Ali the greatest? I think one of the greatest. Chavez, Marciano, and Joe Louis also come to mind. Without going into politics biggest impostor right now is Mark Cuban...can't stand his ass!
One of the common traits of all those guys i found is that they don`t give a crap.Almost always in good mood.
I was at a party of a rich guy (who I didn't know very well) a couple of years back. He began bragging about his collection of all kinds of things. One of his prized possessions he had on display was the penis bone of some dinosaur. I told him dinosaurs don't have penis bones. He said "bullshit I paid 5k for it". That was the end of that...funny as hell!LOL
The biggest impostors are governments.They made us believe we owe them forever and should pay for everything.
As I said, in spite of the potential - as always - to reference a small number of exceptions, usually well known precisely because they're exceptions, the overall, collective effect that self-proclamation has on their achieving their celebrity/stardom is typically pretty minimal. You've just mentioned one of the comparatively small number of exceptions, usually well known precisely because they're exceptions. (I think your reasoning here is perhaps similar to that of the people who imagine that college education doesn't confer an overall financial advantage in life and in careers, and then reference Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg as supporting examples, ignoring both (a) the fact that they were both people whose initial education predicated that they had no difficulty getting into Harvard in the first place, and (b) the fact that they're so famous in that particular context partly because they're exceptions.) I think it varies hugely, according to the then-current zeitgeist of the sphere of influence concerned.
Ali was not an imposter - he is a boxers boxer - he took pyschoogical warfare to a new level. Tyson's comments on Ali may change your mind.
Billy the Kid, Wild Bill Hickok and nearly every other Old West outlaw/gunfighter. A few were badass, but many just inflated up their own stories based on a few incidents. Wild Bill, at least. had some stand up fights. But the press and dime novel writers also exaggerated their exploits - and they exaggerated - until a few killings became 20-100 killings ("not counting Mexicans and Indians" - according to one legend.)
Tyson is defenitely one not an impostor. I won`t change my mind about Ali.I respect Ali,he`s the greatest as far as self-promoting, that`s true.But not the greates boxer ever.