The Greatest: Prime Video's Muhammad Ali Series Drops All Eight Episodes on November 4

Photo: Ira Rosenberg, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Muhammad Ali has had documentaries, a Will Smith film and about a thousand clips, so I was not sure what a limited series could add. Then the trailer for The Greatest arrived and I changed my mind. Prime Video is releasing all eight episodes on November 4 in more than 240 countries. It is created by Ben Watkins and executive produced by Lonnie Ali, which suggests the family had a hand in the shape of it.

The casting is the gamble. A newcomer, Jaalen Best, plays Cassius Clay as he becomes Ali, and from the trailer he has the mouth and the footwork. Around him, Omari Hardwick and Dana Gourrier play his parents, Michael Ealy is Malcolm X, Amin Joseph is Sonny Liston and Giovanni Ribisi is the trainer Angelo Dundee. There is also a report that wrestler Chris Jericho appears as Gorgeous George, the showman Ali borrowed his whole act from, which is the detail that tells me someone did their reading.

Eight hours is enough room to cover the draft refusal, the exile years and the Liston fights without rushing, and that is the version of the story I actually want. If the series is honest about the man rather than the legend, it could be very good. Will you give it a go?