At a cocktail party in London’s BXR gym yesterday, TAG Heuer launched the Carrera Muhammad Ali Limited Edition watch.

Attended by the likes of Larry Holmes, Geri Halliwell, Gabby Logan and David Guetta, the event saw a pair of Ali-signed boxing gloves alongside one of the new Limited-Edition watches auctioned to raise funds for The Muhammad Ali Centre and its charitable work. As Ali’s former sparing partner and one of the few men to have defeated Ali in a professional bout, Holmes was on hand to share personal anecdotes about the great man. Remembering Ali as a man with “a special kind of charisma” going on to say, “he would make people feel good about themselves, people would love him straight off the bat… even my mum, my brothers my sisters; my brothers didn’t want me to win our fight!”

A direct update of 2016’s Carrera Caliber 5 Ring Master Muhammad Ali, this year’s Carrera Muhammad Ali features a new dial colour (blue) and bracelet option. As with the original, the watch is powered using TAG’s self-winding Caliber 5 movement and is housed in a 43mm stainless-steel case with an engraving of Ali on the back. Alongside the conventional 3 o’clock winding crown the Carrera has an additional crown at 10 to operate an internal bezel (much like a Super Compressor watch) scaled to time both professional and amateur boxing matches – a complication inspired by the 1957 Ring-Master stopwatch from Heuer’s archives.

TAG’s European Managing Director, Rob Diver, said of the launch, “With our #DontCrackUnderPressure motto, at TAG Heuer the legacy of Muhammad Ali is a daily inspiration to us and we are honoured to be working with the Muhammad Ali Centre in preserving his memory.”