Well, the movie was not as good but still Will Smith delivers

Rating: 6/10 (9 January 2007)

I can remember that scene when Cassius fought Liston for 6 rounds, and then, stunning both the crowd and boxing experts who believed the Cassius would lose the heavyweight championship fight, by overwhelming Liston in the seventh, causing Liston to drop his mouth-guard and quit fighting. I realized something unusual in Cassius....he used his trash-talking and poetry to reveal himself as the people's boxer. That was some technical knock-out that Liston put on himself, and Liston, later on in the flick, wanted a rematch with Cassius.
What was scary was how they set up the assassination of Ali's friend, Malcolm X, after trying to speak at the pulpit. From the first rifle shot that took out half of the lectern to the additional shots that were probably done for good measure, I could see why the 1960s were perhaps the most fearful time for African-Americans in the USA.
And I was speculating why did the Selective Service made a classification change in Cassius Clay, from being disqualified after taking the Armed Forces Test to being inducted to the U.S. Armed Forces. Probably the Selective Service wanted him in the U.S. Army because of his hand-to-hand fighting skills as a boxer, but this might be an inside job by both the CIA and the FBI, who wanted Cassius out of the country to keep other Blacks in the USA from being an idol to him because of his involvement in the Nation of Islam. Or, perhaps the U.S. Government may have thought of Ali as an Pan-Africanism activist who wants to go abroad to avoid the turbulent 1960s in the USA.
And so, Cassius starts his fight with the Selective Service, refusing to be inducted when required to, gets arrested and goes to trial for refusing to be inducted. He then becomes a full-blown antiwar activist and he realizes that things are going down for being an activist...his boxing license was taken away, he could not fight in Mexico, and eventually, he was found guilty. His lawyers starts the appeal process of his maximum 5-year federal prison sentence, but they themselves are fighting like Ali. The appellate court rejected the sentence appeal and they had to go to the Supreme Court. It is either that, or Cassius gets 5 years in jail. And even worse, one of the lawyers hears the gunshot heard around the USA---that gunshot that killed one of the most important civil rights leaders in the USA--Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
Well, it was a twist when Howard Cossell said to Ali that the Supreme Court accepted the appeal, keeping Ali out of jail and overturning his conviction.
Now, all of Ali's eyes were on Jo Frazier. He wanted a rematch but Jo got knocked out by George Foreman, dethroning Jo Frazier's heavyweight crown. Now Ali had to think about George Foreman instead of Jo Frazier.
The boxing fight in Kinshasa, Zaire was rather boring, even in the scene involving the "Bumaye Ali!" chant before the big fight, but it was George Foreman's fearful presence that kept it too boring.