Muhammad Ali: the icon with a naughty streak (part one)

0:00The world's biggest soccer tournament has arrived and you can trade the entire tournament on Kalshi On CalSHI, you can trade every match from the opening stage all the way to the final. On CalSHI, you're trading against peers in a live market, meaning there's no house. And as the probability changes, you can buy in and out of your position. For a limited time, download the CalSHI app and use code CUP26 to get$10 when you trade 10. K-A-L-S-H-I, CalSHI. Trade the beautiful game. 18 plus only restrictions and eligibility requirements apply. Event contract trading involves risk and may not be suitable for all investors.

0:28Prices, values, and available markets may differ from those mentioned. For more information, see calshi.com slash regulatory. The entire summer of soccer is on PrizePix. All 48 countries in every matchup and if you rep your side before the round of 16 on PrizePix, you can win a trip to the finals in New York. It's the biggest tournament ever, which means there's even more opportunities to cash in while you root for your favorite national sides and global soccer stars. Download the app today and use code CUP26 to get$50 instantly in lineups when you play your first$5. Download the app today and use code CUP26 to get$50 instantly in lineups when you play your first$5.

1:00PrizePix, America's number one Sports Picks app. Good energy in. Good energy out.

1:11Storm. Zero sugar, 200 milligrams of caffeine, and immunity support. Storm. Energy for life. New York City, 1970. FBI agents listen in as a naked Muhammad Ali is chased around a seedy motel room by his knife-wielding wife. She's just caught him in bed with another woman. In just three hours, 300 million people will watch him take on Joe Frazier in the fight of the century. Welcome to the crazy world of Muhammad Ali. He was held at gunpoint by Idi Amin, got sentenced to five years in the slammer, and still won the heavyweight title three times. This is his story. Welcome back to The Upshot. I'm joined by Zach.

1:58Hello, Jack. As ever, hello. And we are joined by a very special guest today. It is Olympic medalist, a heavyweight boxer with seven professional knockouts. It's Fraser Clarke. Thank you, guys. Thanks for having me. Thank you. And I should say a big time shotter as well. Oh, massive. The biggest. Yeah, the biggest of them all. We've been sort of playing footsie over Instagram for a little while, talking about our shared love of sporting scandal. And then we came to do a Muhammad Ali episode and we were like, I mean, Zach and I are not. yeah we're no experts in the boxing but uh yeah thought you were the the perfect person to have one i'm definitely not an expert i take part i do my bit oh yeah heavyweight first time first time we've had a actual legit sportsman on here so yeah it's about time then let's do it but i like it's actually happened now no because normally we're like i will i don't know like a lot of footballers were like i don't think i really get it necessarily that we're like what we're trying to do and be funny about it and stuff but obviously as you're already a bona fide listener yeah i know i know what it's about and listen we feel fine during the episode to take the piss out of me i'm not gonna hit anyone that's all you need to know i i literally cannot hit you i'll be in so much trouble for license reasons so just go ahead do it good we were toying with the idea of a little a little spa before after after this me and jack versus you but we can we can we can flip the idea With your hands tied behind your back.

3:25I'd double think it if I was you guys. You were tied to a chair. Definitely double think it. Yeah, anyway, I think I'm far too pussy to take this out of you. Anyway, Fraser, you got a big fight coming up? Yeah, I'm fighting for the British title. Again, I fought for it twice, drew one and lost one. And now I've got my shot again. So yeah, I can't wait. End of October should be. And yeah, I'm feeling good. Third time lucky. Third time lucky, mate. We hope so. Yeah, it'll be the upshot what won it. if it goes through I'll be claiming all the credit I'll be wearing my hat on the ring walk of course I'll be upshot for the ring walk yeah yeah we're going to go down and watch Zach if any other shotters fancy it hit us up we'll go on mass get down yeah I want to chant as well you know big upshot area in the crowd just making noise we're just chanting about and try and bring some of the guys and I'll get in touch with people like Michael Carroll just get I just want a bunch of loons there basically get as many people as you can get.

4:23Fraser, if you invite Michael Carroll to be in your ring walk, he would come. I think I'd mix it between him, try and get a message over to Gaza. Again? Yeah, I think he's good. Sharon Osbourne, baby? Sharon, Sharon, Sharon Osbourne. She's, you know, she's grieving at the minute so we'll leave Sharon. Yeah, but I mean, she's a woman of, well, I guess her husband was a Birmingham legend. quite local to me. You've just been listening to the Aussie, we did a Patreon episode on Aussie Osbourne and you were just listening. Yeah, just have a little listen to that and like say, like I told you guys I had my own Aussie story which is just very very Aussie Osborne I believe I was recently running where I live and running through through some fields as I do like earphones in seen a group of between 20 and 30 people there was a lot of black everyone was wearing a lot of black there was a lot of flames a lot of dragons a lot of long black hair I just like took the earphones I stopped for a minute and I had to double look you're like they were basically you know when someone passes away they were doing an Ozzy Osbourne tribute and people let doves off somehow these guys managed to catch like some bats yeah and they were letting bats off in the field I had to look twice and pinch myself a minute but yeah where the hell did you get a box full of bats from oh I don't want to say a box full but there was definitely a cage with a few bats in it and that was their tribute and each to their own.

5:52It's better than biting the head off. Yeah, well, I don't know what happened. I left, I carried on running, but I don't know what happened to some of them but as you know. It's what you would have wanted. Yeah. I genuinely believe that. We should also shout out Aberfeldy Boxing Club who are hosting us in East London. Probably my favourite boxing club. I'm down here all the time. Yeah. I'm just making podcasts. We said we wanted somewhere gritty and, you know, proper boxing and this is it. As you can see, it's not pretty. it's not but it is does it's job that's perfect thanks to them and if anyone's looking in East London for personal training or boxing lessons strikersboxing.co.uk I'll link to it in the show notes so Muhammad Ali you've got a tat haven't you I'm a boxer of course I've got Muhammad Ali yeah I've got Muhammad Ali on my arm playing Monopoly well that's what it used to look like I mean it's faded a little bit now and then I had the classic Muhammad Ali words the champ is here beautiful just as you do and I often ask what does it mean doesn't mean anything it's just how many play Monopoly did he play Monopoly is that that is actually it's an actual picture taken off Google not a big old Kent Road Vine Street no no not me I can love Monopoly

7:14Zach's got one of you playing Boggle Scrabble It's on my ass cheek I won't get it out Big phrase Scrabble We'll get flagged On YouTube If we get that out But yeah You were saying Before we came on Just like For any boxer Muhammad Ali Is number one It's just like It's a rite of passage To Like When you're asked about Who the goat is Muhammad Ali Nine times out of ten Is up there And I probably wouldn't say For his boxing either Probably just because the impact he sort of had on society and the world today still. So I love him just because I think he was a good boxer, but a lot of people just know him for everything else that he did outside of the ring.

7:59Yeah. And we obviously in research for this, like everyone knows that kind of, like the shape of that story, but there is some scandal too. It's quite a lot of shaggy. There are some juicy bits. Yeah. I think that's just boxes as a whole. You know, like I don't like to taunt us all with a brush book. But to get in a ring and punch each other senseless, everyone's got to have a little bit of a scandal at some point because we're just not normal people. Yeah. We'll do your episode at a later date. I can't give an idea on me. I can't do it. Right, should we kick off? Do you want to take us back? I realise it's 50 years since the thriller in Manila, so it's a fitting time to be talking about this.

8:39But do you want to take us back, Zach, even further? Yeah. So Muhammad Ali was born under the name Cassius Marsalis Clay in 1942 in Lewisville in Kentucky. Lewisville at the time was a segregated city. So, yeah, it was Jim Crow laws, like black and white communities were separated. Unbeknown to Cassius, his granddad was actually a convicted murderer. He'd shot a man through the heart in a quarrel over a quarter, which is very, very 1930s. In his book, his father's described as a drinker, a barfighter and a womanizer. And Cassius, he starts boxing when he's about 12 after his bike gets stolen. So he basically goes to report this theft at the police station.

9:27And the officer on duty is downstairs teaching a boxing class. And so he just goes in and joins the class. And straight away, Cassius is determined that he's going to be the best at this. so he said i trained six days a week and never drank or smoked a cigarette the only thing i ever did like drugs was twice i took the cap off a gas tank and smelled the gas which made me dizzy that's how osie odbourne first got high as well i think i didn't talk about it in the episode but he worked in a degreasing factory where they like degrease car parts and he realized you could just lean over the greaser and just take the fumes and get fucked up easy high yeah they found him slumped over it in the end and had to is that is that the fork in the road when you sniff gas you either go ozzy osborne or mahvin ali or my other absolutely yeah but yeah he's he's really dedicated to at this point he used to get his brother to chuck rocks at him to dodge and improve his reflexes um is that why he's such a good like ducker yeah weaver i guess yeah um and he's he's so focused on it he's his school grades suffer a bit he's not giving that much attention but it does pay off because by 18 he's won a load of national tournaments and he gets called up to compete for the u.s at the 1960 olympics in rome yeah he does i mean he gets through the trials pretty easily as as you might expect but he actually almost doesn't go to rome because he's scared of flying he's never been on a plane before like most people back then and he really doesn't want to do it in the end he agrees to go if he can bring his own parachute in his bag just in case.

11:04I mean, I don't know if I'd know how to use one in that scenario, but fortunately it doesn't need it. I mean, we've all thought about it. If you've not had that thought, you know, can I get a parachute in my hand luggage? Yeah. It's definitely gone through my head a few times anyway. Do you ever have that thought on a plane of what would I do if this stuff's going down? Yeah, all the time. Not a nice thought, but... Like Mark Wahlberg who said about 9-11 that he would have just beaten up the bad guys and taken control of the plane. It's not a movie. Yeah, same, same. I guess I'll never know. I've never had the chance.

11:37Anyway, he doesn't need the parachute and he wins gold in Rome pretty easily. I think he's light heavyweight champion. Beats a few sort of like quite scary fellas from behind the Iron Curtain. And he returns to Louisville, Kentucky, a hero. There's a crowd waiting for him on the tarmac. It's a big fucking deal to be an Olympic hero, an Olympic gold medalist in his town. but despite that he's still facing the same old racism that people experience in the segregated south so Ali decides you know now I'm an Olympic hero everyone loves me here I'm going to test a few things so he goes to a segregated diner wearing his medal and sits at the counter that's for white people and orders some food and they won't serve him and he's like almost mocking them that it's so ridiculous that he's won won this medal and still they're treating him like this but they won't serve him.

12:32So in a rage he goes to the Ohio River and throws his medal in there chucks it away. I guess it's the first sign that this guy is going to fight. Yeah he's different. He's like he's full of character you know you wouldn't usually see that would you? I mean with my bronze medal it's not quite a goal but I've definitely tried this kind of thing a few times you know it's definitely you know I've jumped the queue like Oh yeah. On a couple of nights. On a couple of nights I just put it out. There we go. Love it. Does it work? It works. Usually works. And I've got a couple of friends we've been at the bar before and one of my friends just gets my Instagram out like finds the picture of me on the podium and just as we're waiting Nicky would just slides, slides with the picture and just slides it over the bar.

13:18Like barman. It's down here mate. So it does work you know and it didn't for him back then but it definitely does for me. I'm going to get on AI and start mocking myself up. it's probably not going to be a heavyweight boxing medal I'm going to be claiming two of one what's the like the horse and shooting one yeah curling yeah curling it's good to know it works didn't work for Muhammad Ali but yeah like so many other people first of all would just live with this and secondly would not throw an Olympic medal in a river right that's crazy it's like the greatest achievement of your life but it's impressive yeah he's a man of principle and shortly after getting back from the Olympics he makes his professional debut and immediately goes on this two-year winning streak.

14:00It's actually before one fight in Las Vegas. He meets this wrestler called Gorgeous George. And obviously wrestling is kind of a different ballgame to how boxing was back then. It was a lot of bravado, a lot of trash talk. And Cassius credits him, Gorgeous George, with teaching him to trash talk, basically. And that becomes such an important part of his character. And he's really a poet with it. So this is actually from later on in his career. I'm going to float like a butterfly and sting like a bee. George can't hit what his hands can't see. Now you see me, now you don't. He think he will, but I know he won't.

14:39They tell me George is good, but I'm twice as nice. And I'm going to stick to his butt like white old rice. That's right. The greatest of all time. Of all time. Of all time. So good. So is that like totally new in boxing? Yeah. I mean it's just like it's very poetic it's charisma and now we have we have Tyson Fury and he just and he just walks around calling people dossers and actually you know Muhammad Ali you have like Tyson Fury just like it's chalk and cheese both really good fighters don't get me wrong but you know there was something about Muhammad Ali there that was just like poetic and it was it's quite it was rhyming it was nice and then And all you get off Titan is, you're a big dosser.

15:29You're a fool. He's quite charismatic as well, the Tyson Fury thing, don't you think? Oh, he's an absolute maverick. He is the modern day version of Muhammad Ali. You know, definitely in terms of his talking, Tyson could, he can win the crowd. He could also, at one point, he lost a lot of fans because he says some crazy stuff. But I've got to say, he's definitely the closest thing. I've seen to Muhammad Ali especially in terms of charisma yeah he's funny as well he's hilarious we like Muhammad Ali I also so prior to this obviously it's come from wrestling but Muhammad Ali I've read an interview with him where he was saying that before that people just sort of turn up in your suit you take your hat off and you shake hands and you sort of go and cut the ribbon at some local event but like boxers were basically really well behaved and polite with you know before the fight but I think sometimes people do forget this is show business yeah people you know and once upon a time it was just probably the fight but now it's the whole build up you have like you have a press conference you see each other that much you see you and your opponent that much before the fight you end up half becoming friends with him because you literally like you're with each other one press conference two press conference then the fight week you're having pictures with each other and you have to do a little face off over the table I don't think they did too much of that in Muhammad Ali's time but he would have been absolute master a face off he would have absolutely destroyed him so when those face-offs kick off a bit is that a bit manufactured really for the cameras i think some of them definitely are because basically what people are thinking is the more crazy stuff we do the more views we get the more especially if it's box office if it's box office you're 100 you're guaranteed a push a slap or if they really don't like each other you know the whole team are going to get involved in fisty course and this and that it's basically anything goes you know just anything goes within reason if that makes sense it's just become such a part of the show now yeah a lot of people look more forward to the press conferences and the weigh-ins than the fight some people don't even watch the fight it's like the build-up yeah I've noticed that on BBC Sport before a big fight they'll have like a live text feed of the weigh-in yeah and then you see the promoters are like they've got loads of security on stage but their secret the promoter's like this please slap him give me a shot like obviously it's better for them yeah um but anyways it's sort of muhammad ali who starts to really build up this showmanship around um boxing matches uh this this fellow boxer dick sadler recalls being on this on a train journey with with cassius where he apparently spent seven 700 miles standing in the carriage shouting i am the greatest i am the greatest and outside of that he also became just a real master of self-promotion so he convinces life magazine to do a five-page spread about him bear in mind he's only really just gone professional uh and he hears that life magazine have this photographer who specializes in underwater photos and so he tells him that he's been training underwater for years which is bullshit in reality actually he didn't even know how to swim but convinces this photographer to come down and take some pretty amazing photos actually we're looking at one of them now that's a really famous one that is yeah again every boxer if you get a swim pool and you now have the the iphone the one that can go into the water the first thing you're doing you're doing if that's not on your phone are you really a boxer no i think i had that poster on my wall for a bit yeah it's classic he also starts getting so cocky that he's announcing before fights which which round he's going to knock people out in so he fights this guy called Willie Besmanoff and he tells reporters, I'm embarrassed to get in the ring with this unrated duck.

19:12Besmanoff must fall in seven. And that is exactly what happens. So he basically just toys with Besmanoff for six rounds and then in the seventh round, knocks him straight out. But despite all of this success in the ring, Cassius is still pretty shy around girls. So there's quite a lot of stories of him getting his friends to go out and find pretty girls. They'll bring them over to him and then he's just too scared to talk to them, which doesn't last. No, no. He'll shake that off in time. But for now, it's true. So while he's shy around the girls, around other boxers, he is fearless. And pretty soon he's mixing it with the big boys.

19:54He heads over to London where he outclasses Henry Cooper, the British heavyweight champion, in front of 55 ,000 fans. And afterwards he declares, I'm not the greatest. I'm the double greatest. Not only do I knock him out, I pick the round. I'm the boldest, the prettiest, most superior, most scientific, most skillfulest fighter in the ring today. He goes such a way with words, doesn't he? It is definitely a risky strategy. You know, you can end up with egg on your face, which do not link to this, but I boxed Fabio Wardley in Saudi Arabia. And the day before, the guy that plays the music, DJ Majestic, he was he come to my room he's like look I've got a dub for you do you want it it was basically Lethal B doing a remix and it was Big Fraser Clark pow Fabio's getting sparked pow I got knocked out in the first round so it doesn't always go well it doesn't always go well yeah yeah you don't have to link to that one but I'm just saying yeah he was really great because there's been myself and all the boxers the one um another famous one a guy local actually to me uzzi ahmed um you've got a youtuber he basically dances to the ring he's very flamboyant crazy dancing um he gets in the ring and i think it's the first round again just splattered like rendered unconscious off a big right hand so um it's definitely a risky strategy you know to act too cocky but muhammad ali just seems to have it down to a C.

21:24Yeah, yeah. Yeah. That's amazing. That's why the Tyson Fury thing's quite clever. He sometimes almost is talking himself down. Or he's just like, he's just taking the piss in general. Yeah, love it. Anyway, to fulfill his goal of becoming heavyweight champion, Cassius Clay still has one more mountain to climb. And that is taking on Sonny the Big Bear Liston, the most feared fighter in the world. And no one really thought that Clay stood much of a chance against Liston. um it's just this yeah everyone is terrified of fighting him and clay actually has to to launch this big campaign to even get the fight to happen to promote it so he starts out by following sunny all the way to vegas uh to harass him at a casino so i've already just stood behind him while um yeah i've heard it before yeah just agree with look at that big ugly bear that's right again that's brave if you if you go back yourself but sunny listening obviously just through my research obviously long before my time but what I've heard is everyone just terrified of this guy like even when he wasn't angry he was just terrifying and I think the bear was the name that fit you know really well but you know people were so shocked at this young kid because he was still young you know what I mean and if you actually look at them both you can see one guy isn't that intimidating Muhammad Ali Sonny Liston if you've seen him walking down the street you're You'd turn around and give it something, you know what I mean?

22:55You'd be off. Well, Cassius does sort of back out in the end because apparently after a little while of him standing behind, winding him up, Liston turns around and says, if you don't get out of here in 10 seconds, I'm going to pull that big tongue out of your mouth and stick it up your ass. And Cassius just runs away, terrified. Scarpers. I quite like there's a bit of like naive innocence to it at this stage, isn't there? Yeah, yeah. I'd love the scene of him just sprinting through the casino in Vegas. darting for the door. He poked the bear. Yeah. He does stick to his guns though. A few weeks later, he turns up outside Sonny Liston's house.

23:32So he'd actually driven all the way from Chicago to Denver, arrives there at 2am and on his way, he'd been on the phone to local newspapers, radio stations, who'd all gathered outside Sonny Liston's front lawn. And Cassius then gets a friend to go knock on his door and Sonny Liston comes down in his bathrobe, fuming what is to get at him and again Clay just runs away I mean I told you when I was off air just someone if they can just have a look on the YouTube I'm pretty sure it was Sonia Liston that Muhammad Ali was in a casino obviously giving him loads of math again and I'm pretty sure that he turned around with a pulled a gun out and Muhammad Ali's scarpers and then he fires it into his own coat and it was just blanks in the coat I'm pretty sure that it was quite big on guns.

24:23Sonny Liston. Yeah, it was a crazy one. The whole situation finally came to a head when Clay approached Liston at the desert inn in Las Vegas, where the champ was shooting craps and losing. Liston was in no mood to be harangued by the mouth from the South. Don't wind up. Do not wind up with Sonny Liston. Fucking hell. That's an incredible clip. Yeah. But he just pulls it out and shoots at him in the casino. Yeah. If you were just watching that, you would assume that the heavyweight champion just shot the contender. Like, there's big ways. There's one way to get rid of him, Jerome. New contender, please.

24:57That's crazy. But yeah, eventually all of this hype that Cassius is building up around their rivalry pays off and he gets his reward. So this fight is agreed. And still everyone sees Cassius as this massive underdog. Everyone thinks he's going to get knocked out in the first round. In the build up to the fight, he actually meets the Beatles who were on tour in the US at the time. So this is 1964. It's like peak of Beatlemania fans going crazy for them. And they come to his gym for a photo shoot. They'd actually wanted to get pictures with Sonny Liston before, because obviously he's the heavyweight champion, but he turned them down and they ended up going to meet Clay.

25:40When Sonny Liston refused to take photos with the Beatles, he said he'd seen some clips of them playing on TV and he said, my dog plays drums better than that kid with the big nose. A lot of people agree with that. Apparently John Lennon said, called Clay, that loud mouth who's going to lose, which is not going to... That's a very, very famous photo now. Yeah. They end up doing this iconic photo shoot where Muhammad Ali is sort of punching them down in like a line of dominoes. Apparently he said to them, you think you're good looking? you're not that good looking you're tiny small little men look at me again got a point yeah yeah you also apparently told them their music was shit it's weird because you it's pretty rude one that I'd always seen the pictures and assumed that they were like oh these icons together they must like what must they have talked about but actually they didn't get off off camera just hate each other yeah it's like ass off camera from the pod

26:44yeah wait till we'll do it We'll do a round at the end of this. But this fight against Sonia Lissan actually almost gets called off the day before because Clay's involved in a near drowning incident. So he goes out on a speedboat, despite the fact that he's not able to swim. And this boat capsizes and he has to be fished out of the water. This is the day before. It's just on it. You know, like I'm just comparing that to like to now, like, you know, the day before you have the weigh in. you probably weigh in and refuel you might have your team and a few lads around around you you might go and catch it you might go and get a Nando's and you go for a walk around a park and you'll go back in the hotel you'll rest you might do some light stretching get in the right mental space you know watch some inspirational videos and he's just out on the speedboat Daniel Dubois had his house party the day before which is just one of the things obviously it was just a big talking point because I was I was over in the camp with Usyk helping him spar prepare for the fight with Daniel and when I seen the when I seen that Daniel had been partying like been at a party or had a house party the day before compared to what I was seeing in the camp with Usyk I was just I was scratching my head thinking I need to go to the bookies because you know Usyk was like he's just like a deranged man like you you can't really you can't really fault his training.

28:13He's just relentless and just trains like an absolute machine. And you're off thinking, is this guy human? Because I'm a lot bigger than anyone who's just punching the shit out of me and they're their sparring partners. And we're thinking, how is this little man, he's not little, but you know, compared to what's so good. And then I always thought, Daniel is even really confident. He's just like having like a house party the night before the fight. It was the day of the fight. It was the day of the fight. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, bonkers. Honestly, God, like a crazy, crazy strategy to go into the biggest fight of your life.

28:47Yeah, also, he's already lost to Fury. To Usset, yeah. To Usset, yeah. Yeah, crazy. Well, maybe he was taking Muhammad Ali's lead. Well, it did work out for him because the fight does go ahead and it's one of the biggest shocks in boxing history up to that point. The fight actually ends in confusion because Sonny refuses to come out for round seven. He's got a bit of a shoulder injury. injury and that means of course that cassius clay is the heavyweight champion of the world and he instantly just starts dancing around the ring skipping screaming i am the greatest i am the greatest this is the moment that might be all ladies and gentlemen The dance is so good.

29:31Get up there, Joe. Get up there. Get up on the ring.

29:38I told you. I told you. I believe he was saying that. He was saying, I told you. Yeah, I told you. Who's he talking to? Everyone. Just everyone. The media. Obviously, the media just wrote him off. I think most people are saying he gets knocked out in three rounds by some of this stuff because he was that guy. He was just ending people. Yeah. And they just thought this young guy, big mouth. But the thing what actually changed, what's different to Muhammad Ali, back in those days, it was like, you just have two big lumps that were standing in front of each other and just punch each other. The dancing, the moving, he was the first real guy to just move around the ring and make it look like effortless.

30:19So a lot of people were just so confused by the style. The heavyweights were known to be big, strong, slow. So he wasn't that big compared to the rest of them. He was a lot faster. He put combinations together. He would dance around the ring. Obviously, that was all part of the taunting as well. So he was just a new look and no one could work him out for so long. No one could just get to grips with, what is this guy doing? He's supposed to stand here in front of me and hit me, but he's not there. He's dancing, he's singing, he's shouting, and he's also jabbing my head off at the same time. Yeah, amazing.

30:55And then you see he's dancing with joy at the end. The footwork is insane. Michael Jackson footwork. It's faster. Yeah. It's amazing. And just like that, he is a national star. He's, yeah. Like, I guess once in a while in sports, someone comes along who is not only a genius, like on the pitch, in the ring or whatever, but also off it, just such a star. Ticks all those boxes. The world's biggest soccer tournament has arrived and you can trade the entire tournament on Kalshi. On Kalshi, you can trade every match from the opening stage all the way to the final. On CalSHI, you're trading against peers in a live market, meaning there's no house.

31:30And as the probability changes, you can buy in and out of your position. For a limited time, download the CalSHI app and use code CUP26 to get$10 when you trade 10. K-A-L-S-H-I, CalSHI. Trade the beautiful game. 18 plus only restrictions and eligibility requirements apply. Event contract trading involves risk and may not be suitable for all investors. Prices, values, and available markets may differ from those mentioned. For more information, see calshii.com slash regulatory. The entire summer of soccer is on PrizePix. All 48 countries in every matchup. And if you rep your side before the round of 16 on PrizePix, you can win a trip to the finals in New York.

32:01It's the biggest tournament ever, which means there's even more opportunities to cash in while you root for your favorite national sides and global soccer stars. Download the app today and use code CUP26 to get$50 instantly in lineups when you play your first$5. Download the app today and use code CUP26 to get$50 instantly in lineups when you play your first$5. Prize Picks, America's number one sports picks app.

32:49access slash FIFA World Cup 2-6 for free entry, entry deadlines, prizes, and details. But he does prove to be a controversial star for a pretty conservative American public. He's already, because of his sort of gorgeous George Smack Talk thing, and because he's this kind of upstart, he's already sort of in the like more of the villain role in a pantomime sense, you know, a heel like in wrestling. But then it gets a lot more serious. So he reveals that he's a follower of the Nation of Islam, which is a relatively new religious movement that fuses ideas from islam with black nationalism and it's a big deal at the time you know we're right getting into right the peak of the civil rights struggle yeah it was like i think it was drove by like malcolm x i think he was like a big a big part of it so there's obviously you on you look at the pictures as malcolm x muhammad ali like together all the time and i think there was everyone was shocked at this this move and like i say it was big big news back then as it would have been like you know in the times and uh then it just went from there yeah and the the sort of the establishment of the press hate it i mean it's it like nation of islam's pushing a more violent message than someone like martin luther king who's talking about non-violence so it's it's more of a controversial direction um and cassius then cements his ties to it when a month after beating sonny liston he changes his name to muhammad ali and that's when and he becomes known by the name we know him today.

34:11And in a very divided nation that's pretty close to the brink of civil war in the 60s, this proves very controversial. Actually, even his own family aren't happy about it because his parents think that the nation of Islam are using him for money. A little bit rich from his dad, who is also doing the same thing. He's quite often getting Ali to fund him opening nightclubs and stuff like that, where he can shag freely. But anyway, this is such a big deal that the FBI intervene and begin tracking Ali's movements, bugging his phone, following him. They record him on the phone to Martin Luther King, actually, which is how we know that they actually got on very well.

34:48They were close. And then they dig in to his criminal past. All the FBI agents are deployed. What can they dig up about this controversial boxer? What is on his record? And then finally, the bombshell. They find that Muhammad Ali, formerly Cassius Clay, has seven traffic violations. Oh, no. Over a five-year period. Lock him off. Went 35 in a 30s old. To me, it doesn't feel like a matter for the FBI that he parked illegally. Get him off the streets. Failed to tax his vehicle for six months. Oh, my God. If they looked at my driving stuff, I'd be throwing the key away. My driving violations, parking tickets.

35:34Yeah. I'd be a goner. Just look at the state of my car. This is a fucking mess. Much like Ali's, I presume. Fortunately, despite the FBI recoiling in horror and closing the net on this traffic violator, there is one person in the world who can look past the six points on Ali's license. One day, Muhammad Ali is in his hotel room. He's lying on the bed relaxing when his manager, Herbert Muhammad, comes around. And he's brought this girl with him, Sonji Roy, who's a 23-year-old model and barmaid. And they open the door, she walks in, and Ali immediately springs off the bed and yelps, Girl, will you marry me?