Boxing is a stepping stone just to introduce me to the audience. If I was still in Louisville, Kentucky and never was a boxer I still might get killed next week in some kind of freedom struggle and you'd ever hear the news.
The same people that are with me for not going to Vietnam because I saved them and their children.The same people will give me hell if I turn to them and say, 'let's free my people now'.They're with me on one part of my beliefs about the war, that's all. Not for my freedom.
Cassius Clay is a name that white people gave to my slave master. Now that I am free, that I don't belong anymore to anyone, that I'm not a slave anymore, I gave back their white name, and I chose a beautiful African one.
Sonny Liston is nothing. The man can't talk. The man can't fight. The man needs talking lessons. The man needs boxing lessons. And since he's gonna fight me, he needs falling lessons.
I'm a fighter. I believe in the eye-for-an-eye business. I'm no cheek turner. I got no respect for a man who won't hit back. You kill my dog, you better hide your cat.
I have more fans and more followers and more supporters. Because the people who actually saw the Joe Frazier Muhammad Ali fight, they saw me win at least nine rounds - the people who know boxing.
When I was a kid I got mad enough to want to kill somebody but as you travel the world and I'm struggling with a freedom fight against nations, you can't get enough hate in you to be mad at one man just because it's a boxing match. Never. Even Floyd Paterson, who condemned my Islamic religion and didn't want to call me Muhammad Ali and said I should've gone to the army and I should be in jail.