*Via Rare
The trash-talking, larger than life Muhammad Ali was known around the world for his colorful personality as much—and perhaps more—than what he actually did in the ring.
But this wasn't always the case for a young Cassius Clay. As Ali once explained, "Before I became champ, I used to go in the ring and fight and when I went to the dressing room, people didn't pay much attention to me."
Then he got an idea.
"I was the only champion that didn't have no jack jangling in his jeans," Ali lamented. "So I studied Gorgeous George and began doing his act better than he did it."
Gorgeous George was one of the most famous pro wrestlers of the 1950s and 60s, a flamboyant villain who was perfect for the golden age of television, bending gender roles and berating audiences like no other before him.
And Gorgeous George constantly talked about how great he was. The future Muhammad Ali really liked that.
As the Philadelphia Inquirer reported of Gorgeous George's influence on Ali in 1992:
"One night, I was watching Gorgeous George on TV. He was jumping around making a lot of noise and threatening his opponents and I said to myself, 'this guy's on to something.' I think I'll put some of that in my act."
He also told reporters he probably owed Gorgeous George a lot of money: "Wasn't for him, nobody would have heard of me," Ali insisted."I didn't use no perfume or high heels, but I became real boisterous and the fans began paying attention to me. They hated my poetry and came to see if I would knock out my opponents in the round I'd predict. Fans would spend their money and rush to my fights, hoping to see me get my head whupped."
Ali met Gorgeous George in 1961. As The Guardian notes:
After turning professional, Clay won six fights in six months. Then, on a Las Vegas radio show to promote his seventh contest, he met the wrestler 'Gorgeous' George Wagner, whose promotional skills got audiences coming to watch. As Ali later told his biographer Thomas Hauser: "[George] started shouting: 'If this bum beats me I'll crawl across the ring and cut off my hair, but it's not gonna happen because I'm the greatest fighter in the world.' And all the time, I was saying to myself: 'Man. I want to see this fight' And the whole place was sold out when Gorgeous George wrestled ... including me ... and that's when I decided if I talked more, there was no telling how much people would pay to see me."
Will Smith famously portrayed Muhammad Ali in 2001. A movie about the life Gorgeous George is currently in development.
