ESPN.com - Fighting back at endless Ali praise

ESPN.com: Page 2

Monday, January 7, 2002
Updated: January 9, 2:10 PM ET
Fighting back at endless Ali praise

By Jim Caple
Page 2

I haven't seen the movie "Ali" yet. I'm still trying to wade through the Ali hyperbole the film stirred up ... again.


	Muhammad Ali is certainly the most super, fantastic, special, sports person ever.

Hyperbole, excess and superlatives go hand-in-glove with Muhammad Ali. He claimed he was the greatest for so long that people eventually reported it as fact. It all gets a little much to stomach.

For instance, while interviewing Will Smith recently, Oprah Winfrey quoted the Guinness Book of World Records that Ali is "the most written about human being in history." That's right. In all history.

Now, I don't mean to question the integrity of a book originally produced by a beer company as a means of settling bar bets. Indeed, the Guinness book must be considered the world's leading authority on obesity and the length of fingernails. When Guinness says that the piano case-entombed Robert Earl Hughes was the world's fattest man, you can take it to the bank (even if I've noticed considerable competition for that distinction in most pressboxes I've been in).

But Ali being the most written about human in history? Hmmm. Even accounting for all the hyperbole, that seems more dubious than Bud Selig's accounting procedures. Especially so when you consider that people have been writing about Ali for only four decades, or only slightly longer than it seems like they've been writing about Jon Benet Ramsay.

		If Ali isn't the most written about person in history, he is "the most recognizable person on Earth." Or at least, that's the honorary distinction so many so often give him, apparently beginning with a long-ago issue of Time magazine. I don't know what the basis for this claim was, or the context in which it was first made, but it has become as widely accepted as fact as Zamphir's status of world's greatest pan-flutist.

I don't know what methods Guinness used to establish that claim, though I suspect they involved several pints of Stout.

Granted, Amazon.com reveals 177 matches for Muhammad Ali among its books, a very impressive total, even if the second match was for Muhammad Ali Mazidi's $116 manual on IBM computers.

However, there were 303 matches for Bill Clinton, 316 for Lewis and Clark, 439 for Winston Churchill, 551 for Thomas Jefferson, 789 for Abraham Lincoln and more than 6,600 for Jesus.

An Internet search brings in similar results. There were 281,000 matches for Muhammad Ali on Google, but obviously many of those references include the prophet Muhammad and other figures (poet Muhammad Ali Khan is the ninth match). Restrict the search to "boxer Muhammad Ali" and the total drops to 12,000. Meanwhile, there are 200,000 references for President Franklin Roosevelt (and almost 400,000 for Franklin Roosevelt) and 2.4 million for Jesus Christ.

And we won't even talk about Britney Spears.

Still, could Ali be the most written about person in all human history? I suppose it's possible, the same way it's possible that there really was a spaceship trailing the Halle-Bopp comet a couple of years ago. But if I had to bet, I would take the rest of humanity and the points.

I'm not even sure when the Guinness book originally made the claim about Ali -- he isn't even listed in the index of the latest edition. Which in itself seems rather suspicious for the most written about human in history.


	We'll bet the Guinness folks that Oprah Winfrey, right, was a little off on her plaudits for Ali.

If Ali isn't the most written about person in history, he is "the most recognizable person on Earth." Or at least, that's the honorary distinction so many so often give him, apparently beginning with a long-ago issue of Time magazine. I don't know what the basis for this claim was, or the context in which it was first made, but it has become as widely accepted as fact as Zamphir's status of world's greatest pan-flutist.

The question again, though, is how anyone could possibly know, one way or the other. Was there a worldwide poll that involved putting Ali's picture on Chinese milk cartons? Did Kashmir residents instantly recognize him as the guy from the Roach Motel commercials? Was all Kurdistan clamoring for closed-circuit broadcasts of his fight with that kickboxer?

I don't know. But I do know that people have made the same claim about Pele, Michael Jordan, Princess Diana, the Pope and Michael Jackson (although I'm not sure if even his own mother would recognize Michael Jackson these days). And I question all such claims, especially those saying that a billion people watch the Academy Awards worldwide every year, despite the fact the U.S. audience is only around 50 million.

Personally, I never understood the fascination with Ali. Having a low tolerance for either boxing or braggarts, I never was much of a fan during his career. But I'll eventually get to "Ali." After all, I hear it's the greatest movie ever made and the No. 1 draw at the box office worldwide.

Jim Caple is a senior writer for Page 2.