In November 2021, social networks once again circled a photograph, captured, according to the description, the great boxer, along with the future king of pop music. We checked whether the boy was really in the photo is Michael Jackson.

Signature under the photograph, which thanks to Facebook page "Culturology" She diverged more than 5,000 reposts, says: “The significant meeting of King Ring and the King of the stage is Muhammad Ali and young Michael Jackson. 1968 ". For the picture, this is far from the first round of glory - in the Russian segment Facebook it is a minimum Three times Shooted V 2020 year, was also popular in 2016-2019 years, and in 2015 spread through the same "Culturology".

As you know, Michael Jackson became a popular singer in his youth as part of a family ensemble The Jackson 5, so theoretically he could meet with the eminent boxer who, among other things, was African American rights fighter And met with many of them. Just in 1968, a significant event occurred in the jackson career - they passed listening And they signed a contract with the cult label of Motown.

Moreover, young Michael Jackson has repeatedly lit up in the same frame with Muhammad Ali. There are early photos:

And later photo shoots, when the guys were already teenagers:

The stars even arranged a comic boxing duel:

Here's what Michael’s elder brother writes, Jerman, in his memoirs: “Michael admired Ali's personality and his professional achievements, but I doubt that he someday understood how mutual admiration was. In the year after the death of my brother Ali gave him tribute. He was asked where he would take his strength to fight Parkinson's disease, and he replied: "When people ask me about it, I reply that I look at myself the same way Michael Jackson looked at a man in the mirror."

I recall how five -year -old Michael boxed with Marlon in our bedroom in Gary, at the same time he put Liston’s ring on the ring, and I would like to return to the little Michael again that the time will come when he would conduct a battle with Ali personally, he will learn magic, faith in himself and stubbornness - and he will be able to use it all in his music. “This is your fate,” I would tell him, “and this is only the beginning.”

Nevertheless, it is easy to notice that the child depicted in our photo outwardly is not very similar to the young Michael Jackson. Because it is not him. The boy’s name is Priest Smalls, and he was born in 1969, a year after the photograph was allegedly taken. The boy became famous as a young boxer under the pseudonym Tiger Smalls, and now his no less famous photograph, in which Ali feignedly bent in pain after the blow of young talent:

Smalls became a star at the age of three, when his photo got into the magazine Jet. The boy dreamed of becoming a world champion in heavyweight and even trained in the famous camp of Muhammad Ali in Dir-Lake, Pennsylvania. The genes did not allow the guy to gain a similar mass, but he made a good career In a half -headed weight, having won several champion titles of various calibers and having entered the Glory Hall of Boxing California in 2013.

Thus, in the photograph that has been actively replicated in recent years at different venues, depicts the young boxer Tiger Smalls, and not singer Michael Jackson.