As Mosley puts it, he was "a spark, and I was standing in a field of gasoline."
The documentary deftly balances Ali's biography and complicated personal life with his extraordinary gifts as a boxer, combining stunning hand and foot speed for a heavyweight with an ability to take a punch that would eventually become a liability, given the enormous toll that all those blows took on him.Former boxer Michael Bentt is especially good at describing Ali's skills, while sportswriter Dave Kindred articulates the guilt that many felt during later years, having thrilled to Ali's exploits and helped create the market that caused him to become a shadow of himself due to Parkinson's disease before his death in 2016.Ali's story also covers growing up Black in Kentucky -- and being greatly influenced by the murder of Emmett Till in 1955, who was only a year older -- winning gold at the 1960 Olympics, embracing Islam and declaring his conscientious objector status to the Vietnam war.That last decision not only triggered a backlash but interrupted his career at his apex, followed by regaining the championship multiple times, including his memorable fights with Joe Frazier.
Burns and company don't soft-peddle Ali's excesses and transgressions, from the racially tinged insults he flung at Frazier and before him Sonny Liston to his abandonment of Malcolm X, an action he later admitted regretting.Yet there is also the Ali who joshed with reporters, generously gave away money to strangers and spouted poetry as he boasted about his talents, claiming to have adopted that tactic after watching the wrestler Gorgeous George.Ali could also be brutal in the ring, toying with Floyd Patterson and pummeling Ernie Terrell -- who had insisted on calling him Cassius Clay -- yelling "What's my name?" at him between punches.The documentary is filled with those kind of details, such as Ali having lost to Ken Norton after not training seriously, and spending hours before the fight in bed with two women.