Former heavyweight boxing champion Muhammad Ali listens to Sen. Harry Reid (D-Nev.) testify in April 1999 on a bill to reform the boxing business. It was one of several appearances that Ali has made on Capitol Hill through the years to discuss ways of making boxing a safer sport.
Today is the 36th anniversary of the “Fight of the Century,” the first of three epic battles between Ali and Joe Frazier. That first 15-round bout, at New York’s Madison Square Garden, drew an array of celebrities from politics, sports, show business and the literary world. Frazier outpointed Ali in a controversial decision to retain the heavyweight crown, but Ali would go on to win their next two fights.
Reid, who has since become the powerful Senate Majority Leader, was an amateur boxer in his youth, and is a lifelong boxing fan.