By Frank Warren
IT was a landmark week that saw the legendary Muhammad Ali celebrate his 70th birthday with a party at the Centre named after him in his hometown of Louisville.
He's as famous now, if not more so, than he was 30 years ago after hanging up his gloves following the Trevor Berbick fight in 1981.
Over the last few months the golden era of heavyweight boxing has been highlighted with the sad passing of his great rival Joe Frazier and also previous opponents Henry Cooper and Ron Lyle.
There are numerous TV programmes celebrating Ali's birthday including John Watt's excellent 'Ali: Still the Greatest', a five-part series on ITV4 this week that was filmed in my office.
Anyone who saw the film 'When we were Kings' saw how accessible he was to the media and public — something a lot of today's sportsmen can learn from.
Ali is known for his epic fights against Frazier and George Foreman but, after watching one of the documentaries, I started thinking about his famous clashes against British challengers.
Of course there was Henry Cooper but Richard Dunn and Brian London also faced him.
I thought about some of the things being said about Dereck Chisora's forthcoming world title challenge against Vitali Klitschko in Germany.
Although Klitschko does not figure in most experts' top 10 all-time great heavyweights, for me, he's by far the best around.
He was involved in a very close fight with Lennox Lewis and some thought he had the beating of Lewis until the fight was stopped due to a cut Klitschko had sustained.
I believe Finchley puncher Chisora would have the beating of London and Dunn and I believe Dereck has a better chance of dethroning Klitschko in Munich than they had of beating Ali.
Would the critics complain about London or Dunn getting a shot at Klitschko today?
Klitschko is no Ali and Chisora is no Brian London or Richard Dunn.
For up to date boxing news and reviews visit www.frankwarren.tv
Ricky's brush with the law
RICKY BURNS takes the law into his own hands when he faces former world champion Paulus Moses on March 10 at the Braehead Arena.
Moses is a lieutenant in the Namibian police force which cannot be an easy job.
One thing is for sure — WBO interim world lightweight champ Burns has got the toughest job of his career.
Not clever, Carl
CARL FROCH turned down my offer this week to face WBO world light-heavyweight champion Nathan Cleverly in the summer.
He said he was not interested in moving up a division to face the new star of British boxing and is planning to stay at super-middleweight.
Word is that Showtime have knocked backed Froch's proposed fight against IBF champ Lucian Bute and are looking instead for the Canadian-based Romanian to fight Froch's conqueror and Super-Six winner Andre Ward, who holds the WBC/WBA Super titles.
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BOXING'S oldest-ever world champion Bernard Hopkins has seen a lot of changes.
The 47-year-old says he is not seeing young African-American males going into the sport and that it will become a big problem.
At London 2012, Team GB will have a strong black presence with super-heavyweight Anthony Joshua, middleweight Anthony Ogogo and heavyweight Simon Vallily.