaring '20s
- By: Roger Kahn
- Narrated by: Kevin Yon
- Length: 17 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
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Through most of the Roaring '20s, Jack Dempsey was the heavyweight champion of the world. With his fierce good looks and matchless dedication to the kill, he was a fighter perfectly suited to his time. In A Flame of Pure Fire, renowned sports writer Roger Kahn not only chronicles the thrilling, brutal bouts of the Manassa Mauler, but also illustrates how the tumultuous 1920s shaped Dempsey - and how the champ, in turn, left an indelible mark on sports and American history.
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Ambitious but poorly executed
- By Keith on 10-02-19
By: Roger Kahn
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Triumph
- The Untold Story of Jesse Owens and Hitler's Olympics
- By: Jeremy Schaap
- Narrated by: Michael Kramer
- Length: 7 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
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In 1936, against a backdrop of swastikas flying and storm troopers looming, an African-American son of sharecroppers set three world records and won an unprecedented four gold medals, single-handedly crushing Hitler's myth of Aryan supremacy. The story of Jesse Owens at the 1936 Olympics Games is that of a high-profile athlete giving a performance that transcends sports. But it is also the intimate and complex tale of the courage of one remarkable man.
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race headwinds
- By Andy on 04-26-07
By: Jeremy Schaap
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Rome 1960
- The Olympics that Changed the World
- By: David Maraniss
- Narrated by: David Maraniss
- Length: 5 hrs and 41 mins
- Abridged
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The athletes competing in the 1960 Rome Olympics included some of the most honored in Olympic history: decathlete Rafer Johnson, sprinter Wilma Rudolph, Ethiopian marathoner Abebe Bikila, and Louisville boxer Cassius Clay, who at 18 seized the world stage for the first time, four years before he became Muhammad Ali.
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Very Good Book
- By Jay on 07-30-08
By: David Maraniss
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Strong Boy
- The Life and Times of John L. Sullivan, America’s First Sports Hero
- By: Christopher Klein
- Narrated by: Joe Barrett
- Length: 11 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
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"I can lick any son of a bitch in the world." So boasted John L. Sullivan, the first modern heavyweight boxing champion of the world, a man who was the gold standard of American sports for more than a decade and the first athlete to earn more than a million dollars. He had a big ego, a big mouth, and even bigger appetites. His womanizing, drunken escapades, and chronic police-blotter presence were godsends to a burgeoning newspaper industry.
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Larger than life
- By Rusty Shackelford on 09-23-24
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The Death of WCW
- By: R.D. Reynolds, Bryan Alvarez
- Narrated by: Bryan Alvarez
- Length: 14 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
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In 1997, World Championship Wrestling was on top. It was the number-one pro wrestling company in the world, and the highest-rated show on cable television. Each week, fans tuned in to Monday Nitro, flocked to sold-out arenas, and carried home truckloads of WCW merchandise. Sting, Bill Goldberg, and the New World Order were household names. Superstars like Dennis Rodman and KISS jumped on the WCW bandwagon. It seemed the company could do no wrong.
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Like a rambling friend telling you WCW history
- By Eric Philleo on 12-18-17
By: R.D. Reynolds, and others
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42 Faith
- The Rest of the Jackie Robinson Story
- By: Ed Henry
- Narrated by: Ed Henry
- Length: 9 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
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Journalist and baseball lover Ed Henry reveals for the first time the backstory of faith that guided Jackie Robinson into not only the baseball record books but the annals of civil rights advancement as well. Through recently discovered sermons, interviews with Robinson's family and friends, and even an unpublished book by the player himself, Henry details a side of Jackie's humanity that few have taken the time to see.
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42Faith
- By Phillip L. on 04-11-17
By: Ed Henry
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Men in Blazers Present Encyclopedia Blazertannica
- A Suboptimal Guide to Soccer, America's "Sport of the Future" Since 1972
- By: Michael Davies, Roger Bennett
- Narrated by: Roger Bennett, Michael Davies
- Length: 3 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
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Soccer has been America's Sport of the Future since 1972. The Men in Blazers are two English-born, soccer-obsessed broadcasters who have savored the dizzying growth of the game along with millions of Americans, as if it was a rollicking, sporting telenovela playing out in real life. Written in such a way that fully immerses Americans in the history and culture of the world's game, their Encyclopedia Blazertannica relives the careers of such greats such as George Best, Maradona, Beckham...and Alexi Lalas.
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complete horsecrap
- By Jordan on 06-07-18
By: Michael Davies, and others
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1969
- The Year Everything Changed
- By: Rob Kirkpatrick
- Narrated by: Jonah Cummings
- Length: 12 hrs and 49 mins
- Unabridged
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Woodstock, the moon landing, Charles Manson, Richard Nixon, the Vietnam War, and more. A must-have for baby boomers and the generations that came after! In this rich and comprehensive narrative, Rob Kirkpatrick chronicles an unparalleled year in American society in all its explosive ups and downs.
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What a year!!
- By kathy deal on 11-17-20
By: Rob Kirkpatrick
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The Dirtiest Race in History
- Ben Johnson, Carl Lewis and the 1988 Olympic 100M Final
- By: Richard Moore
- Narrated by: Traber Burns
- Length: 10 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
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The 1988 Seoul Olympics played host to what has been described by some as the dirtiest race of all time, by others as the greatest. The final of the men's 100 metres at those Olympics is certainly the most infamous in the history of athletics, and more indelibly etched into the consciousness of the sport, the Olympics, and a global audience of millions, than any other athletics event before or since.
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Great story
- By sosnows8 on 07-08-20
By: Richard Moore
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Two Hours
- The Quest to Run the Impossible Marathon
- By: Ed Caesar
- Narrated by: Fajer Al-Kaisi
- Length: 7 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
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Two hours to cover 26 miles and 385 yards. Its running's Everest, a feat once seen as impossible for the human body. Now we can glimpse the mountaintop. The sub-two-hour marathon requires an exceptional feat of speed, mental strength, and endurance. The pioneer will have to endure more, live braver, plan better, and be luckier than any who has run before. Ed Caesar takes us into the world of elite runners: the greatest marathoners on Earth.
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I liked it!
- By Amazon Customer on 05-07-16
By: Ed Caesar