and watching that footage now over again of foreman v 5, it's so obvious that Howard says "there is no shutting up muhammad ali now at this point" because Foreman's opponent kept trying to do ali's rope a dope stuff before getting blasted back, and Ali was now "delighted" to see it after he had been encouraging it for so long. It wasn't out of pure annoyance or anything. Howard didn't care too much and Ali was at worst being a bit more overbearing than usual because this was Foreman and Ali really wanted other people to beat Foreman, too. maybe this means Ali was using them as crash dummies in a way, or just should have understood his role as a commentator more. Ali was just going ham backing up the guys fighting Foreman who was the big bully back then. There were several minutes when Ali said nothing. He wasn't being beyond annoying or horrible to anyone.