Laila Ali

Laila Amaria Ali is an American television personality and retired professional boxer, born on 30 December 1977 in Miami Beach, Florida, the daughter of the boxer Muhammad Ali and his third wife Veronica Porché Ali. She boxed from 1999 to 2007 and retired undefeated, with 24 wins and 21 knockouts, holding the WBC, WIBA, IWBF and IBA super middleweight titles and the IWBF light heavyweight title. She is widely regarded as one of the greatest female professional boxers of all time. ^{1 2}

Her parents divorced when she was nine. The article reports that she was raised as a Muslim but later left Islam, despite her father's initial disapproval, and that she worked as a manicurist at sixteen, lived for a time in a group home for girls, graduated from Santa Monica College with a business degree, and owned her own nail salon before she began boxing. ^{1 3}

Of her father's opposition to her boxing she said, in an interview quoted by the article: "My father was Muslim, I'm not." The museum records her upbringing and her departure from Islam as the sources report them; no source names a present affiliation for her, and none is recorded in her data record. ^{1 3}

Ali began boxing at eighteen, after watching a Christy Martin fight, and announced her decision in a Good Morning America interview. Her father was unhappy about her entering so dangerous a profession. She made her debut on 8 October 1999, knocking out April Fowler in the first round, in a bout that drew unusual attention because she was Muhammad Ali's daughter. ¹

On 8 June 2001 she beat Jacqui Frazier-Lyde, Joe Frazier's daughter, by majority decision in a bout billed as "Ali/Frazier IV", the first main-event pay-per-view match between two women. She won the IBA title in August 2002, added the WIBA and IWBF belts that November by stopping Valerie Mahfood, and in August 2003 knocked out Christy Martin, the fighter who had first inspired her, in four rounds. ¹

In June 2005 she defeated Erin Toughill to win the WBC title, becoming the second woman to hold one. Her last professional fight came on 2 February 2007 in South Africa, a first-round technical knockout of Gwendolyn O'Neil. She retired with a record of 24 wins, 21 by knockout, and no defeats. ¹

In 2007 she competed in the fourth season of Dancing with the Stars, finishing third with her partner Maksim Chmerkovskiy. In January 2008 she co-hosted the revival of American Gladiators alongside Hulk Hogan, and she joined CBS's The Early Show as a contributing correspondent the same year. ¹

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