Why Ali was so captivating inside the ring and out

	Muhammad Ali's rivalry with Joe Frazier has become the stuff of boxing legend. Tony Triolo/SI

Totally uninhibited, brashly outrageous, Muhammad Ali first burst onto our consciousness shouting, "Ain't never been nothing like me."

That there wasn't. And there won't ever be again. So on Ali's 65th birthday let's stop with this sanitization of who he truly was. Sure today he's a serene picture of benevolence. But it's the rough edges that made him the greatest of all-time. And if we keep smoothing them out, we lose the story of why we celebrate him.

In 1960, when he was still Cassius Clay, Ali won a gold medal at the Rome Olympics. Anyone who'd seen his body knew, doctor Ferdie Pacheco said, "He was the most perfect physical specimen." But that didn't give Ali a particularly high profile then and when he first took on Sonny Liston for the heavyweight title in February 1964. No one thought the 22-year-old from Louisville, Ky., had much of a chance.

Ali boasted, "Save your money, don't bet on Sonny." He baited Liston as "a big, ugly bear," and yet barely half of the Miami venue was filled. He was a 7-1 underdog and when Liston quit, after the sixth round, Ali's stunning reign officially began.

He defended his title an unbelievable nine times between 1965 and '67. He became the first heavyweight to be crowned champion of the world three separate times (in '64, '74 and '78) and he ultimately fought more fights of the year and was named Fighter of the Year more times than any other man. Of course, if that was it, you wouldn't be reading this.

Right after the Liston fight, Ali began riling people. He was a force of personality in a pivotal political time, boxing in his own willful style, bragging unrelentingly and saying whatever he damn well thought. He was a mess of contradictions, carrying all the conflicting traits of that tumultuous decade. And people despised him.

Longtime Newark (N.J.) Star-Ledger writer Jerry Izenberg has been covering -- and has been friends with -- Ali since the Olympics in Rome and when he looks back now, he says, "There was a segment of this country that was afraid of Ali. They didn't know how to deal with him."

Before Ali, black athletes were deferential, like Jesse Owens. They were non-threatening like Joe Louis, they were corporate-approved like Jackie Robinson -- who campaigned for Nixon against JFK in 1960 -- and their ultimate laudatory label was "credit to his race."

Not Ali. He was profane and he was audacious. He aligned himself with the Black Muslims, a group that spoke of "blue-eyed devils," he changed his name and he cut off the brilliant Malcolm X for the far more radical Elijah Muhammad. He paraded his mistress around as a wife (he's on his fourth now).

He played games and he could be vicious. In '67, after Ernie Terrell insistently spent a month calling him Clay, Ali mercilessly -- and unnecessarily -- kept their bout going 15 rounds, screaming, "What's my name?" at the bloodied Terrell.