If you had been around at the time, who would you have cheered on?
I love Ali now and his iconic status as a boxer and a man who defended
his civil rights but if I'm honest, if I were around at the time I would have been a Frazier fan. I loved it how this man would give himself and would go for broke in every fight. If I had been around as a fight fan in the late 60s or early 70s - I would have had a more unfortunate reactionary view towards Ali and would have been a big Fraizer fan.
I was going to say I would probably have hated Ali, like most people in america did before he lost to Frazier. It was that defeat and his comeback which really made him.
However, my mum and Dad were both born in the 1930's, and both of them absolutely idolized Ali, my mum cried her eyes out when he lost to Leon Spinks, and she hated boxing. My dad was a boxing fan and thought Ali was the best thing since the odor eater.
Think a lot of people saying Ali would be telling porkies. He was speaking about taboo subjects (race, vietnam, religion) in a country/world that was very different from what it is now (we had shows like Till Death Us Do Part and Curry & Chips!!)
Ali was disliked by some white Americans because he stood for something they feared and Frazier just got on with boxing. Plus his gorilla chants were, quite frankly, shocking (even to this day).
Don't get me wrong, I love/admire Ali more than any other human on the planet, but I think if we were in the late 60's/early 70's I think we would perceive this very differently.
Thankfully we aren't. :P
Last edited by Poncey on 29 Oct 2007, 10:50, edited 1 time in total.
Interesting one this. I am old enough to remember the tail end of Ali’s career. I was about 9 when he lost to Spinks and I balled my eyes out at the time. I absolutely loved the guy. Coming from a family of boxers I was conscious about the game from a very young age. My dad couldn’t stand him and was a big Frazier fan. But if I’d be honest in answering the question in the way Carlos asked it I’d say I would probably have wanted Frazier to win, taking into consideration that I would have probably thought differently then as an adult than I do now.
Unlike most of you I was around at the time, and boxing was all about Ali - We watched him as a young Cassias Clay dancing his way to victory - We set our alarms and got up in the middle of the night to see his fights - You would get up put the TV on which would be showing a test card and make a cuppa - Then you would here an announcer say "We are now going to link up with whatever TV in America for the Clay fight live" - I cant explain how exciting the whole thing was, this was such a major event -This was the first time a fight was shown live from America - TV finished sometime after 11pm and didnt start again until late the following afternoon with childrens TV so broadcasting in the middle of the night had never been done before - The only exception was the general election which ran on into the small hours having started when normal programming finished - It was not only about Clay, it was a huge first in television history and the sport of boxing - Clay was a massive star as famous as Elvis - You know that game where you say a word and somone has to say the first word that comes into their head - For people my age, you say boxing and we reply Clay/Ali just as you would rock n roll and answer Elvis - Frazier, Forman, Norton etc became more famous as opponents of Ali than for what they acheived as fighters in their own right - I am very glad to have been around in those days of long ago to witness the careers of Ali, Elvis and the Beatles who have no equals - What to you is now a part of history, to me are wonderful memories of a very exciting period of my young life.
