Ali and Frazier Friends?

Belinda met Ali when she was 16 but was 17 when they married and had sex for the first time (as Ali's religion only permitted sex after marriage) which was over the age of the consent at the time. The claim he had an affair with a 13 year old, was laughably untrue and extremely irresponsible to even post without a source.

 

He met 16-year-old Wanda Bolton in 1974 and married her in an Islamic ceremony that was not legally recognized in America. Wanda changed her name to Aaisha Ali for Ali, and together with Ali, she raised her daughter Khaliah. Aaisha was not only his only extramarital affair with whom he fathered a child.

https://kidadl.com/facts/muhammad-ali-children-you-won-t-believe-the-number-of-kids-he-has

Not 13!!! . And the wife beating allegation needs a citation. To the best of my knowledge he slapped his first wife for dressing provocatively when she refused to put on something more modest. If my memory is correct it was at a party. That's not good. A man should never hit a woman but that's different than being a wife beater which suggests repetitive behavior and something much more violent. He said and did things as a member of the NOI he came to regret and repudiate. He wasn't a saint. At the end of the day he became famous for beating people up.

 

Agreed, Joe Frazier was the epitome of a sportsman and gentleman reminding me of the class that fighters showed one another from the 30's to the 60's. Ali aside from bringing talent to the division brought a punk mentality with a loud mouth that caused a virus of it that still infects mouthy fighters today who fight more with their tongues than fists.

 

This, regrettably, is somewhat true. One of Ali's legacies is the glut of annoying Ali impersonators who can't stop trash talking.

Fighters did that before, but Ali made it a bit more blatant and common.

Not really a big thing either way, though.

 

The guy literally talked a guy off a ledge. How many of us can say that?

 

Lets face it, as a boxer Ali is the GOAT. But as a human being, he had lots of shortcomings and failures, even if some of them have been blow out of proportion.

Joe Louis was on target when he said Ali could be selfish and cruel.

Once I read a psychology paper on highschool bullying and the long term consequences. It was very illustrative.
They found that as adults, former bullies have a very hard time remembering what they did as kids dismissing it as just "rough children play" without importance. On the other side, the bullied fully remembered the mistreatment as a pivotal point in their lives, carrying the emotional scars as adults.

Thus, maybe for Ali trashtalking Joe was not big deal and he genuinely thought it was just "part of the bussiness" of selling the FOTC. But sure Joe saw things differently.

In any case, whatever bitternes/grudge Joe carried against Ali, he was fully entitled to it. After all, he was the offended part.

 

When Thomas Hauser wrote his book about Ali he became friends with Joe Frazier which is interesting in and of itself because if you liked Ali Joe didn't like you and Hauser idolized Ali. When he interviewed Joe he said some rough things about Ali and Hauser relayed it back to him and Lonnie, his wife. Lonnie said did you hear what he said about you and Ali said "if that's the way he feels that's the way he feels." Ali was the bad guy in this feud but Ali wasn't a bad guy. His generosity in general and in spirit is well documented.

 

True.
Life taught me that you hardly find somebody who is fully "bad" or good".
It all depends.
I have seen "good people" do horrible things; and "bad people" do surprisingly noble things.

Ali was a complex man with many layers and sides. He could be many things and there were multiple versions of him. Unfortunately Joe got one of the worst versions of Ali.

 

I'm familiar with the area where Ali talked the guy off a ledge. I travel it three or four times a week when I drive my wife to and from work. The ledge was on a building in Mid-Wilshire and Ali lived in Hancock Park, a distance of a couple or so miles. He's watching tv and sees some guy on a ledge. Imagine thinking I'm going to go up there and talk him off but that's what he did. Kind of amazing.

 

It is not at all unfair, disrespectful or irresponsible to repeat what is commonly known & really well documented without a source.
You should politely ASK me for a source-we are not morally or logically obligated to provide sources before there is any contention about the claim-but ironically attacking those who describe a situation is boun to cause wholly unnecessary contention.

You can look at the link above where nothing in that talksport.com claim contradicts what I wrote.
I did not know that Ali tried to apologize "numerous times", but if so he did not do so or come to Frazier soon after his son must have told him the minimal, restrained request (given all the abuse he endured from Ali, & the article goes beyond what I mentioned re: the death threats).

It seems unlikely that Ali was merely "naive" about the effect that many including Joe himself in that article describe as cruelty. He would have to be detached from reality-possible absent a clinical diagnoses of delusional thought processes, but unlikely.

What would have been more useful-& I am still open to now-is tell me what you disagree with in what I wrote.
Certainly not every single word.
For example the Playboy interview where he preaches murder according to dating out of your race is neither a unique claim by him, nor difficult to find in seconds via a Google search. I was not responsible to link the obvious. Do you think the interview & massive publication was somehow faked? That Ali would not object in the very improbable event they published a lie?

I love Ali for many virtues & what he did for the world. As the possibly GOAT HW. In entertaining & inspiring many, for civil rights & black power...

But it would be wrong, & unevolved of me, to let my appreciation get in the way of blaming or holding him accountable for his significant failings.

 

He said a lot of racist things during his NOI days. He came to the conclusion that the white man wasnt the devil and that the devil came in all colors. As to interracial marriage some of his daughters are married to white men. Biaggio Ali Walsh is Ali's bi-racial grandson. He has another bi-racial grandson from another daughter who he had attended his bar mitzvah.

 

I was referring specifically to the claim that he had an affair with a 13 year old. It's completely false and you know it.

 

Ali should have left the NOI when Malcolm did. He said the end of their friendship was the largest regret of his life. OTOH maybe he was afraid they would kill him too.

 

I've said this before and I'll say it again - In more recent years I get the strong feeling that if everything else in Frazier's world was ok then Ali was ok with Joe. If Joe was pissed off in general - he was pissed off with Muhammad.

 

OK but how would I or anyone

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you that among many claims in my post, & focusing overwhelmingly on Ali's abuse & cruelty towards Frazier, that you meant to deny merely that he had an affair with a 13 year old girl?

Also how is it rational, fair, or in accords with "The Golden Rule" to assume that I LIED about this?
Your uncharacteristically uncharitable response seems an emotional response by a fan.
Even if I hated Ali or considered his greatness exaggerated (neither thing in evidence in my decade here nor true), there is zero cause to assume I invented something rather than might be mistaken.

Here is one of many sources a quick Google search could discover.
If I am right & this book correctly documented things, it would be EQUALLY unfair & illogical to assume you knew this & were lying.

It says everyone around Ali knew about his tendencies-the one that is not wrong in itself is an insatiable sexual appetite.
But that he had sex with girls as young as 12.
That he beat 2 of his 4 wives.
That he was a sexual predator & his second wife Boyd/changed name to Khalilah after converting said he had a really dark & evil side, that he was manipulative to the point of she had to not only avoid disturbing him with woman, but had to book rooms for him & his mistresses.
Of course if this was an open marriage &/or kink it would be fine.

Now I am very open to hearing why any of these claims may be wrong or exaggerated.
But let's be objective, not assume facts not in evidence OR automatically dismiss them without cause due to bias.

A respected & ostentatiously kind poster just perhaps overpraised me for the truth of my original post here.
You usually are much more like him in being gracious & fair.
Here is the first source I have been referring to, a book from 2017.

https://www.nzherald.co.nz/sport/ne...ls-as-young-as-12/7GWGB3N4DCVVEEFNFAYEE7VTXA/