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How accurate is Amazon's new drama about the greatest of all time? Join us as we break down what "The Greatest" gets right and wrong about Muhammad Ali's early career! From Gorgeous George's real influence on Cassius Clay to the truth behind the Ohio River gold medal story, we're separating boxing history from Hollywood drama. Did the show get it right?
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00:00Welcome to WatchMojo, and today we're examining the factual accuracy of Amazon's new drama, The Greatest, which chronicles the early
00:08career of Muhammad Ali.
00:10You might have heard of me. I'm Cassius Clay, future heavyweight champion.
00:17Number 10. Gorgeous George's Influence. Fact.
00:21I am now joined by the only man with a mouth as big as mine, wrestling's pride, joy, and beautiful
00:28boy, Gorgeous George.
00:30The show depicts young Cassius Clay discovering the golden rule of sports entertainment, boisterous self-promotion sells tickets.
00:37He learns this from flamboyant wrestling icon, Gorgeous George, and the encounter is authentic.
00:43While preparing for a bout in Las Vegas in 1961, the 19-year-old Clay shared a radio studio with
00:49George.
00:50Well, you're not listening. I am not human. I am a god.
00:56And don't be mad that I look better in a gown than your wife does, but don't worry.
01:01I'll be sure to give her some beauty tips after the show at my victory celebration.
01:06The wrestling star's theatricality and boastful persona captivated Clay, who realized that fans would pay top dollar to see an
01:13arrogant, loudmouthed get humble.
01:15Ali routinely credited George with teaching him how to market himself, transforming Clay's natural charisma into the boisterous, trash-talking
01:23spectacle that defined his public persona.
01:25And sports marketing forever.
01:28And that night when Gorgeous George went to the wrestling ring, all the natives were booing and the people were
01:33so mad, the place was full.
01:35Everybody paid a high price to come in.
01:37And at that moment, I said, this is a good idea.
01:40Number 9. Sonny Liston's Gladiator Fights. Fiction.
01:53Sonny Liston's time inside Missouri State was a brutal one with underground, blood-soaked gladiator circuits run by corrupt officials.
02:01That's what the show depicts anyway.
02:07In reality, Liston's boxing began in a structured, state-sanctioned recreation program.
02:13Guided by Catholic chaplains, Liston trained with standard equipment in a supervised prison gym, not in bare-knuckle brawls.
02:21His devastating punching power actually left him without opponents, as fellow inmates quickly refused to spar with him.
02:27Viewing boxing as legitimate rehabilitation, the priests arranged outside sparring partners, lobbied the parole board, and secured early community sponsors
02:37to help Liston earn early parole in 1952.
02:42After Sonny went to prison, a Catholic priest, Father Stevens, talked to him and he'd go out for boxing.
02:49And then after Sonny won the championship at the prison very easily, Father Stevens was so impressed.
02:56First he got Sonny a parole, and then later on he arranged for him to introduce him into professional fighting
03:02and got him some managers.
03:04Number 8. The Louisville Sponsoring Group. Fact.
03:08You need to put your faith in someone you can trust.
03:12Someone who's proven themselves, Cassius. Someone who's been there for you.
03:16Not someone who's only coming around because you've got that metal hanging around your neck now.
03:20I hear you, Mr. Reynolds.
03:22Ain't that someone as you?
03:25What, do you believe I fit the definition, don't I?
03:27The Greatest shows Clay's early professional career being financed by a syndicate of affluent white businessmen.
03:34This arrangement was completely real.
03:36In late 1960, 11 wealthy Kentucky executives formed the Louisville Sponsoring Group.
03:42They backed Clay with a salaried stipend, covered his training expenses, and held his fight purses in trust,
03:49insulating the young fighter from the organized crime syndicates that dominated mid-century boxing.
03:53Here, on page 3, where it says that 25% of total earnings must go into a trust set aside
04:00for the athlete,
04:00does Cassius also receive the profits from that trust?
04:04Absolutely.
04:05Earnings from the trust will be accumulated and invested with any income becoming corpus,
04:10until the athlete reaches 35 years of age.
04:16While the partnership frequently produced paternalistic friction and social tension,
04:21the business backing still provided Clay with financial stability
04:24and an uncommon degree of career autonomy before he seized ultimate control.
04:29Here was a group that told him he was beautiful, he was strong,
04:35he was better than the white people who discriminated against him.
04:39Number 7.
04:40Tossing the gold medal into the Ohio River.
04:43Fiction.
04:51One of the series' most emotionally charged moments shows Clay throwing his Olympic gold medal off a bridge
04:57into the Ohio River after facing segregation back home.
05:01While Ali himself popularized the story in his autobiography, historians and biographers have largely dismissed it.
05:08They claim that while Clay unquestionably encountered severe racism upon returning home,
05:12the dramatic toss of the medal never occurred.
05:16Cassius Clay had a gold medal around his neck,
05:19and he goes into a luncheonette for a bowl of soup,
05:22and he's refused service.
05:24And somebody behind the counter says,
05:26Do you know who that is?
05:28He's the hometown boy, he just won a gold medal.
05:31Close friends, including Ali's longtime photographer, Howard Bingham,
05:34revealed that Clay simply misplaced the medal around 1961 and never found it again.
05:40Historians argue that the tale was largely shaped by Richard Durham,
05:44a political writer who co-authored the memoir with Ali and shaped much of its narrative structure.
05:50It was very dissatisfied that, you know, he'd come on the way back home.
05:53You couldn't eat at the lunch counters.
05:55You couldn't go to the movies.
05:57A lot of places, you couldn't even go to the bathroom.
06:00Number 6.
06:01Volatile family dynamics.
06:03Fact.
06:18The series dives deep into the turbulent home life of the Clay family,
06:22highlighting the friction between young Cassius and his father.
06:26Unlike earlier screen adaptations that softened Cassius Sr. into an eccentric figure,
06:30historical records corroborate this more complex portrait.
06:34How many times have you heard people around town say he's just like his daddy?
06:37No, they might say it, but that don't make it true.
06:39I don't smoke, I don't drink, I don't put my hands on women.
06:42Cassius Sr. was a talented painter and a muralist burdened by deferred artistic ambitions,
06:47racial frustrations, and struggles with substance use disorder,
06:51which frequently sparked heated domestic disputes.
06:53The elder Clay was notoriously volatile and deeply skeptical of his son's career managers
06:59and spiritual mentors.
07:01The show accurately reflects how this domestic instability shaped Ali's fierce independence
07:06and relentless drive to dictate his own destiny.
07:09One night, the police were called there.
07:12The father, Cassius, was gone.
07:14And Muhammad Ali had a slash in his thigh,
07:18obviously from a knife or a razor or something like that.
07:21And I talked to the policeman who rolled out to the scene,
07:24and he said, they didn't want to prosecute,
07:26they didn't even want to tell me who did it.
07:27He said, I was pretty sure that Cassius Sr. did it.
07:30There were some heavy-duty scenes in that house.
07:32Number five, the glove fiasco.
07:36Fact.
07:37Tear. He's got a tear.
07:39We got a tear.
07:40He's got a hole.
07:41That's absolute rubbish.
07:43Time's up, and you're not looking at it.
07:45Dramatized within the show is Clay's dramatic 1963 bout
07:49against British champion Henry Cooper in London's Wembley Stadium.
07:53Within the scene, Angelo Dundee manipulates a rip in Clay's glove
07:57as a stalling tactic after his fighter gets knocked down.
08:00While it's true that Dundee ripped a seam and showed it to the referee,
08:04the idea that this bought Clay an extensive fight-saving delay of several minutes
08:08is a persistent boxing myth.
08:10He's got a slight tear in his glove. He needs a replacement.
08:13They're stalling!
08:14There are no extra gloves.
08:16If he can't continue, he has to forfeit.
08:19Archival BBC footage confirms that the rest of the interval
08:22between rounds four and five lasted about 66 seconds,
08:27only six extra seconds beyond the standard one-minute break.
08:30Just as is depicted in the show, no replacement glove was given to Clay,
08:34and he was forced to continue under threat of defeat.
08:37And something extraordinary has happened because
08:41referee Tommy Little has gone over to the timekeeper to ask something.
08:45Number four.
08:47Henry Cooper's severe blood loss.
08:49Fact.
08:52I'm the greatest.
08:53I am the greatest.
08:55Even aside from the famous time-delay tactic,
08:58the brutal choreography of the showdown against Henry Cooper
09:01hits almost every historical beat accurately.
09:03Clay arrived in London predicting that he would conquer Cooper inside five rounds,
09:08only to get dropped flat on his back by Cooper's signature left hook,
09:12Henry's hammer, at the bell of round four.
09:14Let's work, baby!
09:15Let's go!
09:17Let's go!
09:19Let's go!
09:19Clay's made of him.
09:20Right on the bell.
09:22The bell has sounded.
09:23And he's up at about three, Clay.
09:27That was the end of the fourth round,
09:28and he hit him about two seconds before the end of the round.
09:31A visibly dazed Clay rose on unsteady legs,
09:35returned to his corner,
09:36and turned the tide in round five.
09:38He then unleashed a devastating flurry
09:41that tore open Cooper's fragile scar tissue over his eye
09:44and caused blood to pour from his head.
09:46The extensive blood loss caused referee Tommy Little
09:49to call a stoppage in the fifth round,
09:51exactly as Clay had foretold.
09:54There was no alternative.
09:56He had to stop the fight, Tommy Little.
09:58It's all over in round five.
10:01And Clay is getting bombarded with programs
10:04from Angry Ringsiders.
10:06Number three.
10:07The estrangement of Malcolm X.
10:10Fact.
10:11Well, they are certainly enjoying the change of scenery.
10:16I hope you are too, Brother Malcolm.
10:18You know, I know these past days
10:23have been difficult.
10:28I need to know you learned your lesson.
10:30There was a simmering paranoia
10:32and deepening rift between Malcolm X
10:35and the Nation of Islam's High Command
10:36during this pivotal era.
10:38And this fracturing is accurately depicted in the show.
10:42Behind closed doors,
10:43Malcolm's standing with Elijah Muhammad
10:45had been severely fractured by late 1963.
10:49This widening divide was driven by internal jealousy
10:52over Malcolm's soaring media profile,
10:54moral disputes,
10:55and his controversial remarks
10:57following President Kennedy's assassination,
10:59which triggered a formal silencing order.
11:01The Chicago leadership
11:02deeply distrusted Malcolm's independent platform
11:05and grew increasingly anxious
11:07over his sway with Cassius Clay.
11:09Less than two weeks after the Liston bout,
11:11Malcolm formally announced his departure
11:13from the movement,
11:14making the show's tense internal politics
11:17historically authentic.
11:18Elijah Muhammad taught his followers
11:20that the only solution was a separate state
11:23for black people.
11:24And as long as I thought
11:26he genuinely believed that himself,
11:28I believed in him
11:29and believed in his solution.
11:31But when I began to doubt
11:32that he himself believed that that was feasible,
11:34and I saw no kind of action
11:36designed to bring it into existence
11:38or bring it about,
11:39then I turned in a different direction.
11:42Number two,
11:44the blinding liniment mystery,
11:46fact.
11:47Nancy, I can't see.
11:48Whoa, whoa, whoa.
11:49I can't see.
11:50I'm done.
11:51Let me look, let me look.
11:52They're cheating me, Angie.
11:52No, no, no, no, breathe.
11:53Breathe.
11:54The end of round four
11:55of the first Sonny Liston fight
11:56is dramatized as pure panic,
11:58with Clay returning to his corner
12:00practically blinded
12:01by an unknown substance.
12:03This terrifying sequence
12:04actually occurred.
12:05A caustic chemical agent
12:07widely suspected
12:08to be wintergreen ointment
12:09used to treat Liston's sore muscles,
12:11rubbed off his gloves
12:13and smeared across Clay's face.
12:15Blinded by the substance,
12:16Clay frantically begged Angelo Dundee
12:18to cut off his gloves and forfeit.
12:20That's Angelo Dundee
12:21that he was arguing with, Joe.
12:23Angelo now is telling him off
12:25a little bit
12:25while he gets him ready.
12:26Dundee famously washed his eyes
12:28with a sponge,
12:29refused to stop the bout,
12:31and shoved Clay back out
12:32with instructions to keep moving
12:34until his tears cleared the sting,
12:36preserving his historic title triumph.
12:39Joe's eyes,
12:40his eyes are bothering him.
12:42Ladies and gentlemen,
12:43we don't know exactly what happened.
12:44They're yelling from
12:45Cassius Clay's corner.
12:47Something got in his right eye.
12:49However, he's blinking badly.
12:52Number one,
12:53instant name change,
12:55fiction.
12:55My name is Muhammad Ali.
12:57Muhammad means worthy of all praise,
12:59and Ali means most high.
13:01Following his stunning upset
13:03of Sonny Liston,
13:04the show features Clay
13:05declaring to the media
13:06that he has discarded his given name
13:08to become Muhammad Ali.
13:10While narratively tidy,
13:12the transformation actually took longer
13:14than it seems in the show.
13:15In his post-fight press conference,
13:17the champion confirmed his membership
13:18in the Nation of Islam
13:20and publicly adopted the moniker
13:22Cassius X,
13:23which the show glosses over.
13:25The next morning,
13:27Clay split America in two,
13:29following Malcolm X
13:30by confirming his membership
13:32in the Nation of Islam.
13:33Furthermore,
13:34it was not the boxer himself
13:36who dramatically broke the news
13:38of the Muhammad Ali name,
13:39as depicted in the show.
13:41It was actually
13:42Nation of Islam founder
13:43Elijah Muhammad,
13:44who did so during
13:45a dedicated radio broadcast
13:47on March 6th, 1964,
13:49nearly two weeks
13:50after the fight took place.
13:52Why don't you like
13:53to be called Clay anymore?
13:55No, Clay was not my name.
13:57Once we can follow the belief,
14:01hear the,
14:02understand the teachings
14:02of the Honorable Elijah Muhammad
14:04and come into knowledge
14:05of ourselves,
14:06then we want to be called
14:09after names of our people.
14:10Did you enjoy the show?
14:12Let us know in the comments below.
14:14Let us know in the comments below.
14:15Let us know in the comments below.