Ali the person?

Obviously had a love for the ladies, both pretty and ugly, in his 70's part of his career , according to a certain ex-football great.

 

The phrase 'well rounded person' comes to mind. Ali was no saint,but not the villain that some revisionists,in recent years,would have us believe.

 

Very charistmatic but until he got softer with age quite dislikable IMO.

 

i heard that 2 wealthy ladies followed his every fight just hoping they would see him get beaten.they took in a few fights before that happened.

 

I didn´t like what he did with Frazier......really didn´t like it.

 

It has always seemed to me that there is a bit of a Christ-like mythology/image to Ali..........his being exiled from boxing, tried as a criminal, then reappearance and ultimate glory. It's all very biblical. Maybe this is why he hits such a nerve, both good and bad.

 

The people close to him loved him, the people against him hated him.

He abused his rivals to get an edge in the ring, and fought dirty and spoiled with the best of them.

He also masterminded some of the greatest victories any fighter has ever won through sheer ability, grit, and toughness.

He made Joe Frazier's life harder with his tongue lashings and abuse, and donated a ton of money to charity and even more time to good causes.

He's a pretty well rounded guy. By no means is he a saint, he's nowhere near being a bad guy.

The fact that he was a straight up civil rights hero is another story. The black community latched on to Ali as a savior, and when the rest of the country finally fell into step and began to love the guy, he rewrote sporting history, becoming quite possibly the most famous, beloved athlete to ever live.

Bad, weak people don't triumphantly transcend their medium.

 

Ali was the real thing as far as boxing went he was great. However, globaly he benefited from aposing what turned out to be an unpopular war and became a martyr for suposedly "beating the system". He went global because of this but used his fame against his ring opponents. For a hero he was obssessed with boasting about how many people loved him. He often got away with going too far with hype because he was seen as the champion of blacks around the world, criticizing him became politically unacceptable. There was a lot of contradictions about ali the man but was mostly a good guy. Nice to kids and often funny.

 

He's a polarizing figure, that's for sure. A lot of his more deplorable actions (his treatment of Frazier (and to a lesser extant Patterson and Terrell) and serial womanizing occurred when he was still a young man. That doesn't excuse the behavior of course, but it should be noted that he curbed some of the more abrasive aspects of his behavior when he got older, while retaining at least some of the humor and social consciousness that made him a beloved figure around the world in the latter stages of his career.

So, in essence, he got better as he got older. And that's something we all hope to do...right?

 

He spoke over 20 year period against mix raced marriages, but is loved by liberals, which i find hilarious. He attended Klan rally, a video of which was once posted on here from youtube, with Ali talking about it. He said White people were devils, created in experiment gone wrong by Black scientist. He beat his wives, had Frazier hating him ,after Frazier had done so much for him. He did what was popular at time, then was glorified as hero who went agisnt system, when in fact he was going with trend (Vietnam war stance) Muslims owned him lock stock and barrel, yet people say he was own man. I have ZERO respect for him

 

I will add to what has been posted based on when I saw him speak at my college in 1969 when he was in exile from boxing. While he was largely popular with the college crowd because of his military stance, he acted contemptuous of servicemen in attendance. He advocated separatism between blacks and whites and said that while he did not vote in the 1968 presidential election, if he had he would have voted for Gov. George Wallace because "he was the only one who tells it like it is." He spoke of his Islam faith, denouncing Christianity, saying that Jesus "sure must have been prejudiced" because Renaissance paintings did not picture any black people as his disciples (!!!). He said that "after hearing what I just said, any black man who doesn't run into the nearest mosque to hear more is mentally ill." He could very quickly alternate among being funny, charming, witty, and scathing, all the while working the crowd to his advantage. He was friendly to those who shared his views and considerably less so to those who didn't.

 

Great boxer pitiful person.

 

:good

Yeah, he once said "A black man should be killed if he's messing with a white woman." (This is apparently at a time when he was a 'civil rights hero'. And at a time when blacks were still being lynched for such 'infractions'.)

He believed inter-racial sex and marriage was immoral and against God, just like white supremacists believe.
And he believed the rightly response to inter-racial marriage is prohibition, under threat of DEATH.
For ****'s sake, as far as ****ED-UP RACIST BELIEFS are concerned, how much worse can you get ? :nut

I see a lot of bollocks written on this board about all sorts of past champions being 'racists' over far more minor or alleged statements or feelings.
Yet Ali is revered and defended as some sort of liberating anti-racist hero.

In his alleged 'civil rights hero' period, Ali was spewing a message of racial intolerance concocted by the self-proclaimed 'prophet' of 'Islam' Elijah Muhammad, who believed in all sorts of whacky crap that has nothing to do with the real religion of Islam.


And I'm not even saying Ali was a bad person.
But most of the drivel he spewed on racial, political and religious matters was a bucket load of ****, and if you were to take the guy seriously you'd have to say he was a hateful racist extremist of the highest order.
However, to be fair, I think the guy was probably just an idiot.

Great great fighter though. And a funny guy.

 

When he wasn't beating them.

this sums up the things i was going to say.