However, when the final bell did toll, the public bloodbath many predicted failed to materialise. Lonnie, acting as the executor of the Muhammad Ali Trust, held the reins with an iron, protective grip.

While the children reportedly resented that Lonnie received a larger, double-share of the fortune (roughly $12m compared to nine heirs receiving $6m apiece), a structured truce was brokered.

With an estate valued somewhere between $50m and $80m, cynics anticipated a courtroom war between his children and his fourth wife that would be more brutal than the “Thrilla in Manila”. Yet the great battle never quite materialised. Ali left behind a two-inch-thick dossier detailing his final arrangements, and a tightly structured trust.

Ten years on, the family presents a dignified and unified – if detached – front, perhaps bound by the realisation that fracturing the Ali name would only diminish the global currency of their father’s memory. Today, the family legacy is split between the boardroom and the squared circle. Daughter Laila Ali commands a multi-million-dollar fitness and lifestyle empire, completely independent of her father’s shadow.

Meanwhile, the fighting lineage has been continued through his grandsons. Nico Ali Walsh carries the Ali name in the ring as a middleweight under the intense, sometimes blinding glare of global expectation. Another grandson, Biaggio Ali Walsh, fights in Mixed Martial Arts (MMA).

Ali’s true legacy

We no longer view Ali merely as a tragic, sidelined warrior, nor just a saintly humanitarian. We view him as the architect of modern sports culture. Every fighter who negotiates their own purse, every athlete who takes a political stand on social media, and every trash-talking champion who commands a microphone is a direct descendant of the “Louisville Lip”.

In his hometown in Kentucky, the annual “Ali Fest” and the newly minted global “Day of Compassion” ensure his humanitarian pillars retain strong foundations. But for those of us who work ringside his legacy is simpler: Ali remains the yardstick against which every heavyweight, every dynamic mover, and every transcendent personality will be judged until the end of time.

Muhammad Ali, as a man, fighter, showman and activist, remains exactly what he said he was: The Greatest. Period.