Muhammad Ali isn’t a mixed martial artist, he’s a boxer.  And he was an all-time great in the ring, the sort of fellow who is appreciated by practioners of just about any fighting discipline.  But was he great with a ring?  Not so much.

In 1978, after defeating Leon Spinks, Ali won a championship ring.  It’s the sort of memorabilia that collectors get twitchy ring-fingers over.  Later, it rolled into the hands of his now former-wife Veronica Porche.  She loaned it to a friend who was waging his own fight against cancer.  Veronica considered it a loan.  Her friend's wife considered it a gift.

CNN.com explains the legal “right to title” fight that followed her friend’s death:

“When Young died in November 2004, he still had the ring, she said.

'I didn't want to ask his widow immediately, so I waited a month or so and then I couldn't find her,' Porsche said. 'She had left town.'

After six years of trying to find the ring, a private investigator located Phyllis Young in Phoenix, Arizona, and began a legal battle that ended this week, Enenstein said.

When Porsche filed a lawsuit against the widow seeking the ring, Young counter-sued claiming it was given to her husband by Ali as a gift.

'The ring was my husband's to keep and an assurance of the personal bond between them, my husband and Muhammad Ali,' Young said in her suit.

While the doctor had treated the boxer once or twice, they were not close friends, Porsche said.

Muhammad Ali signed a sworn statement to help his former wife's legal battle for the return of the ring, Enenstein said.

It was handed over to Porsche in a Los Angeles courtroom on Monday after U.S. District Judge Stephen Wilson threw out the widow's counterclaim, he said.

The ring will eventually go to Laila Ali, the 32-year-old daughter of Porsche from her marriage with Ali, she said. The couple's other daughter, Hana, already has the ring the boxer was given when he became a two-time heavyweight champ."

The full article is available here.

 

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