Just finished Joe Frazier's autobiography

NBA All Star Game in 2002. The Kram Jr book ends with a bit on how they might have potentially ended up feeling about each other.

 

Yes but that's not.at all the point am making here. It's not what the issue between Frazier and Ali was. Am not sure if it's a genuine misunderstanding but you do seem to have ignored the actual point.

 

talking about 20th century's most known black Icons, i would switch malcolm x with nelson mandela, because i am confident the latter was higher valued in the public eye internationally.

 

No he did not outright trash them. But he kind of regarded them no more than the way a lumberjack remembers a tree he chopped down. There were no compliments really.

Mathis, no heart. Bugner, a circus strong man. Cooper and Peralta “two jokers” who might get lucky against Ellis who’s punches were “pudding”. He’s a man with a job to do. And the opponents were his work.

it is a good autobiography though..and I am thankful we have these on record.

 

It is strictly your opinion just like any posts on this site. I got it, Frazier was jealous because Muhammad Ali's accomplishments were more than recognized than his. As you are crossing into adulthood, you should be concerned about your own affairs than those of other people.

 

However, that's not what I responded to. You made a different argument and I responded to that, now you are saying something else. Yes I would say that Frazier definitely resented how Ali was perceived but again that's not what the earlier posts were about. Lets just agree to differ and move on from this discussion. All the best.

 

X was more loved internationally than you thin

I have that one. Reading my boxing books semi in order of decade still in the 20s on a hiatus. Sorry I have a lot of books n hiatuses bcuz of comic/manga/other topic books too lol. How is that Kram book? Thinking about getting the Autobiography the OP mentions too.

 

Ironically this thread is emblematic of why Joe was bitter. The thread ostensibly was about him and it became all about Ali. He was just larger than life. It reminds me of something I read by Mark Kram who wasn't really a fan of Ali and tried to dissect him. He tells of meeting a man, an older Vietnam vet who said he met Ali for a moment and it changed his life. Kram was nonplussed..

 

I forgot the name of the book. It was edited by an African American professor who published a collection of essays about Ali. He was trying to find out the why of his infatuation with Ali. He talks of having a baseball bat in which as a kid he engraved Ali's name on it to give it superpowers and at the end of his investigation he said he still loved that bat.

 

I'll say again that fairly or unfairly ... and I can make an argument that it's unfair, given his own journey ... Joe Frazier is going to be eternally remembered by history as a boxer, a truly and utterly great one, but nothing more than a boxer.

Ali is going to be eternally remembered as an icon. And there was nothing Joe could do with his fists or his angry words or bitterness to change that.

And there are zero words to defend his behavior toward Joe, especially in Manila. Something I thought of earlier, Manila may have been the high point of Ali as an egotist. Not only was he running his mouth, but he was brazenly showing off his concubine. (I'd love to have been a fly on the wall when Belinda crashed in on them.)

 

Immediately after the Thrilla, he said "Lawdy, lawdy, I hit him with punches that would bring down mountains" and he also said whatever else he was in the ring with me he was a man.

 

True but I'll only add freedom of opinion doesn't give ppl the freedom from criticism. Also, who's to say that the relationships he had w some of his former foes didn't improve after the book? That's something we would have to look into but I do agree I focus more on the in ring work too generally.


We tend not to know who these guys were and imho we get bogged down into applying our modern philosophies to the past which imho clash. Those guys did not have the ability to fact check on the fly w Google like we do lol. I just assume they're most likely scumbags until I see otherwise but that's my perspective.

 

I can't believe I forgot Nelson Mandela but my list was African Americans, not Africans.

 

I'm not getting into the ethnicity argument here but I respect the achievements of both men. That said, we all have a bias to favor ppl who lean more towards our politics anyways so listing who's more important than who is subjective. Only objective thing is the fame part which I could care less about