Did Muhammad Ali take it too far.."FIGHTERS TAKING IT TOO FAR"

of course but what made it worse was he never apoligised face to face

i am 99.99999999999% sure Ali never meant any of it and expected Joe to take it as a joke and then he felt he wouldnt need to apoligise as it was a joke.

 

a lot of it was propaganda to promote the fight...Ali tried to make Frazier the uncle Tom American when it was Ali who grow up in an upper class hood and Frazier came from the deep south a poor cotton farming family...Ali almost had the black people believing Frazier was white and had some white people thinking it too....Ali was the best promoter I have seen but he was also Champion to the non boxing fan so if he said he could fly they believed it...he got a lot of his stick from wrestler gorgeous george who made everyone hate him or love him.....Ali was a self promoter

 

Nonsense. Ali ment it. Those fights did not need Ali calling Frazier an ulgy Uncle Tom ... it was truly ulgy and he did it time and again ... there is a reason Frazier still burns over him till this day ...

 

He may have carried it too far....but thats how Ali hyped himself

 

Is it as bad or worse than Durans comments to Leonard, Tyson to Lewis?
Fighters often say offensive things, its an aggresive, combative sport.
If it worked for Ali more power to him, If it got under Joes skin and put him off his fight then it has worked and showed Ali was able to win the mental battle, as Duran did against Leonard also.

 

I honestly don't see how it's a big deal. Just words. I never understood why someone would give a **** about what someone says about them.

 

There are certain terms various cultures shouldn't have to withstand.

Ali should have never called Frazier an "Uncle Tom".

I lost respect for Ali from that point on.

 

You don' understand. Frazier's reputation was in tatters after the claims Ali made.

 

Bull****!!!
Floyd Patterson said the title had to be brought back to America after Ali joined the Nation of Islam, Others refered to him as Clay and belittled his change of name and later his stance on the Vietnam War, so in fact Ali overcame more damage to his reputation.

Patterson on this forum is hailed as a true gentleman yet his statement was every bit as bad if not worse than Ali calling Joe an Uncle Tom. Ali as an AMERICAN had every right to practise his chosen religion, every right to change his name legally and the right to object to his drafting as many other conscientious objectors did. He like Floyd had represented his country at the Olympics so what made him less an American than Floyd

 

It's funny because the country in many ways was still a racist hotbed, but moving forward as time went on. Then you have Ali, who BECAME a boxer because of a bully stealing his bike when he was a child, calling Frazier the equivilent of a ****** on national TV. This, the very same Ali who didn't want to fight against the Vietcong because they never called him no ******, etc etc.

Casual quasi-racist bull**** might have found it's way into the media now with less taboo's attached to it (Thank you rap and MTV) but back then it was the last ****ing thing that was needed, especially from a man who from the beginning of his career to decades after it associated with all sorts of anti-racial and progressive groups.

 

I think he took it a bit too far with frazier. Some of the things that Ali said about joe wasn't right and some things were downright cruel, especially when you consider that it was frazier that helped him when he was in exile. I understand that ali was using those tactics to build the gate but it didn't take all of that.

I'm a big ali fan but right is right and wrong is wrong. I'm also a firm believer that everyone eventually pays for their wrongdoings some way or another, which could possibly explain ali's condition today.

 

Benny Paret never ceased with the homo remarks towards Griffith. I believe several comments were televised???? Anyone have any more info on this????

 

I think Ali's comments toward Frazier carried much more weight than anything Tyson said to Lewis or even Paret to Griffin. Hyping the fight or not, **** was too serious back then for Ali's comments, for ****'s sake, even Louis and Schmeling could keep it civil.