Sonny Liston Children?

I like to joke as much as the next guy, but picking up Liston's wife and holding her during the fight sounds totally plausible, when you consider all the murders going on at the time, and the fact that the Ali-Liston fight had a hard time finding a home because people expected violence to break out that night ... and even when it landed in Maine ... only two thousand people showed up because the majority of the people there expected shooting to break out.

It was an incredibly violent time, people connected to Ali's camp were getting killed or were tied to those involved in the killings, and in the midst of it a fixed heavyweight title fight appeared to take place.

People getting shotgunned to death, people getting their homes blown up and those same people responsible possibly influencing the fight isn't really funny. Even all these years later.

But that's just me. :good

 

And I should add that when Leon Ameer (Ali's personal secretary) was brutally beaten and Malcolm X was murdered ... Ali agreed with it. And he even publicly stated that if Ameer feared for his life ... he should ... because he shouldn't go against Elijah Muhammad. And Ali said he wanted nothing to do with Amir again.

So Ali wasn't an innocent in all this. Shabazz, who ran dangerous Philly mosque which was involved in many killings, was a part of his entourage through the Holmes fight. Because Shabazz was the one who convinced Ali to take the $100,000 in the suitcase, when King owed Ali a million.

 

Perhaps you should read the book. I like a good conspiracy as much as the next guy. The book is sufficiently full of innacurracies and unsubstantiated theories that I do not give credence to this fanciful kidnapping tale. I think Ali beat him. Thats me.

 

Did you read the book?

I haven't and I'm not defending it.

I will just say that it can be full of inaccuracies and still be right about the kidnapping.

 

The Liston fights made Ali great because he outclassed one of the greatest heavyweights of all time, and flash knocked him down in the first round of the rematch.

The NOI defended Ali from the mob in the 60's. A family member of mine is friends with Ali, and told me that story a when I was younger. I'll have to double check on it though.

I don't know, maybe the NOI did attack people who had happened to be boxers. I was talking about Ali's opponents.

If the NOI did anything to Ali's opponents, we would have known about it. And Ali wouldn't allow anyone to harm his opponents. That's obviously not who he is.

 

Yes. I read it. I was pretty disappointed. It was one thing to advocate for your subject, but the author made some outlandish claims without any support.
I had never heard the kidnapping stor previously. Has anyone?

BillB, didn't you tell me about the interview with the author? The interview actually made the author seem more sympathetic

 

Yeah, I posted a link to the interview in one of the threads we were both in.

I had never heard the kidnapping story until Gallender came out with it.

 

It destroys his credibility though.
Considering his stories of kidnappings etc. were apparently the result of things he'd been told, the subsequent psychic bullsh!t proves (to me) that he's a gullible fool who wouldn't know when someone bull****ting him or not.

 

Why do you say "that's not who he is".

There are Ali quotes to the effect ' ___ must die', '___ must be killed' etc. These included people who did not please him for assorted reasons.
That does not sound like a man with civility and compassion.

I don't know of an instance of Ali wanting someone to harm one of his opponents, but it a long way from being obvious that he didn't want that.

 

I think Sonny Liston clearly took a dive in the 2nd fight.
I'm not sure why. I doubt anyone was kidnapping his family. I doubt anyone was threatening him. I don't believe it works like that.
Most likely, either he hadn't trained right and didn't fancy the fight, OR he had a financial interest in losing (both promotional and on the betting markets.)

The 1st fight is suspect too. But even fights that don't look suspect can be suspect. Actually, most high profile fixed fights probably look like damned good fights.

 

Ok, I'll just suggest you become a better judge of character.

 

Why don't you help me with that?

Here's your quote:

"If the NOI did anything to Ali's opponents, we would have known about it. And Ali wouldn't allow anyone to harm his opponents. That's obviously not who he is."

Tell us what makes this obvious to you?
Do you know Ali? Have you ever spent time with him?
Can you cite an instance of Ali preventing someone from harming one of his opponents?
If not, tell us your secret of reading his character.

 

Ali wouldn't allow people he boxed to be physically harmed unless they seriously threatened his family or something like that.

Do you know who Ali is, or have you been living under a rock?

He's more interested in talking to people on the streets, and showing love to others, than physically hurting people outside the ring.

The fact that you took the conversation here is odd enough.

 

Don't you think BillB is reasonable enough when he judged Ali's character based on some of the extreme things Ali said, and some of the dubious people Ali associated with ??
I've seen Ali deny he had any white friends when confronted with it, saying men like Kilroy and Dundee were not friends of his.
He also had nothing nice to say about Malcolm, after Malcolm was killed.
As captivating and charismatic, engaging and amusing as Ali could be, he wasn't an admirable character regarding his attitudes towards some people close to him.
There's no point rehashing all the sh!t he put his wives through, or that teenaged girl he got pregnant. He's not alone in treating women like sh!t.

Ali is those days was blatantly just a follower and would have gone alone with anything anyone higher up in the NOI hierarchy told him.
He's probably become a better person as he matured and lived as a true religious person, answerable only to God. But in 1965 ? 1975 ? Not a particularly admirable man, imo.

 

He said that about Dundee and Kilroy because the interviewer was trying to trap him.

None of us are free of contradiction. It's human nature. But if you watch the way Ali interacts with people, and kids, and think he would maliciously have another professional boxer hurt, then I think you have poor judgement of character. It' also just completely unfounded.

It's like saying that I think you robbed someone. And my reasons for thinking that is because you've said some mean things in the past. *shrug*

A baseless accusation supported by character flaws taken to the extreme. Not a good way to judge people in general, and a very poor read on Ali imo.