I'm tired of trying to explain things like this to people. If you weren't there, or don't know, or choose not to do, or choose to interpret things through some sick and cynical 21st century spectrum, that is your problem.
It is possible to admire both Ali and Joe Frazier.
fisky wrote:
Boxing was the big show in those days. It's hard to convey just how big it was. I drove a hundred miles to watch Ali-Frazier 1971 on a big movie screen in a coliseum. I think I paid $100 for a ticket. That was in 1971 dollars. The coliseum was packed, as were dozens of others around the United States and the world.
In the weeks prior to the match, part of the pre-match show was the weigh in and the psych job boxers would try to do on each other. Ali would say, I'm so pretty. He'd pretend to try to pull off Howard Cosell's toupe. Ali called Fraser a gorilla and said Liston smelled like an old bear, or something like that. It was so over the top that it never occurred to me that it was anything more than showmanship.
Ali would pretend to get mad at Cosell and pretend to throw a punch at him. Ali would occasionally talk in rhymes.
Blacks loved Ali. Most whites loved Ali, too. I lived in the south and I never met anyone who didn't love him. Ali was bigger than race. Bigger than any athlete that had ever lived. Ali was the most well known person in the entire world. Let that sink in. The. most. well. known. person. in the world
He gave up millions of dollars with no guarantee he would ever fight again for his convictions. Whether you agree or not, you have to respect that.
This is what I recall. He was the biggest single sports personality to ever exist. Even more than Babe Ruth. Or Michael Jordan. And probably Pele too.
Ali is despised by white bigots because he was outspoken at a time when blacks were killed for sitting at lunch counters. For those of you that didn't live through that time, shut the eff up. You are as clueless about American culture as you are about everything else. For true athletic greatness check out the last 30 seconds of the Ali-Foreman fight. NOBODY thought Ali would win that fight, and many, including me, were literally scared for his ability to even live through the thing. And he won, so eff you.
exthrower wrote:
He wasn't very popular during his time because of his lack of class...
Completely false. You clearly know nothing about this subject.
Back in the day, I was a sports writer for a major newspaper. This was so far back in the day that we used typewriters and had the AP wire sitting in the corner of the room. I LOVED fight nights! This was back when there were fights on most Saturday nights. So all of these guys in bars would call in to the paper to get their questions answered, they made big bets on everything and anything to do with fighting. I was the first female in the sports dept. and I was the fastest researcher. I became the big time fight expert. I had a wall full of books on fights and could find an answer within a few minutes.
Ali may have been a loud mouth, but he stood up for his convictions and HE WENT TO JAIL for them. That is one of the reasons that he is respected. He didn't run away, or hide in Russia or Canada like people do today. And he bounced up and down so many times, won and lost fortunes.
I have met him a few times, his training camp was just down the road from where I went to college, where I also worked in sports and had the pleasure to interview his trainer and met Ali.
And the interactions between Ali and Howard Cosell.....priceless.
You youngsters have no idea what a man of conviction is.....it doesn't matter if you like him or not, if you think he was a great boxer or not....he is the greatest sports figure of our times.
clownshoes wrote:
Ali-Foreman and Al-Frazier 1 and 2. Back in those days the heavyweight fights were watched by everyone and those were classic. Ali came back twice to retain the title in absolute wars.
Muhammed Ali and Evil Kenievel were the tv sports supertars of their day. Weeks of hype and the world stopped to watch the show.
Everybody watched. You only had three network channels those days.
I grew up in the 70's and Evel Knievel and Muhammed Ali were my heroes. To most kids at that time, they were gods.
1) He would have beaten Sugar Ray
2) Athletics should be more like that it's too boring
3) It would have been easier for him to join up and just do demonstration bouts.
I met him and he was the greatest man I ever met who you would have heard of
Because Baby Boomers make all their idols into minor Gods.
Am I missing something? wrote:
Never understood this. People talk in such hushed tones about him. I've heard him referred to as "the greatest man I ever met" by many people. Why?
As far as I can tell:
1) he was a fabulous boxer. Was he really the greatest? No way. Not even close to Sugar Ray Robinson
2) he trashed talked to his opponents to a really unpleasant degree.
3) he was a conscientious objector. Is that really so amazing?
Maybe I'm missing something. He was a great athlete, but I don't get the hero worship bit at all.
Thoughts?
Were you alive when Ali was fighting? Can't compare Ali to Sugar Ray Robinson. Back in the 70s, it was ALL about the Heavyweight Champion. No one gave a crap about the middleweights. That started to change a little bit in the 80s with Sugar Ray Leonard.
There wasn't a bigger spectacle in sports in the 70s than a heavyweight championship fight. My father knows less about sports and cares less about sports than anyone I've ever even heard of, and even HE watched Ali fight on television.
The thing about Ali is that he didn't hate his opponents. The trash talk the way he did it was just for comedy. He remains the best ever.
I've actually met Ali and shook his shaking hand. Was not, still not impressed.
He was a racist. Read his quote- "You're my enemy. My enemy is the white people!"
He was a backstabber- He and Joe Frazier had been friends and Frazier supported Ali when he refused the draft. Ali got blacks to turn on one of their own. Ali even went as far as to bring in the KKK to greater divide a national rift which made Frazier hated by lack and bigots. Of course, Frazier's feeling would be hurt.
Ali was loved by blacks for standing up to "the man". Ali knew something all us African Americans know and that is the white man is weak. Any hint of claiming racism and a white will buckle. We use that tactic all the time. I can say that because it will never change. With liberals becoming more vocal we can always rely on them to turn on their own race. (Tell me if I'm wrong. You can't.)
Ali got great support from a liberal media.
Ali is a loudmouth man with a low IQ who had as little class as he had greatness in the ring. I can say all of this to because I'm an anomaly. I am black conservative.
Truth USS wrote:
I've actually met Ali and shook his shaking hand. Was not, still not impressed.
He was a racist. Read his quote- "You're my enemy. My enemy is the white people!"
He was a backstabber- He and Joe Frazier had been friends and Frazier supported Ali when he refused the draft. Ali got blacks to turn on one of their own. Ali even went as far as to bring in the KKK to greater divide a national rift which made Frazier hated by lack and bigots. Of course, Frazier's feeling would be hurt.
Ali was loved by blacks for standing up to "the man". Ali knew something all us African Americans know and that is the white man is weak. Any hint of claiming racism and a white will buckle. We use that tactic all the time. I can say that because it will never change. With liberals becoming more vocal we can always rely on them to turn on their own race. (Tell me if I'm wrong. You can't.)
Ali got great support from a liberal media.
Ali is a loudmouth man with a low IQ who had as little class as he had greatness in the ring. I can say all of this to because I'm an anomaly. I am black conservative.
Saying "my enemy is white people" doesn't make you a racist. Do you know what racism is?
Complex and layered like we all are after we've lived some life...
-- In his prime the greatest heavyweight boxer of all time (in my opinion), and yet legendary stories of him not preparing properly for all of his fights
-- Incredibly generous and supportive of youth, and yet a complete pig and misogynist for most of his adult life
-- Concerned with civil rights issues affecting 1960s African Americans, yet a harsh critic of Joe Frazier ("Uncle Tom") and Jackie Robinson
-- Courage to follow his moral convictions by not going to Vietnam, yet not quite so convicted when it came to being faithful to his wives and children
So many more examples... he was incredibly righteous and incredibly unrighteous at the same time... tremendously likeable and despicable to different people viewing the same set of events and facts... a complicated man.
aintgettinany wrote:
Because Baby Boomers make all their idols into minor Gods.
^^^THIS^^^
Aw, I bet you think OJ was innocent, too.
kdkl wrote:
Saying "my enemy is white people" doesn't make you a racist. Do you know what racism is?
Urine idiot wrote:
Aw, I bet you think OJ was innocent, too.
No, I just know what racism actually means. Why are you awing me?
Zev wrote:
aintgettinany wrote:Because Baby Boomers make all their idols into minor Gods.
^^^THIS^^^
If you can't comprehend Ali's worldwide stature you really are (1) a troll, or (2) completely clueless.
sub3over40 wrote:
[quote]clownshoes wrote:
Ali-Foreman and Al-Frazier 1 and 2. Back in those days the heavyweight fights were watched by everyone and those were classic. Ali came back twice to retain the title in absolute wars.
Muhammed Ali and Evil Kenievel were the tv sports supertars of their day. Weeks of hype and the world stopped to watch the show.
Everybody watched. You only had three network channels those days.
This^
Really in today's age of cable and computers you have NO idea how easily controlled we were. If the big 3 said something was important- it became important. I dont think we can really understand how big that is/was. Think about it, you always at at least 1/3 of the country watching the exact same thing.
Love seeing all the ignorant racists on LetsRun. Unless you were alive to see Ali fight and lived through those times your thoughts and comments are completely irrelevant.
Boxing was huge when Ali was champion, much bigger than track and field. He was transcendent figure who was the most recognized athlete world-wide at the peak of his boxing career.
TrackCoach wrote:
Am I missing something? wrote:Never understood this. People talk in such hushed tones about him. I've heard him referred to as "the greatest man I ever met" by many people. Why?
As far as I can tell:
1) he was a fabulous boxer. Was he really the greatest? No way. Not even close to Sugar Ray Robinson
2) he trashed talked to his opponents to a really unpleasant degree.
3) he was a conscientious objector. Is that really so amazing?
Maybe I'm missing something. He was a great athlete, but I don't get the hero worship bit at all.
Thoughts?
I am assuming you are young, if that is correct, you don't know what boxing used to be and what it meant to be the heavy weight champion during Ali's era. It was far bigger than being the fastest man in the world, the NBA MVP, Wimbledon, Masters, TDF...you were literally the biggest sportsmen on the planet. Even when you consider he gave up his most productive years, he was great purely as an athlete. Ali was the champ multiple times during an era without a doubt was the most competitive in boxing history.
His true greatness was in not compromising on something he believed in so strongly that he risked his career, fame, fortune and freedom. Perhaps this does not seem like a big deal with the passage of time, but find an athlete or any person on the planet in this day and age willing to do that. (There is no one!) The stance Ali took at the time was not popular, but in retrospect, Ali was right; why should he fight the Vietcong when they had done anything to threaten the U.S., while Blacks did not have equal rights here in America. And, as conscientious objector, he did not lie or make up anything, he did not run to Canada...his objection was on religious grounds, he was honest, upfront and willing to accept the penalty.
Ali was flamboyant and had a big mouth, while this of type behavior irks some people, I don't have a problem with it if you can back it up, which he did. Because of his big mouth, he was the world's greatest promoter for an event and went from the most hated athlete to the most beloved. People will accept your flamboyance when you are really good at what you do. And, for Black Americans, Ali was the first person most of them ever saw stand up to White people and speak his mind...this is something that you would probably have be a 50+ Black person to fully understand.
I won’t taught Ali whole life and career, you can read about that in books, but he was generous to a fault, he divorced 3 times, all of them without a prenup and was never taken to court by an ex-wife. He has assisted the U.S. government in geopolitical issues and been a great U.S. goodwill ambassador. Ali was far from perfect, he had had some of the same flaws you find in a lot of men, but he was never associated with drugs, drinking, guns any legal or antisocial issues and lived an exemplary life outside of the public arena. People like people, who are real, who stand for something and aren’t afraid to make their opinions known. And, even if you don’t agree with everything he did, you have to respect a man who stands strong in their convictions.
Ali, didn’t do anything that changed the world, but he is certainly a historical figure and deserving of his place in the world. - Hopefully this helps.
the sad part is you probably really are a track coach, helping the State spread propaganda to our youth, i.e. Black Muslim racist morons are heroes for not being willing to serve their country. And this is because 'blacks weren't equal'. You make me wanna vomit..