Sports Final: The Legacy Of Muhammad Ali
BOSTON (CBS) -- Boxing legend Muhammad Ali, one of the greatest athletes to ever grace the earth, passed away at the age of 74 on Saturday.
There will never be another like Ali, who was simply known as "The Greatest." The Boston Herald's Steve Buckley joined WBZ-TV's Steve Burton on Sunday night's Sports Final to reflect on Ali's legacy.
"We have no way to fathom how enormously marketable and popular he would be [today]," said Buckley. "He transcended race and the sport in which he participated in. You didn't have to be [a boxing fan to know who Muhammad Ali was]. It was sort of like Tiger [Woods] later on with Golf.
"To me, it was the whole Vietnam thing. As a child I couldn't understand why we collectively were protesting Vietnam, because as a child you don't understand global politics. What Ali did was invite all kinds of people who otherwise wouldn't have thought things through that prism to look at Vietnam and to look at race, to look at all of that," said Buckley.
Burton said he became friends with Ali, and he once told him he was the greatest ever. Ali replied by saying, "the greatest fighter never threw a punch."
Watch Buckley and Burton's full discussion on Ali and his legacy in the video above, and tune in to Sports Final every Sunday night at 11:35pm on WBZ-TV.