Joe Frazier drop another verbal gem

Ghost of Manilla was good if you are a Frazier fan, pretty anti Ali though depending on how you see it.

"man i hit him with punches that would bring cities down" - Joe Frazier on Ali after the Thriller in Manilla

 

Fraziers backers Cloverlay were white too.Frazier was an Olympic hero too,and won the more prized heavyweight medal.What evidence is there that Frazier met more terrible racism than Ali?

 

Easily agree with this.

 

The story about Ali throwing away the Olympic Gold Medal is bull****.

Didn't happen, but it was some more good myth for the Ali sycophants to swallow right down.

 

Lol I can recall hearing that some place. Some of these new s reporters really do talk some crap!

 

Not really. It was fair. Most books and documentaries came with an Ali slant to them. I thought it was well written and it portrayed Ali more realistically from a writer who covered him.

 

True, but Frazier never ragged on Ali about having white men as backers like Ali did Frazier, so in reality you missing the ****ing point. The white collar, liberal crowd were pro Ali and the blue collar crown were pro Frazier. The majority of blacks followed Ali due him getting the vast majority of attention.
Timing is also an issue, as Ali came along 4 years earlier.

 

He wasn't getting the vast majority of the attention out of the womb. He had to earn it.

Ali was way smarter.
Way funnier. Way more charismatic. Far more entertaining.
Had a much greater purpose in boxing.
Was a pivotal figure in Civil Rights as well as the Vietnam war. And connected with people on a spiritual level.


Frazier was always way too salty about Ali imo. He took it more personal than any other opponent Ali had, and I think that's what made him an easier target for psychological warfare.


In that documentary Frazier smugly remarks that Ali can't talk, but that Frazier can still sing.

I prefer to remember the good things Frazier said about Ali. And I like to think that in his heart of hearts, he truly respected and admired him.

 

Lol! I just reread this. It must have just gone over my head the first time round. Ol' Joe was funny even when it was unintentional.

 

You paint a ridiculously rosy portrait of Muhammad Ali though, to be fair.
Your comments make Frazier Ali's inferior on almost every level, which is precisely what Ali was telling people.
Your 100% in Ali's camp.
And that's your right.
But it distorts any attempt you might make at a fair assessment of Joe Frazier.

It's probably the millions of people like you that went along with everything Ali said and embellished the Ali legend that contributed to Frazier's not being able to let go of his extreme resentments.

They were both great fighters and on balance probably both decent men.

 

For full discloser, someone in my family was close to him. So I can't sit here and tell you that you're wrong about all that. Regardless, when it comes to boxing history, I try to remain as objective as possible.

Ali definitely said some nasty things to him.
But he never seemed angry at the guy, or seemed to truly hate him.
It was tongue in cheek fight promotion with some serious salt on it at times.
And Ali was "all in" with the psychological warfare during the prefight build ups.

In respect to the Ali rivalry, Frazier just didn't seem to get it.
How many of Ali's opponents understood the promotional aspect of his trash talking?
Shavers was made a fool by Ali, but at the end of the day, he knows Ali lifted him to levels he could've never reached otherwise.

I feel bad for Frazier because I think Ali meant something to him growing up.
And I think being attacked by someone you admire must be tough.
But he should've seen the writing on the wall.
Ali's anti-war message had just become popularized. It was a huge deal that transcended boxing. Of course Frazier is going to be the "bad guy" in the promotion to the fight. How could he not see that coming or come to terms with it?
He seemed to demand a level of respect from Ali which frankly he didn't deserve. Ali's charisma and personality lead to major momentum swings in Civil Rights and the Vietnam War, and now you want him to buckle down, change his personality, and respect you in the pre-fight build up? Where's the realistic expectation in that?
All the while he was probably making an enormous amount of money, and gaining tons of fame due to being Ali's rival.

Hell, I think he beat Ali because of what I characterize as unreasonable anger. Also, I think his responses to Ali's name calling made him more entertaining to watch in and out of the ring.
So in the end, it actually may have worked well for him in the ring and financially. And Frazier will always be a legend of boxing.

But if we're comparing the two, things need to placed in their proper context.
Has Ali ever wished illness in others? At times, Frazier seemed to seriously bask in the enjoyment of seeing Ali's condition.

 

GREAT POINTS. And on point.

 

Fair enough.

Yes, it was intended mostly as pre-fight promotion from Ali.

But, firstly, both Frazier and Ali were famous and undefeated champions and the fight didn't really need extreme hype.
Secondly, Ali was a hero to people, a hero to many voiceless black people especially, and he callously spread the feeling that Frazier was some sort of traitor to cause of black people.
"Uncle Tom" is not something to be thrown around lightly.

- I'm not sure what impact Ali had on Vietnam war policy. He certainly took a brave personal stand though. Whatever his motives were, he was certainly going up against a serious opponent in the US government and he did it bravely.
- I'm not sure what Muhammad Ali did for Civil Rights at the time. If anything it must have been by accident because his views were pro-segregation, anti-race-mixing, he was espousing bigoted views on race-mixing up until the late 1970s. Horrible nasty stuff really.

Regardless, even if Ali's contribution to the above had been momumental, I don't see why Frazier should be expected to expect to take a role in all this and be target of politically-motivated slurs.
Maybe Frazier provoked some of it, I don't know. But it all seems over-the-top, to put it mildly.

That's a fair point. Frazier needn't have felt that way so longer after the fact or let it be known he felt that way. But I guess he hated Ali and felt justified in that.
It's not nice at all, but perhaps boxing isn't a nice business at all. Both these men ended up severely damaged by the sport, in my opinion.

 

I think Joe Frazier had plenty of time and opportunity to express his gripes against Ali in a reasonable way and that was perhaps his failing. Instead he became bitter and expressed it bitterly at the same time the Ali legend was growing.

 

I know right? I thought this was the funniest thing ever when I heard it. Frazier means so well!