Ranking in heavyweight history

Ali is generally considered to be one of the greatest heavyweights of all time by boxing commentators and historians. Ring Magazine, a prominent boxing magazine, named him number 1 in a 1998 ranking of greatest heavyweights from all eras.

Ali was named the second greatest fighter in boxing history by ESPN.com behind only welterweight and middleweight great Sugar Ray Robinson. In December 2007, ESPN listed Ali second in its choice of the greatest heavyweights of all time, behind Joe Louis.

The Associated Press voted Ali the No. 1 heavyweight of the 20th century in 1999.

In the media and popular culture

As a world champion boxer and social activist, Ali has been the subject of numerous books, films and other creative works.

Ali has appeared on the cover of Sports Illustrated on 37 different occasions, second only to Michael Jordan.

Ali had a cameo role in the 1962 film version of Requiem for a Heavyweight, and during his exile, he starred in the short-lived Broadway musical, Buck White (1969).

In 1963, Ali released an album of spoken word on Columbia Records titled I Am the Greatest, and in 1964, he recorded the song "Stand by Me".

Ali appeared in the documentary film Black Rodeo (1972) riding both a horse and a bull. His autobiography The Greatest: My Own Story, written with Richard Durham, was published in 1975. In 1977 the book was adapted into a film called The Greatest, in which Ali played himself and Ernest Borgnine played Angelo Dundee.

The film Freedom Road, made in 1978, features Muhammad Ali in a rare acting role as Gideon Jackson, an ex-slave in 1870s Virginia who gets elected to the U.S. Senate in Washington, D.C., and battles other former slaves and white sharecroppers to keep the land they have tended all their lives. On the set of Freedom Road Ali met Canadian singer-songwriter Michel, and subsequently helped create Michel's album entitled The First Flight of the Gizzelda Dragon. and the hour-long television show With Love From Muhammad Ali.

Ali was the subject of This Is Your Life in 1978 when he was surprised by Eamonn Andrews.

In 1979, Ali guest-starred as himself in an episode of the NBC sitcom Diff'rent Strokes.

The Muhammad Ali Effect, named after Ali, is a term that came into use in psychology in the 1980s, as he stated in his autobiography The Greatest: My Own Story: "I only said I was the greatest, not the smartest." According to this effect, when people are asked to rate their intelligence and moral behavior in comparison to others, people will rate themselves as more moral, but not more intelligent than others.

When We Were Kings, a 1996 documentary about the Rumble in the Jungle, won an Academy Award, and the 2001 biopic Ali garnered an Oscar nomination for Will Smith's portrayal of the lead role.[148] The latter film was directed by Michael Mann, with mixed reviews, the positives given to Smith's portrayal of Ali. Prior to making the film, Smith rejected the role until Ali requested that he accept it. Smith said the first thing Ali told him was: "Man you're almost pretty enough to play me."

In 2002, for his contributions to the entertainment industry, Ali was honored with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6801 Hollywood Boulevard.[150] His star is the only one to be mounted on a vertical surface, out of deference to his request that his name not be walked upon.

The Trials of Muhammad Ali, a documentary directed by Bill Siegel that focuses on Ali's refusal of the draft during the Vietnam War, opened in Manhattan on August 23, 2013. A made-for-TV movie called Muhammad Ali's Greatest Fight, also in 2013, dramatized the same aspect of Ali's life.