Classic Forums Opinion on Muhammad Ali as a boxer, and a person.

What a silly post this is, you do befuddle me sometimes

Are you saying you've lost respect for virtually every great fighter in history then?

Religion provides fighters with a strong emotional support, that helps give them the confidence to beleive they can achieve anything (whether its misguided or not)

 

hey that's not stange listening to this board. The amount of contradictory comments i've heard is unbelievable. 60s ali's opponents were crap nevermind ali made them look crap. Liston was shot, Patterson had a broken back, Cooper 2 was a loser, Terrell was blind, Folley was a bum. Ali comeback was great. He had hard fights for once so that's more like the norm. 60s ali woulda done the same to the 70s opponents - yeah Frazier and Foreman were better but they didn't fight the peak Ali. Patterson & Chuvalo knew the score when they faced a 60s and a 70s version and there's only one winner. How's that for something real....................................

 

Without reading the thread, I would say this about Ali. Great boxer, but not a great as many make him out to be, he was beatable, they all are. Great, great, great, promoter, nobody could promote himself or a fighter any better. Human being, yes he was human and as such made mistakes. Married a couple of times, certainly cheated on some of his wives, stood for what he believed in as far as the war was concerned, and always spoke his mind. But he also had a mean streak and could be cruel, which made him human, flaws and all.

 

Absolutely. It's rare to see a Hispanic fighter not make the sign of the cross before the first bell. I caught even the Satanic-looking Duran crossing himself right before he came out of his corner against Hagler. Most American fighters publically thank God after a bout and many witness to JC even though Larry Merchant gets perturbed every time.

Only elitists and snobs would throw mud on this long-standing phenomena. And they do it safely with their feet dangling from a couch -far from the blood splattered canvas on which these hard men step and pivot.

 

Ha ha, I've read 100 times the books and articles that you have on this sport Charlie ****ing Magri. I asked you what page of Holmes book it was on, still waiting for an answer. You're the one who should 'give it a break', every conversation about a fighter seems to eveolve into you saying **** like "well, he ****ed loads of women" as if that's some sort of heinous crime. You're consistently making yourself look a gobshite- carry on. :good

 

The man's an idiot. End of chat.

 

Yes, I do lose a little respect for anyone with such seemingly misguided beliefs. Great boxers or not it would be hypocritical to say otherwise.

But that is not to say, they lose so much that I cannot still respect them as people. Like all people you take the good with the bad in your opinion and make an overall judgement.

 

Then I guess I an an elitist snob, because I do feel sorry for these hard men who in your eyes seemingly rely on this crutch of religion.

I only mentioned religion in these thread because Ali is a symbol of the Islamic faith and these are type of people I do not feel sorry for, rather a little angry that they spread these naive beliefs....

 

You're citing Holmes ?

This is the same Holmes who pissed all over the dead Marciano when he came up short of catching his record.

And in front of Rocky's relatives.

When Marciano had nothing to do with that failure and never heard of Holmes.

A ****in' class act all around.

Jealous, bitter, envious.

Felt unrecognized and hit back (like Nixon at the dead JFK) for the world's slights of him as he perceived it.


I rank Holmes as 5 or 6 alltime in the heavywt division, but one of the biggest ****s that ever set foot in the ring.



When Ali KO'd Zora Foley, he saw that Foley's 10-year-old son was crying.

Ali told the boy that he was lucky Zora was well past prime, otherwise he'd have got his ass kicked. It made the boy stop crying and feel proud of his dad.


And it was probably a lie.

A noble lie.



The man had his flaws and contradictions, but he was the greatest heavywt ever and a larger than life figure who gave hundreds of millions inspiration well beyond the ring.


We won't see his likes again.

 

What a ****in' whopper !

Do you actually believe that anyone could read the vitriol in your posts in this thread and believe that **** ?

Hating or despising the man is a legit point of view, if that's the opinion you've formed.

But to say you like him, when that's such an obvious goddamned lie, is a bit rich.

 

Are you implying that they are not really "hard men" because they are religious...? If so, you're an ignorant snob. All men carry beliefs -whether it's faith in themselves, faith in government, faith in ideology, faith in science, faith in God, or combinations thereof.

... and so your little anger sees you spread your own naive beliefs.

PS/ I'd bet my house that you have only the barest understanding of either Christian or Islamic theology; and that you therefore have arrived at conclusions with ignorance as your engine.

 

You are fully entitled to your opinion, and I am in a minority. I should of used faith over belief, as you are quite right to suggest everyman, rightly IMO, has beliefs.

And there is no disputing that boxers generally are a very hard breed.

Possibly so, there are so many strange faiths....

 

I'm not so sure that your opinion is necessarily the minority one -it would be in Guarare or Mexico City, it would not be on any college campus or ivy league faculty lounge that I know of.

Right -every man has beliefs, TBooze, but every man has faith as well. You have a bias against those who have faith in Islam or Christianity but show me a man without faith in something and I'll show you a man who spends his days in a fetal position.

The majority of boxers are Christian generally and arguably Catholic specifically. If it is strange to you, you should attempt to understand it before condemning it outright. I'd recommend "Orthodoxy" by G.K. Chesterton. It's short and brilliant. Chesterton's approach is nothing like you'd expect from an Evangelical. His arguments are intellectual and logical.

 

Maybe. But I have proven beyond a reasonable doubt that you are one, there Dikembe. :good

 

I know, but of course. You've telepathically dredged into the corners of my ****ing brain and seen it all!

Why there's a six DVD Muhammad Ali sitting on the floor right behind me, and also why I feel Ali is the consensus #1 heavyweight of all time.

**** off. There's a massive difference between being able to appreciate a man as a human being and to be able to look at and respect his achievements.

But of course I hate the man because I post a news article from the 80's regarding him having illegitimate children? Why don't you get your thumbs out of your ass and go proclaim that they hate him?

Or posting what other fighters close to him said about him being cocky, two faced *******, from Archie Moore to Larry Holmes.

Repeating things that came straight out of the mans mouth that you can go watch on Youtube.

Do you really think it was decent of the man to treat Joe Frazier the way he did after Frazier had a large part in him regaining his license to box? By giving him money out of his own pocket to support Ali during that time?

You can conveniently try and package everything I say together into one broad blanket personal vendetta that I've got, but then you're glossing over the actual reality of the situation now aren't you?

It's the exact equivalent of a man speaking up for you while you're in jail for years and then paying your bond. And them, the moment you get out, you tear into that man so violently that it haunts his children and him for the rest of their lives. Every god damn time you're interviewed, or on national television, you tear the man apart.

Stigma like that, so benefiting of such a great man.