ALI.COM Moderator: We are fortunate to have with us today Thomas Hauser, award-winning biographer of Muhammad Ali and author of "Muhammad Ali: His Life and Times."

Thomas spent twenty months with The Champ writing this definitive biography, and was involved with him for over nine years working on other projects and endeavors. Thomas has agreed to take questions from fans here at ALI.COM.

Let's get started.

Dan K, NYC: Liston was the favorite in both fights. Why do you think Ali beat him in the first fight? The second?

Hauser: Cassius Clay beat Sonny Liston in the first fight because he was a better fighter. Muhammad Ali beat Sonny Liston in the second fight because he was a better fighter.

In the first fight, he was simply too fast for Liston. In the second fight, Liston got knocked down early. He saw that it was going to be the same thing all over again. And, in my opinion, he quit.

Ali told me that the punch he hit Liston with in the first round of the second fight was hard enough to knock him down but that Sonny could have gotten up.

Cansu Ozden, Hamburg, Germany; Kevin Lamp, California: Do you believe Liston took a dive in their second fight? What about the "Phantom Punch," was it partly due to Ali moving around and not getting hit by Liston?

Hauser: It was not a Phantom Punch. If you look closely at a tape of the fight on Ali.com, you can see that Ali hits Liston with a chopping overhand right that Sonny doesn't see coming.

Guney Guncikan, Turkey: What is the source of Ali's motivation? What thing motivates him the most?

Hauser: When Cassius Clay was young, he was driven by a desire to excel and be in the limelight. As he got older, he found something larger than himself to flow into.

At that point, he was motivated by his religious beliefs and the feeling that he was fighting for millions of people around the world, not just for himself.

Howard Shaw, Florida: What is your first memory of Muhammad Ali? Why did you want to write about him when you became a writer?

Hauser: My first recollection of Cassius Clay is of seeing him on television when he was an 18 year old boxer representing the United States at the 1960 Rome Olympics. In those days, they didn't have live satellite transmission. Everything was on tape delay basis.

Like millions of people, I thought he was charismatic and charming. I followed his career from that point on. No one, myself included, could have imagined the extraordinary ride that would be.

As for why I wanted to write about Ali, there was a time when every painter in Renaissance Europe wanted to paint a Madonna. Ali is a canvas that anyone who writes about boxing or even America in the second half of the 20th Century wants to paint on.

Pitita Alcala, Arvind Kaur, UK: What was your best moment with Muhammad Ali? What is the most surprising thing you learned about Ali, something unexpected?

Hauser: I've had so many good moments with Muhammad that it's impossible to single out one. Every day, another memory filters through my mind.

Yesterday, I was thinking about a time when we were sitting in an airport waiting for a plane. A little boy came over with a piece of paper and pen that his parents had given him and asked for Muhammad's autograph.

Muhammad asked the boy, "How old are you?"
The boy answered, "Four."
Muhammad asked, "What's your name?"
And the boy told him, "Mommy says I shouldn't tell my name to strangers."

The two things that impressed me most about Muhammad were how genuinely nice he is. He's an incredibly sweet man. And also how deeply spiritual he is.

There was a time when Muhammad fit his religion to what he wanted to do. That's no longer the case. At the end of each day, he asks himself, "If God were to judge me based just on what I did today would I go to heaven or hell?" He really believes in that and he lives his life accordingly.

Bernard G, Paris: How important were the people in Ali’s corner? Dundee, Bundini, Pacheco? Did Ali listen to any of them?

Hauser: The people in Ali's corner were important. Angelo saved Ali in the first Liston fight when he was temporarily blinded and couldn't see. Angelo understood that, most likely, a caustic substance had gotten in Cassius's eyes and rinsed them out with a sponge that he'd soaked in cold water. Without that, Cassius Clay wouldn't have been able to continue. And even before that, when Clay fought Henry Cooper, Angelo bought him some extra time between rounds after Cassius was knocked down and dazed when he tugged at a tear on the seam of one of Clay's gloves.

Yuko M, Brooklyn, New York: Which is your favorite Ali fight? Why?

Hauser: Muhammad told me that the fight where he was at his best as a fighter was against Cleveland Williams. The fight that was the best for fight fans was his third fight against Joe Frazier in Manila. And the fight that meant the most to him was beating George Foreman in Zaire to re-capture the heavyweight championship of the world.

My favorite as a work of brilliant performance art is the Cleveland Williams fight. I've watched all of Ali's fights on tape sitting with Muhammad in his home and mine. Against Cleveland Williams he was a combination of Baryshnikov and Joe Louis. He was only hit three times during the entire fight and annihilated Williams over the course of three rounds.

Peter Russkind, West Virginia: It seems in your book that you think the sogginess of the canvas was why Ali didn’t dance in the Rumble. Do you think “Rope-a-Dope" was something Ali pre-planned, or made up on the spot? How much did Ali pre-plan, how much did he improvise?

Hauser: Ali did not go into the ring against George Foreman planning to fight off the ropes. But in the first round, he discovered two things.

Number one, that the ring canvas was soft and he wouldn't be able to dance for 15 rounds because its condition would weaken his legs over time.

And number two, that the ropes were loose which might give him some extra room on the perimeter of the ring to evade Foreman's punches.

At that point, he improvised and employed a ring tactic that Archie Moore had used when he was fighting. Archie called it "The Turtle." It involved leaning back against the ropes, protecting his body with his forearms, and pulling his head back from punches.

But that tactic would not have worked against Foreman if Ali hadn't been able to absorb the blows that landed.

Jimmy Smith, Texas: Do you think Ali really believed he would win the Liston I fight? Liston II? The Rumble? How much did his bragging have to do with his belief, how much with psyching out his opponents?

Hauser: Ali started bragging before his fights as a 12 year-old amateur boxer in Louisville. Initially, it was to overcome his fears and build his self-confidence. Then it became a way of promoting himself and getting inside his opponent's head. And there came a time fairly early on when he had fun doing it.

Ali Khan: Could you please tell me Ali's relationship with Elvis Presley? I know that Ali met Elvis twice and received a robe from him. Ali was as much an equal to Elvis If not surpassing him during his fights with Frazier and Foreman. What did Ali really feel about Elvis and what stories from the two could you relay to us about the two champions of the 20th century?

Hauser: Elvis Presley had a bit of a boxing background. He went out for the boxing team in high school, but quit after the first day when he got a bloody nose. He also played a boxer in the movie "Kid Galahad."

Ali liked Elvis's music and he told me once about a conversation he had with Elvis. Both Ali and Elvis were besieged by fans wherever they went. For Elvis, it had become a burden. Ali told him that the way he approached it was by understanding that people didn't want to hurt him; that they just wanted to show their love. And he urged Elvis to try to take more pleasure from his interaction with fans.

Elvis was enormously appreciative of the devotion that his fans had for him. But that sort of celebrity status can become an enormous burden. Either a person draws strict lines between his public and private life or he can become overwhelmed by it. There are very few people who revel in it the way Ali did.

Butch, Springfield, VA: Is "Healing" your latest work about Ali?

Hauser: No. I've written a number of books about Muhammad. The first was "Muhammad Ali: His Life and Times." The most recent was "The Lost Legacy of Muhammad Ali," which contains everything I've written about Ali that's not in "Healing" or "Muhammad Ali: His Life and Times." This autumn, Barnes and Noble will be selling a coffee table photo book entitled: "The Legend of Muhammad Ali" that I co-authored with Bart Barry. I should add that, in late June, I have a novel coming out entitled "Waiting for Carver Boyd." It's being published in England by JR Books and is the best pure boxing writing I've ever done.

ALI.COM Moderator: Tom, we want to thank you so much for taking time from your busy schedule. These are terrific insights. All Ali fans very much appreciate your sharing them with us.

Hauser: It's been a pleasure. Muhammad is such a unique individual and we're all lucky to have him with us. Thanks.