Ali was the quintessential seller. He was brash, confident, smooth – and most importantly, he delivered on his word. During his prime, Ali was larger than boxing itself. Many will agree that he is one of the most quoted athletes ever.
Mohamed Ali was skilled with words as he was in the ring. He famously described his fighting style by claiming to ‘float like a butterfly and sting like a bee’. He embodied the idea of visualization when he claimed: ‘I’m the greatest. I said that even before I knew I was. I figured that if I said it enough, I would convince the world that I really was the greatest.’ He also described his rigorous training by saying, ‘I don’t count sit-ups. I only start counting when it starts hurting because they’re the only ones that count.
His ability to sell a fight is why Ali managed to draw an attendance of 60,000 people for his 1974 bout against the younger and undefeated George Foreman – in Zaire!!!! Some sources estimate that the fight was watched by as many as one billion television viewers around the world. ESPN has dubbed the event one of “arguably the greatest sporting events of the 20th century.” The fight also grossed an estimated revenue of 100 million dollars, which, if adjusted for inflation, would exceed 600 million dollars today.
There have been several great boxing megastars over the years and all of these were almost always great salespersons. Mike Tyson sold himself as the baddest man on the planet who could knock out any opponent within the first round – retiring from the squared circle with 22 KO wins. Mayweather sold himself as the guy to beat, the villain you paid to see get humbled in the ring – eventually retiring with an unbeaten streak of 50-0. Each of these stars sold themselves to be the best in the game and as a result, drew big matches that will be remembered forever by boxing fans the world over – but none of them sold themselves as much or as well as Mohamed Ali did.
Sports are about many things. Competition, discipline, passion, entertainment, politics, empowerment, you name it. But if there’s one thing that all sports share, it’s the big spectacle. We all watch sports for that magic. The explosive action which gets us out of our chairs, spilling our bears and screaming like Vikings. This is what makes sports stars and legends. This is what greatness becomes about. This is why certain events and places are so revered – Tour de France, Madison Square Garden, Wimbledon, The Masters’ Tournament, El Classico, WrestleMania – it is where the biggest stars are made, where the stakes are highest, and where, to borrow from boxing champ Gennady Golovkin, the BIG DRAMA SHOW happens.
These events and stars are so big and larger than life because they’ve been sold to us that way. Every sports league, franchise, and star will constantly try to outsell the other as the go-to draw. Every stadium is trying to sell the most tickets. Every team is trying to sell the most shirts. Every sports goods company is trying to sell the most shoes. And it is the same in life and sports; if you want to be at the top, you have to sell yourself to the top.
A lot of promotion goes on in the world of boxing. Before a big fight takes place, it has to be sold no matter how big the star power involved is. Posters are spread out in every possible location. The fighters are interviewed on ESPN and every other major sports broadcaster. Open workouts are done in front of large crowds, and the stars engage in a pre-bout war of words where trash flies back and forth from their mouths, aimed at their adversary. It’s all so fun to watch that by the time the main event takes place, the arena is filled with thousands of people from all walks of life to watch the showdown between the two adversaries. If the fight fails to generate enough interest, ticket sales will be low leading to fewer profits for everyone involved and possible financial loss. This is why boxing stars, and to some degree mixed martial arts stars are under much more pressure to sell than athletes who compete in well-established team sports and leagues.
This is reality: in life as in sports, you have two options: to sell or to be sold.
We are constantly doing one of the two. All you need to do is log in to the internet or your favorite social apps to see how much selling is being done to you daily. Every company wants you to buy their product instead of their competitor’s. Similarly, when we’re in a job interview, we have to sell ourselves as the best prospect of the bunch. When we meet someone we like, we have to sell ourselves as the right partner for them. We sell ourselves on our vision, goals, purposes, family, friends, religion, and many, many other things that most times we won’t even realize that we are selling. So while ‘selling’ may not have the best image among people generally, it’s a skill that we consciously and subconsciously utilize in our daily lives and we must deliberately hone.
We must, however, always remember that once you sell yourself as x, you must become x. Very few things are more distasteful than someone who talks a big game but fails to follow through. Very few things are more dangerous than a person who talks a big game and fails to live up to it because such a person will do anything other than work hard to give an impression of being legitimate.
What makes all the sports stars such massive successes is not their ability to sell themselves as the best alone, but also their ability to deliver on what they sell. Mohamed Ali, Mike Tyson, and Floyd Mayweather all claimed to be the best boxers of their time, and they indeed built their resumes to back up their claims. This is what makes their sales pitches most effective and universally accepted, and this is a thing that we should always remember every day of our lives.