The next day, Schulke met Clay at the Sir John Hotel in Overtown, Fla., and watched as he suddenly jumped into a swimming pool. Clay soon began to throw some punches and, after drawing Schulke’s attention, told him that the water pressure against his fists acted as a weight. Intrigued by this unorthodox exercise, Schulke called Sports Illustrated and asked if they would pay him to shoot Clay training in the pool over the next few days. His editor swiftly turned down the proposal and vowed to never again give Schulke a boxing assignment. Not to be bragging or anything like that," says 19-year-old Cassius Marcellus Clay, "but they say I'm the fastest heavyweight in the ring today. That comes from punching under water." Taking a cue from the immortal Ty Cobb, who weighted his shoes in training so that he would feel feather-footed when the season started, Clay goes into a swimming pool and, as these underwater pictures show, does a stunt of submarine shadowboxing. "You try to box hard," he explains, "Then when you punch the same way out of water you got speed." When he first met Clay, Schulke tried to impress the young boxer by sharing examples of his work. For instance, Schulke revealed that he specialized in underwater photography and had recently had photos published in Life showing water-skiers from below the surface of the water. However, the editor also gave Schulke permission to pitch the idea to Life, saying, "Go ahead and ask Life if you want to. If they're dumb enough to, let them do it."

Muhammad Ali after flooring Cleveland Williams in Houston in 1966. The heavyweight title fight ended in a third round TKO. Photograph: Neil Leifer/Sports Illustrated/Getty Images In both instances, Fischer and Lois had created lean but telling portraits of the two men – Ali as an icon and Liston as a man perceived to be so mean he could even ruin Christmas. “The more you can simplify an idea the better it becomes as a cover,” Fischer explains. One of the pictures (below) from that shoot, showing Clay fully underwater with his fists raised, is one of the most famous pictures of Ali ever taken. But it didn't run in Life because the editors there thought it looked too posed. In one of Leifer’s less vaunted photographs, Ali can be seen arcing sideways at the hips to inspect himself in a shoulder-high mirror, captivated by his own image. You might wonder, then, to what extent Ali must treasure the photographs that have been taken of him.However, for years no one questioned the claim about training underwater. It was simply accepted as part of the lore of Muhammad Ali. Until finally, around 1997, the photographer who did the photoshoot, Flip Schulke, revealed that Ali had invented the story. We were driving round in the limo one day and he said ‘let’s stop in this bakery, they have wonderful doughnuts’, which was totally against his diet as he was in training for a fight” says Hoepker. “Then a few hours later we were passing this little bakery again and he asks to go in again. That time I got a little suspicious, so I followed him in and found him flirting with the baker’s daughter.” The photograph captures Ali with his guard down, in a genuine sense. Only eight years later, when Hoepker went to meet Ali at his home did he discover that Ali and the baker’s daughter, Belinda, had eventually wed. When Sports Illustrated assigned me a story about a young boxer, Cassius Clay, I had never heard of him. I showed him my underwater pictures of water-skiing to impress him that I had done a story for Life. I went to the motel where he was staying, and there he was in the swimming pool going through his workout. He was doing a hook and a jab, and I could see the bubbles. I said to him, 'That's fantastic because I see your fists going through the water, like my water-skiing pictures.'

When Ali realised it was a Christian symbol he wasn’t sure whether to go through with it,” Fischer explains. “So he put in a call to Herbert Muhammad [his manager] in Chicago because he wanted some comfort to know that it was OK. He felt a little guilty but that call made him feel better. The thing is, people always want their picture on the cover; Ali was the same.” Underwater training sounded plausible enough to Schulke, and he thought photos of it would make an interesting feature, so he pitched the idea to Sports Illustrated. But the editor there, as Schulke later said, "thought I was crazy for taking pictures of a boxer in a swimming pool." If you ask any photographer ‘what’s your one favourite picture?’, which is an awfully hard question to answer for most people, in my case I have one – this one – and it has always been my favourite,” he says. “For my money it is the best picture I ever took in my life.

The Story of the PhotoshootIn 1961, Sports Illustrated had assigned Schulke to take pictures of Clay. So Schulke traveled to Overtown, Florida where Clay was training. Fittingly, Ali is flippant when the subject is discussed. “Ali has never had a conversation with me where he’s dwelled on any particular picture,” says Leifer. “I have sat with him in an exhibition where he was guest of honour. He would put his arm around me and tell me how the Ali v Liston picture is the greatest picture ever taken of him, and five minutes later he’d have his arm around Howard Bingham pointing to some picture and saying ‘Howard, that’s the best picture that’s ever been taken of me’.” Muhammad Ali as St Sebastian for the cover of Esquire magazine in April 1968. Photograph: Carl Fischer/Esquire In Muhammad Ali Boxing Underwater, fists clenched and eyes open, the boxer symbolizes the enduring image of the fighter, the relentless soldier of human history. Flip Schulke, who had left his post as a former University of Miami professor to capture the ongoing social changes and Civil Rights progress of the 60s, unintentionally caught one of the most legendary sports pictures of all time, partly by being duped. At the time of the underwater picture, the boxer could not swim. Of course, he had never trained his boxing technique underwater. The idea had sprung from the fighter’s incisive insight into the media, further proving his immutable American legacy. In Muhammad Ali Boxing Underwater, the boxer becomes endless, the essence of an indomitable spirit. When Sports Illustrated assigned me a story about a young boxer, Cassius Clay, I had never heard of him. I showed him my underwater pictures of water-skiing to impress him that I had done a story for Life. I went to the motel where he was staying, and there he was in the swimming pool going through his workout. He was doing a hook and a jab, and I could see the bubbles. I said to him, ‘That’s fantastic because I see your fists going through the water, like my water-skiing pictures.’

The editor atSports Illustratedscoffed at the idea of photographing a boxer in a swimming pool.Schulke offered them toLifemagazine where they reproduced the images in September 1961 in an article titled “A Wet Way to Train for a Fight” that contained the following quote from Clay “but they say I’m the fastest heavyweight in the ring today.That comes from punching underwater”. Ali looks in the mirror at the 5th Street Gym in 1970. Photograph: Neil Leifer/Sports Illustrated/Getty Images What is the use of a desktop wallpaper? Well, adding a wallpaper to your desktop is not mandatory. In fact, you can decide to use a dark colour, and life will move on as usual. However, this element comes with a sense of beauty. They add glamor to your computer and make it look aesthetically appealing and highly presentable. Sometimes, people display their feelings through the use of desktop wallpapers. Interesting, huh? You can add an image that shows how you feel or one that means something to you. Adding a quote will act as a reminder of what inspires you in your day-to-day life. That said, desktop wallpapers cannot be ignored, they mean different things to different people.Indeed, Gomel’s account seems most irreconcilable with the crude and voluble persona which Ali displayed so frequently in the run up to his fights. Towards Liston and Joe Frazier, Ali had always been merciless – he’d even left a bear-trap on Liston’s front lawn to stoke their rivalry before their first fight. While meeting with the photographer, Ali recognized Schulke’s affinity for shooting underwater. The photographer recalled an article about water skiers he had recently published. Then, a day later, when meeting for the shoot, Ali was already in the pool. Perhaps, considering a cinematic moment, the nineteen-year-old boxer, charismatic and media-savvy since his earliest years, trained inside the water, telling the photographer of his “usual” underwater shadow boxing routine.