Rahaman Ali, boxer who left his promising career to fully dedicate himself to his brother Muhammad Ali, has passed away this Friday at 82 years old. The news was announced by the Muhammad Ali Center, a museum located in their hometown of Louisville, Kentucky (United States).
Rahaman, whose birth name was Rudolph Arnett Clay, was the closest member of Muhammad Ali's entourage during the 1960s and 1970s. In his role as the "best training partner", Rahaman helped his brother prepare for his most important fights, assisting him in the gym, cheering him on from the corner, and serving as his driver, errand boy, and chef. Muhammad Ali used to rely on him to know the time and communicated with him by snapping his fingers, as confirmed by The New York Times.
Under the eternal shadow of his brother, Rahaman Ali had a brief but promising career as a professional boxer, with a record of 10 wins, 3 losses, and 1 draw. However, in a 1990 interview, he expressed regret for not focusing more on his own boxing path, confessing that his brother never congratulated him on his fights.
The relationship between the brothers was complex and was evident in a public incident in 1975 when Muhammad Ali scolded Rahaman for asking journalists to take notes, a moment that Rahaman downplayed by stating that "My love for my brother is infinite". However, a biographer of Muhammad Ali, Jonathan Eig, documented that after a fight between the brothers, Rahaman began to live in poverty, even though his brother had promised to always take care of him. In his later years, Rahaman was often described as someone who wandered around the Ali Center events, introducing himself as "Muhammad Ali's brother".
In 1975, sports columnist Dick Schaap wrote that "his brother's dreams have become his dreams, and his brother's triumphs his triumphs". Despite his dedication to his brother, Rahaman's life, who had at least two daughters and a son from his marriages, ended in poverty after a dispute with Muhammad's last wife. The year before his death, he was seen at an Ali Center event, collecting photographs of his brother from the tables. After a lifetime in the service of the legend, Rahaman Ali lived his old age away from the glamour that surrounded him in his youth.