125 pages • 4 hours read
James Patterson, Kwame AlexanderBecoming Muhammad Ali
Fiction | Novel/Book in Verse | Middle Grade | Published in 2020A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides that feature detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, quotes, and essay topics.
Final Round
Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Final Round Summary
Being friends with Cassius has made Lucky feel like he was part of history too.
Lucky explains that after losing in 1958 to Kent Green, Cassius went on to win two Golden Gloves championships and then a gold medal at the 1960 Olympics. Cassius then turned pro, and his first professional fight was in Louisville. Lucky, Rudy, and many of their friends from the neighborhood were all there.
In 1964, Cassius fought Sonny Liston, the heavyweight champion. Cassius’ plan, he told everyone, was “Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee!” (299-300). After seven rounds, Cassius won.
Lucky explains that Cassius never stopped thinking about the injustice in the world. After the fight with Sonny Liston, he joined the Nation of Islam, “a movement that was founded to give black people a new sense of pride” (300). He changed his name to Muhammad Ali. Lucky never called him Cassius again.
In 1965, Ali defeated Sonny Liston again and then Floyd Patterson. Two years later, Muhammad Ali received his draft notice ordering him into the army, but he refused to fight, having “no quarrel” with those the US Army wanted him to fight (302). His refusal to enlist stirred controversy, leading to the loss of his boxing titles and license. He didn’t fight for three years.
He won his license back in 1970, and he won his first fight back against Jerry Quarry. Next he lost to “Smokin’ Joe” Frazier, then won the rematch and took back the heavyweight championship title.
In 1974, Ali fought in the Rumble in the Jungle, taking on George Foreman in Africa. During the fight, he used a strategy called the “rope-a-dope” to lessen the impact of his opponent’s punches by pushing his body against the ropes of the ring. Ali won.
He fought Joe Frazier in the Philippines—“the Thrilla in Manila”—and won again. Over a billion people tuned in for the fight.
In 1980 and 1981, Ali fought his last two fights. Lucky says that he had started to notice that Ali’s hands shook, and Ali was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease, which causes trouble with muscles and body movements; this ended his career.
Ali continued to fight, raising money for famine victims and medical research. He worked as a messenger for peace for the United Nations, and President George W. Bush awarded him the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2005.
Muhammad Ali passed away in 2016. Lucky wasn’t there, but he says that he is sometimes glad he wasn’t because he can remember his friend as “the kid who never stopped running and never stopped talking” (304). He was a true and loyal friend.
Final Round Analysis
The Final Round serves as an epilogue to the novel, describing how Cassius grew up and became Muhammad Ali. The 1959 Golden Gloves tournament in Chicago was a turning point in his career, and Lucky explains that he went on not only to win that tournament but the next year’s as well.
The rest of the epilogue provides a short overview of Cassius’s—then Muhammad Ali’s—life until his death in 2016. It follows up on inflection points that were foreshadowed by events in his youth. Ali continued to fight to overcome oppression, first joining the Nation of Islam and then advocating as a United Nations messenger for peace. He was eventually unable to box, but he remained a leader and “never stopped thinking about unfairness and injustice” (300). Ali’s decision to join the Nation of Islam also reflected the impact of faith on his life. Odessa always had a strong commitment to faith, and while young Cassius did not explicitly value it as much as she did, his decision to align with the Nation of Islam demonstrated his adult interest in and valuing of religion.
Cassius’s conversation with Rudy in Round 7, Poem 108, in which he says that he would never join the army, was fulfilled when Ali refused to enlist after receiving a draft notice because he “did not believe in war. […] He didn’t consider those people his enemies. He had no quarrel with them” (302). This demonstrates that Ali never forgot where he came from and the discrimination that he experienced as a Black person.
Ultimately, the epilogue emphasizes the theme of Becoming the Greatest and Overcoming Oppression because young Cassius Clay did achieve his goal: “Muhammad Ali was a three-time heavyweight champion of the world, and one of the most famous and respected men who ever lived” (305). By also adding that Ali was a “true and loyal friend,” Lucky’s narration also brings the theme of Remembering Who You Are and Where You Came From to a conclusion, as Muhammad Ali always stayed connected to his family, friends, and community.
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