Obviously the man had charisma. I just do not understand why the accolades as a person. The more I know the less I admire Ali as a person. IMO he was not the athlete that I would like to emulate. And yet..... when he died I thought according to ESPN the earth had stopped spinning. I am not talking about the fighter. He was the greatest HW--so far in my lifetime. No cuts in 60 or so fights????? Peace
Ali and Liston seem to have become almost friendly towards the end of Liston's life. Certainly Ali visited him in his dressing room before the Wepner fight. According to the Miami Herald: Looking like a boy, Clay bent over the scowling Liston in the dressing room and whispered, "Go out there and win tonight, champ." It brought the only smile of the night to Liston's face.
It's nothing he did or said. It's how serious he looks in between rounds against Ali. They looked like they didn't like one another there. And there was no handshake or words between them after the fight as opposed to after the first two fights.
I think Frazier was the only one who truly, solidly hated him - with good reason, although at some point you'd hope their pending mortality would be enough to forgive. I've heard conflicting stories about whether or not Joe was able to forgive Ali - the most recent biography I've read (Jonathan Eig's) suggests he did, but it was a long road getting there. Norton only hated Ali in the ring, but he was an athlete and a competitor and could separate the guy he fought from the man outside the ropes; and always told the story of how, after his horrific car accident, Ali was one of the first to visit him in the hospital If Foreman hated Ali, it was brief; in the Champions Forever video, he says he likes Ali a lot, and sounds content and sincere about it Holmes knew Ali inside and out, and just accepted him for all his faults; he's never had a problem with being honest in his feelings - for their fight, he was intense and focused as he had to be; Larry was in there for business to get a job done. After the fight, he was devastated that he had to go out and dismantle a man he idolized and admired, and they went back to being buddies.
Oops. I was talking about Norton, not Holmes, My mistake. But I recall Holmes saying that at the time he wanted to punish Ali, which he did.