'World's Greatest' Muhammad Ali to open US center for peace

0 Comments | AFP, November, 2005

WASHINGTON (AFP) — Champion boxer Muhammad Ali, called the greatest athlete of the 20th century, will inaugurate a 75-million-dollar center dedicated to his global message of peace in his birthplace of Louisville, Kentucky, his wife, Lonnie Ali, said.

Slowed by advancing Parkinson's disease, Ali, who reigned over the boxing world in the 1960s and 1970s, will open the Muhammad Ali Center dedicated to his life and ideals on November 21, Lonnie Ali said.

"His life has made a much larger footprint on the world than merely his athleticism," she said.

Ali, 63, grabbed the world's attention when he parleyed a flashy, unorthodox ring style and a flair for poetry into a successful fight to capture boxing's greatest prize, the heavyweight championship, in 1964....