Advent 23

I've thought long and hard about this one - today's entry on the list could easily have been held back for Door 24 on the old calendar. The sport in which he excelled can leave me queasy but also at its best delivers a fearsome nobility. It is, of course, boxing and he, of course, is Muhammad Ali.

Olympic champion at light heavyweight, professionally he went to war with other big beasts in the heavyweight division - the list of the vanquished is compelling: Liston, Cooper, Patterson, Frasier, Norton and, most memorably of all, George Foreman. Ali was the most famous man on the planet. GOAT.

Who will it be tomorrow?

Advent 2

Part Canadian (he won his Olympic gold as a Canadian), part Englishman (he was born and initially schooled in London), Lennox Lewis sometimes struggled to enthuse his British audience but the fact is that he was the last undisputed Heavyweight Champion of the World, unifying the alphabet soup of sanctioning bodies and honourably standing above the machinations of the crook Don King. He lost twice in his professional career and avenged both defeats.

Boxing always leaves one grubbily sceptical - should we really be entertained by the sight of men (and women these days) battering each other around the head? Possibly not, but notwithstanding the brutality and the promotional excess, it can give us a rugged nobility. Lewis got out with his marbles and his fortune intact and by the standards of the sport behaved at all times with an outstanding dignity. And eventually he won over the British public who acclaimed him Sports Personality of the Year in 1999. Quite right too.

The Greatest

You think the world was shocked when Nixon resigned?

Wait 'til I whup George Foreman's behind.

Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee.

His hand can't hit what his eyes can't see.

Now you see me, now you don't.

George thinks he will, but I know he won't.

I done wrassled with an alligator, I done tussled with a whale.

Only last week I murdered a rock, injured a stone, hospitalized a brick.

I'm so mean, I make medicine sick.

Prior to the Rumble in the Jungle 1974
Muhammad Ali 1942 - 2016