Stern Electronics’ Ali, released in 1980 and designed by industry pioneer Harry Williams, is a celebrity-licensed machine immortalizing “The Greatest” himself, Muhammad Ali, at the tail end of his legendary career. A fast solid-state table with twin three-bank drop targets, four kick-out holes, and a horseshoe lane, it even sports an operator switch for optional background fight tones to put you ringside.
The scoring is a tidy build-and-collect affair. Completing the top-left drops increases your bonus multiplier — which carries over ball to ball — and once you’ve built it up, you collect at the right saucer. A genuinely effective strategy revolves around ball control: shoot the right saucer, catch the feed on the right flipper, tap-pass to the left, and repeat, racking up points safely. The “rope-a-dope” horseshoe spinner at the top left can be lucrative with a well-dialed spinner, though it sometimes serves up a dangerous feed toward the right outlane, so it’s a calculated risk.
A charming piece of both pinball and boxing history, Ali pairs an iconic license with the clean, skill-rewarding design of the early solid-state age. For collectors who love a celebrity theme and a satisfying bonus-and-spinner game, it’s a likeable champ of a machine — one that still floats like a butterfly decades on.