Boxing is just to introduce me to the struggle. Like, when I speak I draw people in the States to teach them various things or to give them dignity, pride and self-help. I have to help the dope and prostitution problem.
During my boxing career, you did not see the real Muhammad Ali. You just saw a little boxing and a little showmanship. It was after I retired from boxing that my true work began.
Sometimes I feel a lot of things but I keep it in. I'm sure we all have this built-in radar of what we predict and when it happens, we feel 'I knew it'.
I did not disregard my culture, if I did, it was the white American culture, and I accepted my true culture, when I accepted Mohammed Ali, because this is a black name, Islam is the black man's religion, and so I would like to say, that I would like to clarify that point that I reclaimed my real culture, and that's being a black man and wearing a black name with a black body, and not a white name, so I would never say that I didn't disown my culture.
I tell you what I really fear. I fear aeroplanes. When the flight's all right and smooth I'm still thinking, 'what if the engine blow up?' 'What if a fool's got a bomb on it?'
Someone stole my bicycle and I said I was going to learn to fight so that I could catch him and beat him up. But I never did catch him. But I ended up the champ of the whole world.