Doesn’t every boxer dream of achieving the success Muhammad Ali enjoyed? Heavyweight champion, sporting icon, and so much more. They certainly do! However, former three-division undisputed champion Terence Crawford fears exactly that. But why? 

‘Bud’ retired from the sport earlier this year with an undefeated record after defeating one of the greatest boxers of the current generation, Canelo Alvarez. While he had plenty of options to further his legacy, he chose to end things—because of what happened to Ali in later years. 

Terence Crawford wants to be able to take care of himself

“We all look up to Ali as the most iconic boxer ever, and to see him deteriorate [as] he did, we don’t want to be like that,” Crawford told Ryan Clark and Channing Crowder on the Pivot Podcast. Famously, Muhammad Ali suffered from Parkinson’s disease, diagnosed in 1984 at age 42, just three years after retiring from boxing.

To say he was a shell of his former self would be an understatement. Many attributed the disease to the punishment he took inside the ring, fighting till the age of 39. The disease progressively limited Ali’s physical abilities and speech, transforming the once incredibly fast and talkative individual into a quieter figure who moved slowly and deliberately. 

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He lived with it for over 30 years until he died in 2016. And Terence Crawford doesn’t even want to imagine living like that. “You’re the greatest fighter of all time, but you can’t even take care of yourself. You can’t even wash your own a—,” Crawford continued. “Do I want to go through that? Is it worth it? No, it’s not! It’s not worth it.”

‘Bud’ highlighted that boxers often ignore the damage they take in their prime. And warned that the punishment today will come back to bite them in the future. “That’s going to show up 5 years later,” Crawford told Clark and Crowder during the podcast. He claimed that fighters aren’t “unbreakable,” they are just good at enduring it because of “our family.”

This philosophy is also reflected in his fighting style, as he took far less damage throughout his boxing career, thanks to the skills he developed. And Crawford’s fears aren’t far-fetched. The sport is filled with former champions who deteriorated in the later years of their lives. Not to mention the in-ring deaths in boxing. 

Regardless, what did Ali himself feel about his condition? 

Muhammad Ali claimed he was a prisoner in his own body

Before his death, Ali’s longtime manager, Gene Kilroy, revealed living with Parkinson’s disease made Ali feel like “a prisoner in his own body.” Despite the severe physical limitations caused by the illness, Kilroy stressed that Ali’s mind remained unaffected. “Mind is good,” Kilroy said. 

“It’s hard seeing him as he is today. He can just about walk, and his speech is slurred. It takes huge effort for him to make the simplest communication now, but when he does, every word is worthwhile,” Kilroy added. Ali reflected on his condition with honesty and faith. 

“Maybe God is punishing me for some of the things I didn’t do right,” he told Kilroy, before adding that he believed God would ask not what a person had done, but “what you could’ve done.”

Muhammad Ali’s tale is one of pride, yet tragedy accompanied it closely behind, something Terence Crawford wants to avoid. Do you agree with him?