Who was the champion boxer who was stripped of his heavyweight title after refusing to be drafted to the army?
Muhammad Ali was the reigning world champion and was at the height of his fame when he received the news that has been drafted to the army. This was in 1967, and the Vietnam War was raging. He refused to be inducted, with Ali famously saying: “I ain’t got no quarrel against the Vietcong.” There was much controversy in both sports and politics, and Ali was subsequently stripped of his title and banned from boxing for three years. He avoided prison though when his sentence was appealed, and when the public support for the Vietnam War dropped.