Frazier's pain and anger still remains...

[raylawpc]

I've personally never believed Ali engaged in his taunting and demeaning of opponents simply to build up the gate (although that certainly may have been part of it). I believed then, as I do now, that he did it to psyche himself up, and to psyche out his opponents. It was mean spirited, and he intended it to be mean spirited. It was also the genesis of the "trash talking" that seems to dominate sports today. Thanks, Ali, for the wonderful legacy of sportsmanship . . .

That said, I believe he genuinely regrets it now. Most people mellow with age. (I used to believe everybody mellowed with age, but then I started participating in boxing forums . . . )

[TheOneIsHere2008]

I've personally never believed Ali engaged in his taunting and demeaning of opponents simply to build up the gate (although that certainly may have been part of it). I believed then, as I do now, that he did it to psyche himself up, and to psyche out his opponents. It was mean spirited, and he intended it to be mean spirited. It was also the genesis of the "trash talking" that seems to dominate sports today. Thanks, Ali, for the wonderful legacy of sportsmanship . . .

That said, I believe he genuinely regrets it now. Most people mellow with age. (I used to believe everybody mellowed with age, but then I started participating in boxing forums . . . )

What he did to Joe was mean, hateful, and wrong...But most of his antics were creative and hilarious...

Who could have "thunk" this up?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xlNwujdeZQE

There are people on this board and in the larger society who ended up on the wrong side of history...They watched every Ali fight , hoping he would lose and then being devastated when he didn't...They still carry that anger, nearly thirty years after he hit somebody for money... They could not understand his success and appeal then...And they can not understand his appeal now...Instead of looking at Muhammad Ali they need to look at themselves...

One learns , even from this boad...I was reading a thread where a poster was mercilessly bashing Sugar Ray Leonard...I'd bet my , errrrr, that his accomplishments in life pale next to Sugar Ray's accomplishments...And in that thread one poster opined:

"You are so full of your own falsehoods and delusions. If you could be half the man Ray Leonard was a fighter you might like yourself."

Replace Sugar Ray Ali with Muhammad Ali and you have your answer to Granberry...

[raylawpc]

You are w -- a -- y overgeneralizing now. I was one of those who cheered for Ali's opponents (except in two instances), and I can tell you I was not "devastated" when he won. Disappointed, yes. Devastated, no. (I was devastated when my Mom died, with the event of 9/11, etc. Let's get real: It would be pretty silly to become "devastated" by an adverse outcome in a sporting event that doesn't - in the total scheme of things - mean a hill of beans.) I felt then, and I feel now, that this action were mean-spirited, unsportsmanlike, and hateful. I didn't hate him; I thought he was a jerk. I hoped he would get his come-upance, and was glad on three of the five occasions when he did.

(BTW, even then I felt it was wrong to call him Cassius Clay after he announced his name was Muhammad Ali. Nobody bitched when Walker Smith, Joseph Youngs, Arnold Cream, Joseph Zukauskas, or Beryl Rosofsky changed their names. And Ali had a much better reason - his religion - than they had to change theirs.)

I do not "hate" Ali now, and I'm not "angry" at him. I was never angry at him. Today, I respect him for the classy and courageous way in which he has dealt with Parkinson's disease.

[HomicideHenry]

Smokin' Joe Frazier is still THE MAN!!!

[TheOneIsHere2008]

You are w -- a -- y overgeneralizing now. I was one of those who cheered for Ali's opponents (except in two instances), and I can tell you I was not "devastated" when he won. Disappointed, yes. Devastated, no. (I was devastated when my Mom died, with the event of 9/11, etc. Let's get real: It would be pretty silly to become "devastated" by an adverse outcome in a sporting event that doesn't - in the total scheme of things - mean a hill of beans.) I felt then, and I feel now, that this action were mean-spirited, unsportsmanlike, and hateful. I didn't hate him; I thought he was a jerk. I hoped he would get his come-upance, and was glad on three of the five occasions when he did.

(BTW, even then I felt it was wrong to call him Cassius Clay after he announced his name was Muhammad Ali. Nobody bitched when Walker Smith, Joseph Youngs, Arnold Cream, Joseph Zukauskas, or Beryl Rosofsky changed their names. And Ali had a much better reason - his religion - than they had to change theirs.)

I do not "hate" Ali now, and I'm not "angry" at him. I was never angry at him. Today, I respect him for the classy and courageous way in which he has dealt with Parkinson's disease.

I was not referring to you. I apologize and regret if think you I was referring to you. See how it easy it is when two adults are involved. I was amplifying on your theme that people need to get over it...

I once had a boss that was a total dick. Everybody that worked for him hated him. One day he had a car accident, went through his windshield , and suffered minor brain damage... I no longer worked for him at the time...I met a fellow former co-worker at the mall who told me about the accident and how another of our co-workers said he deserved it and was happy...I said "that's f---ked up"...

Hate makes people do stupid things...

PEACE
BRIAN

[raylawpc]

I just thought you were overgeneralizing. I didn't know if you were referring to me or not.

[TheOneIsHere2008]

I just thought you were overgeneralizing. I didn't know if you were referring to me or not.

I was not referring to you but as you can see by some of the comments on this board that there are folks who haven't gotten over it and take a dualistic approach to Muhammad Ali as a man and as a boxer...

In another thread you pointed out correctly that the U.S.S.C didn't grant Ali C O status...I'm not a lawyer but I did take Con Law One and Con Law Two in grad school (Political Science) ...The Supreme Court is not a tryer of fact but a interpeter of the law...They vacated or reversed and remanded the decision...I do not remeber which... It was 1971... The war was not popular, urban, read black America was in an ornery mood...I do not think the United States government wanted Muhammad Ali, rotting away in jail like an American Nelson Mandella...

[raylawpc]

Okay. BTW, I wasn't offended; I just thought you were overgeneralizing feelings about Ali.

[I Feel Fine]

Simple fiction.

As opposed to simple facts, like Frazier edging a split decision? :P

Yes.

[elmersalsa]

The media on the whole did not "hate" Frazier back in his own day. The media was far more critical of Ali, ever since he converted to Islam. The people who hated Frazier were the young generation, the anti-war, anti-establishment protestors/demonstrators/activists, as they associated Frazier with the establishment.

Now, those demonstrators are all grown up, and most of the country sees the way they did back then, and the media does too.

However, I still don't agree that the media hates Frazier, but rather they now revere Ali. But in their effort to glorify Ali, they often distort facts, downplay some of the more vile things Ali has said and done, and (perhaps unintentionally) villify Frazier.

While Ali deserves all the credit in the world as a fighter, the effort to build him up as a person is absolute bullsh*t.

For example, in TV programs discussing Ali, he is often depicted as just a harmless jokester, when in fact much of what he's said about other fighters (particularly in regards to Frazier) was vile and despicable, and had quite serious consequences. I think what gets me most of all is when Ali's buddies, like Angelo Dundee and Dick Schaap, would come on TV time and again and say things like, "Ali never hated Frazier, all the hatred came from Frazier", as if Ali only ever made a few light-hearted jokes about Frazier, and Frazier is just some d*ck who can't take a joke.

Frazier also doesn't get celebrated by today's media for winning that first fight the way that he should, given all that was considered on the line for that fight. From the current media's perspective, the wrong guy won that fight. Celebrating it would mean celebrating a win for the '60s/70s establishment (symbolically speaking), which no one wants to do. Do you ever hear anyone say, "Man, Frazier really whupped that darn counterculture that night!" It would be the same as hailing a win for Schmeling, if he had won the rematch with Jou Louis. But things would be much different if Ali had won. Everytime the fight would get brought up, people would be hailing it as an inspirational victory for the counterculture over the evil establishment.

You hit right in the money, my friend. Joe Frazier kicked his ass.

[elmersalsa]

For years the media had downplayed Ali's comments about Joe. No one in the right mind would like to be called a GORILLA. For years Frazier was looked as the bad guy. Especially in the Black Community, the great Joe Frazier is not a hero by no circustamces. Even though he won the BIGGEST AND MOST ANTICIPATED FIGHT OF THE 20TH CENTURY clearly. He won FAIR and SQUARE. NO one in the BLACK COMMUNITY liked that.

I got a boyfriend of my aunt that I see from time to time. He is 60 years old now. He remembers those days. He is an Ali fan. Ali to him is everything. The great Joe Frazier? He hates Frazier with a passion until this day. Saying that Joe is mad at Ali because Ali until this day has all the glory.

Let's look at the facts:

A picture of Thrilla of Manila: Frazier is the nailee and Ali is nailing him with a right. That picture is sold all around the world.
Where are the shots that Frazier gave to Ali in that fight?

People laughed when the great George Foreman destroyed Joe in Jamaica. Especially in the Black Community, is something funny to see. That is how so much they hate Joe Frazier.

All Joe Frazier did was fight. Take care of his family and go on with his business. He did not needed all this bullcrap. He did not needed the "Uncle Tom" or "Gorilla" statements to hype a fight.

I asked eveyone in this forum if Joe Frazier was one of your family members would you like that? I don't think so.

[TheOneIsHere2008]

"...How many guys have you known within your time of being a sportswriter , how many athletes or announcers have the Parkinson's? You give me one guy. Now that there are two guys that drank out of the same glass together-him and Howard Cosell [who also suffered from Parkinson's Disease] I don't know what they were drinking . They might have had champagne. They might have had a little water. They might have had wine. I don't know. But I don't feel like its really the fight game that done this to him. I think the Almighty Lord shut him down."

-Joe Frazier

My dad died from a heart attack at 58 when I was fourteen...I would have a lot less tolerance for somebody who said it was a Biblical judgement than somebody who said awful thing to him and about him thirty years ago and had recently apologized....

I wonder how Howard Cosell's two daughters and five grandchildren felt when they learned that one of the athletes their father and grandfather covered celebrated the fact he suffered and died from Parkinson's Disease and attributed it to a Biblical remedy.

I wonder how the families of Johnny Cash who died from Parkinson's Disease, the Reverend Billy Graham and Michael J. Fox who suffer from it, and the other 1.5 million American who have this insideous disease feel that is some kind of Biblical judgement rendered on their loved ones....

What's next...

Is Joe Frazier going to apologize to them?

Which is a greater affront and deserving of moral outrage?

Saying mean, hateful, and stupid things to somone and about someone and subsequently apologizing

or

Celebrating the illness of that person and the death of his friend.

No, no, no...Only Muhammad Ali is the bad guy in this morality play...

The world differs:

"Across the world, billions of people know Muhammad Ali as a brave, compassionate and charming man, and the American people are proud to call Muhammad Ali one of our own."

http://www.eclectictimes.com/mt-images/ ... -thumb.jpg

-President George W. Bush

[Knucklez]

"...How many guys have you known within your time of being a sportswriter , how many athletes or announcers have the Parkinson's? You give me one guy. Now that there are two guys that drank out of the same glass together-him and Howard Cosell [who also suffered from Parkinson's Disease] I don't know what they were drinking . They might have had champagne. They might have had a little water. They might have had wine. I don't know. But I don't feel like its really the fight game that done this to him. I think the Almighty Lord shut him down."

-Joe Frazier

My dad died from a heart attack at 58 when I was fourteen...I would have a lot less tolerance for somebody who said it was a Biblical judgement than somebody who said awful thing to him and about him thirty years ago and had recently apologized....

I wonder how Howard Cosell's two daughters and five grandchildren felt when they learned that one of the athletes their father and grandfather covered celebrated the fact he suffered and died from Parkinson's Disease and attributed it to a Biblical remedy.

I wonder how the families of Johnny Cash who died from Parkinson's Disease, the Reverend Billy Graham and Michael J. Fox who suffer from it, and the other 1.5 million American who have this insideous disease feel that is some kind of Biblical judgement rendered on their loved ones....

What's next...

Is Joe Frazier going to apologize to them?

Which is a greater affront and deserving of moral outrage?

Saying mean, hateful, and stupid things to somone and about someone and subsequently apologizing

or

Celebrating the illness of that person and the death of his friend.

No, no, no...Only Muhammad Ali is the bad guy in this morality play...

The world differs:

"Across the world, billions of people know Muhammad Ali as a brave, compassionate and charming man, and the American people are proud to call Muhammad Ali one of our own."

http://www.eclectictimes.com/mt-images/ ... -thumb.jpg

-President George W. Bush

Good to see TheOne using George Bush to illustrate sound judgement and morality.....

Everything Joe Frazier has ever said about Ali has been a reaction to what Ali said to and about him. Ali deserves every word of it. Joe still gets booed in public to this day, which is why he rarely attends big fights, despite still following the sport closely. That's down to Ali labelling him an Uncle Tom 30 odd years ago. Have you ever Joe say a bad word against anyone else?

Ali's taunting of opponents was usually light hearted and funny, but with Frazier it was intended to be malicious, hurtful and with the aim of causing as much damage to Frazier's reputation as possible. So it is perfectly understandable for Joe to call him a "vicious, mean spirited scamboogah" because that is the side of Ali that he saw and experienced.

Ali is no angel, as TheOne seems to believe. An excellent boxer, yes, but also a man who trampled on everyone and everything around him to get what he wanted, and not a moral icon in my opinion.

[TheOneIsHere2008]

knucklez, I want to clarify your position...Is it your position that a man can hold the moral high ground in a nearly forty year old feud when he takes solace in the fact that his opponent in that feud suffers from a debilitating disease and his friend died from it and that it was some form of Biblical judgement?

Should the family of Johnny Cash who died from Parkinson's Disease see it as a Biblical judgement?How about Michael J. Fox's family or the Reverend Billy Graham's family ? Or the families of the 1.5 million people who suffer from the disease?

If we are going to parse Muhammad Ali's words and look for every implication does not logic and farness demand we do the same to Joe Frazier?

Have you ever Joe say a bad word against anyone else?

-knucklez

As a matter of fact I have:


"...How many guys have you known within your time of being a sportswriter , how many athletes or announcers have the Parkinson's? You give me one guy. Now that there are two guys that drank out of the same glass together-him and Howard Cosell [who also suffered from Parkinson's Disease] I don't know what they were drinking . They might have had champagne. They might have had a little water. They might have had wine. I don't know. But I don't feel like its really the fight game that done this to him. I think the Almighty Lord shut him down."

-Joe Frazier

Oh, I do not think Ali is a demigod but his wife, Lonnie nailed it:



"Ali would be the first to tell you that he never wanted to be deified, to be a god," said his wife, Lonnie. "A person's perception is their reality. Whatever , (fill in a person's name )perceives, or thinks he perceives, that's his reality. If the rest of society perceives Muhammad as a cultural icon, so be it."

And I injected Bush's name for levity though I do respect the office of the presidency and believe being awarded The Medal Of Freedoom is a high honor...I voted for Gore in 00 and Kerry in 04 and plan to vote for Barack Obama in 2008

If you like I can share with you quotes from others on Muhammad Ali's essential goodness...What he did to Joe some forty years ago was wrong but who among us would want to be judged by our worst moment?