Found this little story fascinating

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Gotta love Frazier.

 

Great stuff Mcgrain !

 

Interesting take on JCO ,I never really thought of her that way ,but what you say makes sense. Ali was out of line with that gorilla **** ,but he genuinely likes Frazier,I think Frazier may have mellowed slightly from a dvd I saw recently. Reminds me of Basilio's attitude to Robinson ,though it was for different reasons of course.

 

... Evidently I missed this. Better late than never!

1. I think that you are missing the point. Read the original post on it where I questioned Ali's sincerity in using his religiosity to avoid service to his country. I do not, mind you, question the validity of religiosity as an objection, I do question it if that religiosity is not consistent and not sincere and is instead brought in along with celebrity to avoid an obligation. An obligation that thousands of others would have liked to avoid but didn't ...or couldn't.

2. Well then, the right thing to do would have been to try to work out a deal. Did he try? Nope. And that may have been bad advice from left wing consultants looking to use Ali to make an anti-war statement, or it could have been Ali's one track fear of going over, period.

3. This is a dumb point. And we're talking about 40 years past. Kids didn't have access to guns like they do now. It was the days of "The Outsiders" not friggin 40 Cent.

 

Robinson was a serious pr*ck. Ali was indulging in intra-black racism to sell tickets and to simply be childishly cruel -which he often was. Modern-day saint my ass.

However, there was, perhaps, a trace of envy lurking under Basilio and Frazier's disdain.

 

No, people always say that so and so envies someone when they didn't like them and talk bad about them. Well, maybe they just don't like that person. The blue collar guys hated all of those poems and sayings and nicknames and such. They were taught to train, go to the press conferences, maybe do a little trash talking to sell tickets, and fight. Marciano didn't like Ali either, and others weren't too found of Robinson. It's the way they carried themselves that made them unpleasing to the other fighters.

 

Maybe they "just don't like that person." Or.... maybe there's a trace of envy. You don't know. I don't either -and never pretended that I did.

Are you ruling out the possiblity of a fighter being a little jealous of the fighter that not only beat him, but went to become glorified and adored by the public forever?

 

Yes, there is some truth to that. But I also feel that some of you here go too far in the other direction. Ali also had some very good sides. Hauser's book is full of people testifying to his kindness and generosity.

I also find it kind of ironic that the same people that sympathize with Frazier's life long hatred of Ali, chastises Ali for how he reacted to the very insulting words of Terrell. Why is it more acceptable for Frazier to make fun of Ali's current state decades after Ali's hurtful words, than it is for Ali to humiliate and punish Terrell for treating his religious and ideological belief with pure contempt? I can see why it made Ali furious to hear a black man say what Terrell did at a time when a lot of white Americans wanted him dead. Terrell scoring easy points like that must have felt like betrayal of the very worst kind.

 

As he said, why would he kill and risk to be killed for a country that didn't recognize him as a full citizen. "No Viet Cong ever called me ******" is one of the most to the point quotes I ever heard.

And Russell, about what he said to Patterson: Floyd said how he felt about Ali's affiliation to the Black Muslims, and rightly so, and Ali said how he felt about Floyd kissing the establishment's ass (Floyd actually apologized to Frank Sinatra - who hardly stood up for blacks's rights - for losing to Ali after the fight). So it kind of evens out, doesn't it?

 

Ali knew he would do the Louis thing and not see any actual combat (it's in his autobiography), but he wouldn't take that offer.

 

Ali speaks of that sort of deal in his bio 'My Own Story' on pages 198-200, and how he was offered a position in the National Guard by a Illinois politician, as well as a Colonel in the army, at a meeting that took place in Chicago.