We all know Muhammad Ali was the Greatest. This doco explains why

Muhammad Ali ★★★★

You do not need to be a boxing fan to be swept away by this extraordinary documentary that tracks the legend that was Muhammad Ali – heavyweight champion, Olympic gold medallist and outspoken critic of the Vietnam War. He was the Greatest. If you’d just asked him, he’d have told you.

Cassius Clay holds up five fingers to predict how many rounds it will take him to knock out Henry Cooper in London in May 1963.Credit: SBS

This Ken Burns documentary goes deep on the champion, who was born Cassius Clay in 1942 before changing his name to Muhammad Ali in 1964 after converting to Islam. It starts with his early life in Louisville, Kentucky. A gallery of talking heads – among them Ali’s daughters Rasheda and Hana, and New Yorker editor and Ali biographer David Remnick – talk of a man who redefined black manhood.

As Hana says, most people think of her father as a universally beloved figure, who captivated the world when he lit the Olympic flame in Atlanta in 1996. They don’t necessarily remember the man who divided America along racial, political and class lines.

This documentary fixes that. Ali’s story is given context: how the lynching of a young black man, Emmett Till, left an indelible mark; how he secured a deal to be paid a salary for boxing; why he taunted his opponents; and how he became involved with the Nation of Islam.

What’s most astonishing, however, is to see Ali’s charisma at such a young age. He was a showman at school – wearing lipstick or carrying a handbag for laughs – and a baby boxer who was never anything but sure of himself. He preened, patting his face and saying, “Look how pretty I am.” He strutted and he played to reporters, many of whom were older white men who didn’t know what to make of this cocky young black man.

The first two-hour episode goes deep into this period of Ali’s life, stopping just after he beat Sonny Liston to win the world heavyweight title at 22 and toned down the antics.

Burns’ documentary style is much admired and now copied. His ability to bring photos to life by sweeping the camera across them is simple yet incredibly effective. It helps, too, that Ali was a born showman – he craved adulation and very early in his career would ask photographers to follow him.

He was unfiltered and, much like Peter Jackson’s reimagining of the Beatles in the documentary The Beatles: Get Back, this playfulness works in the documentary’s favour. Even among the more staged photos and footage, Ali is a master at busting out of any organised event.

Think of how modern sportspeople appear in the media today – talking points are hit, Instagram accounts are as much about sponsorship deals as they are of presenting a very filtered view of their life. Can you imagine Novak Djokovic riffing like this at the end of a tennis game: “I’ve wrestled with alligators, I’ve tussled with a whale. I done handcuffed lightning and throw thunder in jail. You know I’m bad. Just last week, I murdered a rock, injured a stone, hospitalised a brick. I’m so mean, I make medicine sick.”

If nothing else, this documentary is a reminder of what we have lost not only in terms of the man, who died in 2016 from Parkinson’s disease, but what we have lost in sport and public life. Ali knew how to entertain and speak out about things that mattered to him. He wanted to improve life, not only for himself but for every other black person in America.

How many other sportspeople are doing that today? Ali never pretended to be anything but human – he was flawed in many ways – but his ability to use his profile to help others is unrivalled in sport.

Muhammad Ali is on SBS, Sunday, 8.30pm, and SBS On Demand.

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