By Mark Vester

In what he says is his final trip to Great Britain, boxing legend Muhammad Ali visited Ricky Hatton's new gym in Hyde, Great Manchester. Reports says the visit brought the entire town to a halt. Ali is making the rounds in the UK to raise money for some of his favorite charities. He is attending a dinner at Old Trafford. He has engagements set for Dublin and Stoke-on-Trent and plans to watch the European Jumping and Dressage Championships in Windsor.

”Ricky has never met Ali before and we have all been very excited about this day for some time,” Ray Hatton, the boxer’s father and manager said to Ron Lewis of the Times Online . “It’s a great honor for him to come here.”

Ali plans to reunite with ex-opponent Sir Henry Cooper. They fought almost five decades ago in Wembley. Cooper put Ali down in the fourth and Ali, then known as Cassius Clay, came back to stop Cooper in the fifth. Ali told reporters that Cooper hit him so hard that his “ancestors in Africa felt it”.

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