Which Fighter Always Came Across As A Decent Guy?

I don't know if you can blame Joe for that--Ali really did him dirty prior to the FOTC! You don't call a proud man like Frazier an Uncle Tom--ESPECIALLY in the turbulent social climate that existed back then. Plus, Frazier stood up for Ali when he was stripped of his title and was exiled from the sport. Ali backstabbed him and in many ways alienated him from the black community--simple as that!

I'd encourage anyone to pick up the book "Ghosts of Manila" by Mark Kram which goes into all of this in much more detail. I think the book is somewhat overly sympathetic to Frazier and overly harsh on Ali but you still come away with a much greater realization why Joe always carried that bitterness with him. And honestly, I think just about anybody would feel the same way if they experienced what Frazier experienced!!

 

I've read Ghosts of Manila and thought it was largely pseudo intellectual rubbish with a clear agenda against Ali.

I'm not saying that Frazier was wrong to resent Ali. I'm saying that his resentment festered and intensified because he wouldn't let it go.

I read somewhere, maybe in Ghosts of Manila, that some guy was on a long distance car journey with Frazier, who talked about Ali the whole way there and the whole way back and this was many years after he had retired from boxing.

That says it all.

I think Frazier saw Manila as an opportunity for revenge but his frustration in losing increased his resentment towards Ali and he brooded on it for the rest of his life.

Oddly enough, I've always had the impression that Ali genuinely liked Frazier but he had a funny way of showing it.

I believe that Ali was slightly intimidated by Frazier and his treatment of him was an attempt to get a psychological edge going into their fights.

 

I met both Chris Byrd & Quincy Taylor in person, and both seemed genuinely nice people, just as they always came across in their TV interviews...

 

Miguel Cotto

 

Michael Spinks was the first guy that popped into my head

 

Vernon Forrest

 

While not necessarily "intellectual rubbish"--Kram does go a little overboard on the highbrow vocabulary in that book--and there is a sympathetic bias towards Frazier. But I think Ali's remarks were more than just trying to get a psychological edge--there was a cruelty to them. I'll say it again--Frazier was ANYTHING but an "Uncle Tom"--(Ferdie Pacheco even used the term "raging black" to describe Frazier!)

Do you know that part of the reason Frazier had his lethal left hook was because his arm was slightly bent due to a farming accident he suffered growing up in South Carolina? The arm never straightened properly and as a result he could snap off that hook quicker. He grew up one of 13 children to a poor sharecropper in a very impoverished environment. Ali's upbringing was certainly not luxurious but nowhere NEAR as poverty-stricken as Joe's was. And Ali had the temerity to brand him an "Uncle Tom"--in 1971 no less--in a very tumultuous era for racial and civil rights issues in the US!! After Joe stood by him and defended his right to continue his career. Ali deliberately made those comments to marginalize Joe in the black community!!

That's LOW---that goes WAY beyond a psychological edge!! I don't blame Frazier ONE BIT for wanting to chew Ali's head off and carrying that burn inside him! As the time honored saying goes: 'You truly don't know a man until you walk a mile in his shoes!"

I am a huge fan of Ali and believe he was the greatest to ever step in the ring. But his treatment of Frazier will always be a stain on his legacy IMHO!

 

Alexis Arguello and Joe Louis had personal demons and some ugly events involving getting physical with women (also just being shitty husbands), but I tend to look at them as decent guys who were also gracious sportsmen and generous people who tried to help their countries.

I also saw them somewhat similar in the ring. Slowish feet although they had educated footwork, but powerful guys and two of the most beautiful punchers you’ll ever see.

 

Julian Jackson seems cool. Arguello, Olivares.

 

Thank you Clinton.

 

It was more than a little overboard.

At times, it read like a PhD thesis.

Yes, it was cruel but, in my opinion, it was said to antagonise Frazier and obtain a psychological edge.

Ali didn't single out Frazier with this. He did the same with Patterson and Terrell in the 60's at a time that was arguably more tumultuous than 1971.

It's impossible to determine Ali's motive in doing this, we can only guess.

In my opinion, he was trying to antagonise Frazier and throw him off his game.

As Ken Norton said, if you concentrate on what Ali says to you then you can't concentrate on what you should be doing as far as fighting him is concerned.

Larry Holmes said that when he fought Ali, Ali said things to him that he never thought he would hear Ali say but after the fight, he understood why Ali had done it.

 

Ali certainly had some "unflattering" words for Patterson and Terrell--but I don't recall him labeling them as "Uncle Tom's." He DID label Frazier as such! For a proud man like Joe who stood by Ali and supported him during his exile to hear that kind of slur (and it IS a slur) coming from him was FOUL!

I'm by FAR not the only one who sees it this way--and that's the way I'll always look at it! Ali was wrong to do that to Joe--especially after he stood up for him during his exile. Just a dirty backstabbing move!

We will have to agree to disagree regarding our divergent viewpoints on this topic--such is life!

 

He didn’t single Joe out.

He called Floyd Patterson an Uncle Tom (I don’t know how to timestamp, but he explains it around 1:30):

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He called Terrell an Uncle Tom:

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In both cases, Ali was upset that they insisted on calling him Cassius Clay rather than by his (by then legal) name.

And guess what: Frazier and his management was still calling Ali “Clay” as late as 1967. That, too, is an insult.

Ali considered any black person who supported or was part of “the establishment” to be an “Uncle Tom.” In fact, that’s more or less what the term means — a black person who kowtows to the white establishment. Frazier supported the war in Vietnam, which Ali opposed, and was generally seen as “the establishment” champion because he didn’t speak out against things he could have (taken a stand for civil rights, or against the war, for instance). Whether you think Ali was right or wrong in taking such a stance, he was not inconsistent.

Ali later publicly apologized to Frazier for calling him that. Joe accepted it, then changed his mind. Joe also said mean things about Ali, but he’s always painted as a victim.

Joe held onto that grudge way too long. It’s ashamed, because holding resentments hurts the person who holds them much more than the person they resent.

 

I will certainly agree with you that Ali wasn't inconsistent in his stance against anyone he considered "establishment"--and I know that was definitely a factor in his remarks about Joe prior to the FOTC. BUT--and this is a crucial point--unlike the other two fighters Frazier openly supported Ali during his exile and spoke out on his behalf. He even gave him money to help tide him over during that period. And after all that Ali STILL trashes him cruelly. Sorry--that's a dirty, foul backstabbing move--won't see it any other way!!

With regards to Joe being "establishment"--I think that while he certainly held more conservative views on things that was just part of his personality. He was a blue-collar, lunch-pail guy who just wanted to do his job and go about his business. The media fueled a lot of that "establishment" stuff simply because Frazier wasn't Ali. He didn't ask to be the de-facto symbol for hard-hat America--that label was essentially shoved at him.

As far as apologizing--I don't know if Ali ever had a face to face meeting with Frazier where he looked him square in the eye and said he was sorry for going too far with some of his remarks. It's one thing to apologize "through channels"--it's another thing altogether to do it man to man in person.

 

Ali being nasty to other fighters isn’t actually a defence of the man.

Rather, it reinforces the belief that Ali could be nasty for its own sake - and really, in respect of any other opponent, was Ali ever as nasty for as long and as acutely as he was toward Frazier?

No, he wasn’t, imo.

So from a platform of already being nasty toward several, different fighters, Ali chose to single out Joe even - dishing it out to Joe more than anyone else.

The psychological edge motive doesn’t cut it.

Ali knew he couldn’t put Frazier off, if anything, his barbs only served to spur Joe on -

Frazier’s pathological hatred played a big part in driving Joe to victory in the FOTC and it also fed Joe’s performances against Ali thereafter.

Ali simply could be a nasty individual - pure and simple.

He thought Joe was gone leading into Manila - he was simply taking the opportunity to make fun of Joe and insult him further.

Just the fact of Ali and Frazier fighting one another again - and in what might’ve been deemed as a decider between the two - was a good part of the promotion already taken care of.

Again, Joe went into the Rubber Match still holding the anger from past treatment - but Ali’s needless smack talk going into the fight had to have fed Joe’s anger even more - which was, as we saw, to Ali’s surprise and disadvantage.

Interesting to speculate that IF Joe wasn’t as bitter toward Ali as he was - perhaps the FOTC and the rubber in Manila wouldn’t have been as great as they were.

Joe’s post career, follow through bitterness toward Ali didn’t make him a bad person at all - but it was, of course, self defeating.