Here's a video that works in pieces of an interview from 1974 with Muhammad Ali and David Frost, and also gets Ali's thoughts much later in life on that same interview, which was pretty controversial to be sure.

The things Muhammad Ali was saying and doing in 1974 -- it's so hard for me to really gauge or really understand how truly controversial this was, because this had real impact. I'm not trying to make light of the bad or inappropriate things athletes or celebrities might say now, but Ali had true convictions and really believed what he was doing was right. Add in his overwhelmingly powerful personality and the massive chip on his shoulder, plus the fact that he was obviously a professional fighter, and Ali had a serious air of danger about him. He was really fearless.

Modern day Ali is sad to watch. I try not to "feel sorry for him," because he's said many times he doesn't feel sorry for himself, and doesn't want others to feel sorry for him, but it just feels like we were robbed of something more with Ali in his later years.

If you're like me, you love Dean Martin Celebrity Roasts. So in honor of Muhammad Ali's 70th birthday, here's the Ali roast. And it has Gabe Kaplan!!! (To be fair to Mr. Kotter, he has a pretty good Floyd Patterson glass chin joke.)

A pretty decent roast, and unlike modern roasts, you know, not vulgar for the sake of vulgar (I find vulgarity funny, I'm not a prude, but the Comedy Central roasts always lose their edge after 30 minutes or so). Plus this lineup of talent is so incredibly varied -- everyone's not on the same tone all the way through.

I think my favorite part is definitely Patterson losing it on "credit to your rice." Red Buttons was just tremendous. I also really like the Georgia Engel act here; I always like when someone does comedy within their comedy at these things, like Norm MacDonald did at the Bob Saget roast, which may be among my 20 favorite things to ever happen.

Back in 1990, NBC had lost Major League Baseball and had some major holes to fill in their sports programming. One of the things they decided to do was look back at some of history's greatest fights, with feature programs covering classic bouts and showing the fights, with present day discussion to go along with them.

The first fight they chose? "The Rumble in the Jungle," Ali vs Foreman from 1974 -- maybe Muhammad Ali's most iconic performance ever.

This goes along with what I said earlier about there not being a Muhammad Ali in today's fight game, or hell, in today's sports world. When we have these "super fights" today, the proof that they were relevant is entirely about gate figures, about pay-per-view numbers. I don't mean to do the whole "good old days" bit, but we don't really measure a Floyd Mayweather fight in terms of cultural impact, you know? Ali's biggest fights were true events, truly relevant.

They meant something bigger than just the result of a boxing match and how many people paid to see it and how much money everyone made. Obviously all of those things mattered then, too, but they weren't what mattered most. That's why it's almost 40 years later and we're talking about this fight. Will Mayweather vs De La Hoya live on like this?

This is a clip from one of the countless TV specials that have been dedicated to Muhammad Ali over the last 30 years. One of the brutal realities of boxing as a spectator sport, and for fans of the sport, is that eventually, you will watch your favorite fighters lose it. It's never pretty. This is a demanding, violent, often cringe-inducing profession.

But there may have never been a sadder exit from the sport, on such a massive level, with video evidence to relive painfully, than that of Muhammad Ali. This clip focuses on his fight with Larry Holmes in October 1980. Ali was, to be kind, a shell of his former self. He was nowhere near the man who had once ruled the ring.

[ Related: Ali Tribute Video From GP ]

Ali, of course, lost badly, and would lose badly again in another ill-advised comeback attempt in 1981 against Trevor Berbick. Ali did not win a single second of his fight with Holmes, who had the unfortunate and regrettable task of having to pummel a legend.

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"I begged him -- begged him to quit. He said to me, 'I wanna show you something,' and he took his shirt off. It was absolutely mind-boggling. He looked exactly the way he looked when he fought Sonny Liston the first time. And I said, 'That doesn't prove anything, Muhammad.' And he said, 'Well, I fooled you then, and I'm gonna fool you tomorrow.' And I wish he had." -- Jerry Izenberg

"Then they rang the bell. And within a round, you knew it wasn't Ali." -- Ron Borges

"To watch him just get beaten up without putting up a fight -- he's just standing in a corner, just being beaten to a pulp. It brought tears to my eyes." -- Charley Steiner

"I remember sitting there at ringside, and Holmes shouting to the referee, 'Stop this! Stop it! I'm gonna hurt him!' And then boom, hitting him. I don't think Ali hit him five times all night. It was the saddest sports event I ever covered." -- John Schulian

Today, Muhammad Ali, "The Greatest" himself, turned 70 years old. Without going into a lengthy and I'm certain familiar history of his professional accomplishments, and of his greatness in the ring, I do want to say one thing: When you talk about Muhammad Ali, you are talking about more than a great fighter, more than a great boxer, more than a great athlete. I talk about boxers all the time. But Muhammad Ali -- it's just different.

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James Foley returns to Bad Left Hook this morning with a simple and valid question: What happened to boxing in the city of Chicago?

As a frustrated boxing fan in Chicago, I often wonder why my humble city no longer plays host to any big prize-fights. This isn't a recent development; it's been decades since the city was any kind of a player. One look at Chicago's unique ethnic blend, top-three in the country in African-American, Mexican, and Puerto-Rican populations, seems to indicate serious potential to once again become a major market in the sport. It would help if there were a local product to rally around. If not, I'm cool adopting Sergio Martinez. Decent Argentine population here as well.

One of my other stock arguments is ‘the city has one of the richest, most storied traditions in boxing' and a little research makes that undeniable. It may have been fifty years since the last entry, but Chicago was home to some of the biggest, bloodiest, most significant matches in the history of the sport. I would even go so far as to suggest if you made a top ten list for every city in the world, only New York and Las Vegas would slightly edge Chicago in terms of the fights they've produced. Here are ten of the most notable fights that have taken place here.

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This week especially, but in the overall build-up to Khan vs Peterson on Saturday night at the Convention Center in Washington, DC, we have heard a lot about DC boxing, about rebuilding the sport's presence in the nation's capital, and about the history of the sweet science there.

But truth be told, history for DC boxing is a little bit thin.

That's not to say that there haven't been great fighters from the area, because there have been. Or that there haven't been great fighters from outside come through the city, because they've done so. But it's hard to argue that DC has ever been a truly major boxing hub, with the most major activity coming in the 1990s thanks to a group of homegrown (or close to it) fighters who put the city on the map.

Let's take a look back at boxing in Washington, DC, over the last 50 years.

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Showtime analyst Steve Farhood takes a look at the ten biggest and most significant fights in the short history of the super middleweight division, as Andre Ward and Carl Froch put the finishing touches on their preparation for the December 17 Super Six World Boxing Classic final, and the fight for the vacant Ring Magazine championship of the world.

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On December 17, every eye in boxing will be glued to the super middleweight battle between WBA titlist Andre Ward and WBC titlist Carl Froch, who will clash in Atlantic City in The Final of the Super Six World Boxing Classic.

The super middleweight division was born in 1984, when Scotland's Murray Sutherland was crowned IBF champion. Since then, many of the greatest fighters of their generation, including Sugar Ray Leonard, Thomas Hearns, Roy Jones, James Toney, and Joe Calzaghe, have engaged in 168-pound title bouts.

Ward-Froch will be the 76th unification bout in boxing, and the sixth at super middleweight. Given the immense stakes, it will be one of the most critical contests in the division's 27-year history.

To date, the 10 most significant super middleweight title bouts:

1. Roy Jones W 12 James Toney, November 18, 1994, Las Vegas (Jones retains IBF title): Those who insist Jones ducked the best available opposition conveniently choose to forget this fight. Toney, 44-0-2, is ranked second pound-for-pound, Jones, 26-0, seventh. Toney drains himself making weight, rehydrates until he is a bag of water, and performs accordingly. Jones scores a knockdown in round three en route to a clear-cut decision win.

2. Sugar Ray Leonard D 12 Thomas Hearns, June 12, 1989, Las Vegas (Leonard retains WBC title; Hearns retains WBO title): The legends are rematched eight years after their historic unification battle at welterweight. While both are past their primes, they produce a thrilling duel, with Leonard, 35-1, suffering knockdowns in rounds three and 11, and Hearns, 46-3, barely surviving round 12. Almost no one agrees with the decision, including Leonard, whose thought before the announcement of the decision is, "The only uncertainty left was the margin of [my] defeat."

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