If he started begging for bipolar meds straight away afterwards it would suggest to me it was part of his cover story 'I didn't mean it I'm bi-polar' I don't think he was the biggest sadist in the ring purely because he didn't have the ability to do what Holyfield/Hopkins/Tyson and many others do when they fight dirty but butler was a sadist and the biggest sadist I ever saw in boxing
Jc Chavez could be merciless. Watch the Haugen fight.. He enjoyed breaking him down. Carried him even to do more damage.
Tyson was sadistiic to an extent, but I do not know if he ****d Washington. There is also decent evidence that the complete Sociopath Don King set him up. I think we need to distinguish acting & being tough & trying to beat a guy senseless as part of the trade to have a successful career from BEING vicious & liking hurting folks. Foreman was not nice & gloomy in his 1st career, but how is he using his great power to get a guy out of there being a sadist? The emotions of anger help energy, but that does not mean someone necessarily delights in hurting someone, though there is a thrill in the KO even in the "nice guys". Ali was cruel to Patterson in that he could finish him off, AND was cruel & callous to him, Liston, especially Frazier who gave him money & tried to get his license back repeatedly at the highest level. That can only be called...A cruel betrayal. But Terrell? he disrespected Ali re; his name, & Ali followed the rules in fighting him. A successful 6' 6" HW, I do not feel bad for him if he took a fair beating longer than if Ali had KOed him. Ali's "what's my name" challenges were perfectly fine by me.
I'm not sure Ali was even "sadistic" in those fights. Yes, he talked and tauted. He seemed to have a problem with those guys, I'm not sure why. Apparently because they called him "Clay", big f**king deal, that was his name for years. Imagine Floyd Mayweather changes his name, are we all going to toe the line and indulge it straight away ? Nah, there must have been something else bothering Ali. And he was a bit cruel, but it was up to the referee to stop the fight if it was too brutal. Looked to me like Ali lacked the power to get them out of there so resorted to talking and taunting to show his dominance. He wanted to make it look like he was "carrying" them, actually he just couldn't punch them out of there. To be fair, didn't Patterson talk a lot of sh!t before the fight about the NOI ? Not saying I disagree with Floyd's position, but he did get deep into it, when he could have just ignored that BS. As for Terrell, I guess Ali resented the fact that the WBA gave him their recognition. Ali was a bit of a nob, but excellent fighter back in those days.
Not sure why you single out Terrell for special treatment. The whole "name" thing is a bit of a myth, and the truth seems to be that Ali went off the deep end when Terrell casually and with no malice referred to him as "Clay" (they'd known each other for years, btw.). Very childish from Ali, imo. Patterson was far more explicit is voicing his disdain for Ali's religious-political "beliefs".
^ Of course, all of the above was contrived to sell fights and grab headlines though ! That's what makes Ali such a special figure in sports history.
I dont think Alis taunting in the ring vs Patterson was promotion or financially motivated. He was genuinely ****ed. in the Thomas Hauser book, Patterson does a number of interviews about Ali and still continues to call him Clay. If a man changes his name/religion people should respect that, especially when hes the heavyweight champion of the world.
Funny, Ali didn't even call people by their names at all, he called Floyd a "Rabbit", Sonny a "Bear", Joe a "Gorilla" ... then has a sissy fit when they call him by the name he was calling himself by just a year or so earlier. Sounds like a bit of a primadonna to me.
He called Cooper a "cripple and a bum". He called Chuvalo a "washerwoman". He insulted almost everyone, some of them didn't mind, some of them did. He even insulted Joe Louis. He talked sh!t about white people and black people in those days, and criticized Chritian Baptists, I'm sure before anyone said sh!t about HIS religion. I don't see why people take Ali's side so readily when someone hurt HIS feelings, when he had the biggest mouth and was more disrespectful than anyone. :huh