Did Ali's trash talk backfire against Frazier in fight 1?

foreman said in facing ali that he should have been nice, promoted the fight and won a unanimous decision. the frazier that actually fought would have died in the ring. without ali's pre-fight attacks, who knows if that's still the case.

 

Yeah it definitely made smoking joe up his game.

He was just the anti-ali in so many ways.

 

YEs. Without a doubt to me.....

 

I don't really think so. Joe never really seemed to be a fighter who needed anyone to motivate him in the ring or in training. I think Joe's great conditioning as a reigning champion and the fact that Ali had only had a few fights coming back gave Joe the edge. If Ali's taunting provided any additional motivation, I think its effect would have been minimal.

 

No,

Smokin Joe knew he was better than Muhammad Ali at that time.

The 'trash talking' helped motivate Ali if anything.

 

I don't think so. Frazier was a fighter at his absolute peak, he had been getting better with every recent fight. He was just an awesome fighter.
Ali was a true and undefeated champion who had not lost his title in the ring, and Frazier knew Ali's existence as a fighter cast a shadow over Frazier's status as champion. He knew how good Ali was.
It really wouldn't have made a difference if Ali had been as nice as pie about the whole thing, Frazier was going to tear into him and prove his point regardless.

 

yeah, I'd say it backfired all right..

 

Ali's "****' worked on Liston...because Liston was at the end of his career.

Prime Frazier would have beaten that version of Ali on that nite no matter what type Ali's pre-fight antics.

 

This! If Frazier and Ali fight at any stages of their career it's a guaranteed 50/50 war.

 

:dealBingo!!

 

To use a more recent example, did Chisora's tactics backfire against Vitally Klitschko?

If Klitschko had an arm injury as he claimed, then it is verry likley that his dislike for Chisora, helped him to tough it out!

 

It hurt Frazier in all of their fights by making him too hungry for hitting the head, but that didn't stop Frazier coming close to beating Ali 2/3 times. Styles make fights; I think that Ali could have been stopped if Frazier wasn't so obsessed with knocking his head off in the FOTC.

 

Count me with lufcrazy on this.

Frazier never was this sharp in his entire career. He had his best night here against the best fighter he ever faced. It seems obvious that something was different for this fight that would cause a man to train even harder, to take everything a fighter like Ali had, to have such good stamina in round 15 after the beating he was both taking and administering for 14 rounds, etc. That obvious thing was the race-baiting, Uncle-Tom talk that Ali constantly delivered.

The derogative comments about Frazier's ability, I doubt bothered Joe. Just Ali's constant pandering to the "Frazier's an Uncle Tom" crowd, a viewpoint which it seems Ali made up on his own, creating that crowd by himself.

 

:deal