Muhammad Ali’s doctor speaks about his final hours

ALI’s doctor spoke of his final hours yesterday and said God wanted his greatest champion in heaven.

Dr Abraham Lieberman, who helped the star in his battle against Parkinson’s disease, was beside Ali’s bed until an hour before he died.

He said: “Everyone thought something bad would happen but you hope you will beat the odds because he’s always beaten the odds. He’s not an ordinary person.

“But last night it became apparent that God wanted him, and we all became reconciled to it.”

He said it was a measure of the champ’s greatness that he survived the ravages of Parkinson’s so long.

Dr Lieberman claims it was proof the disease was not triggered by his years slugging it out in the ring.

Dementia Pugilistica, a condition suffered by boxers who have had concussion, generally kills people within three years, he said.

But Ali had battled on for ten times that. Dr ­Lieberman said: “He developed it slowly over a ­number of years. I can’t tell you boxing didn’t play a role but I think he had regular Parkinson’s.”

Despite his global fame and riches, Ali never lost the common touch, even when he was once mistaken for another boxing great Joe Louis, a champion in the 1930s and ’40s.

Dr Lieberman said: “He would go to hospitals and nursing homes to cheer people up.

“With his entourage they went to some hospital and there was an old African American man who hadn’t spoken in years.

“Muhammad went up to him. He said: ‘Old man, do you know who I am. Man looked up and his eyes sparkled.

He said, ‘Yeah you’re Joe Louis.’

“Muhammad said, ‘If it gave that old man pleasure to say he met Joe Louis, then I’m Joe Louis’.

“He was a great personality. A kind person. He had tremendous feeling for people.

“That was Muhammad Ali.”

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