Boxing is not like football. In football, people root for one team to WIN.
In boxing, like wrestling, people watch at least as often to watch some uppity Negro get clobbered.
Up to the championship fight, promoters try to get fights between members of different ethnic groups to slug it out so that people will see the match as a sort of mini race war in which they have someone to hate.
In pro wrestling, the contenders pick at the start of their careers whether they are going to be a good guy or a villain. The villains pick an identity, such as a Russian, a Muslim, an Afghan, that people will mostly despise.
Ali knew that as a boxer, attendance and receipts from his fights would be based more on how many people wanted to see him get clobbered.
Football and other team sports really does not work like this. Most people have allegiance for their home team, even though there may not be a single hometown guy in the lineup.
Maybe someone ought to try this in NASCAR. A green car with the Saudi Flag all over it with a horn that honks the Muslim call
to prayer. I know that I would not insure the driver, but maybe someone in Dubai would.
Again, I find professions of faith for victories in sports a bit silly. It is equally silly for boxers and wrestlers, of course, but at least it serves to raise the income of the contender, I doubt that it gets more people to root for Tebow's team in the same proportions