Joe Frazier explains style and training

Like I said before, anyone can mimick his style for a round of sparring, but doing this successfully against world class competition is a heck of an accomplishment by any standard.

 

When Ali was walking down the street no one else could get a word in edgeways.

 

Patterson called him Clay for a long time...but may have changed in the mid-70's.

 

Are you serious?

Muhammad Ali was the most famous man on the planet for a very long time. That is actually true. More people knew Ali around the world, than JFK, and MLK. He was much bigger than boxing. He stood for many things, and religion was one of them. And he didn't ask much by asking people call him by his new name. And if people didn't respect that, then they didn't respect Ali's religious devotion. The fact that it's 2010 and you still view this subject the exact way it was viewed in the 60's is pretty remarkable.

 

Frazier was in great condition at that point in time. The success of the Ali fight and becoming a house-hold name was a lot for him to handle and he also started partying with women and other things at the time. Frazier only had 10 fights after Ali FOTC and he went 5-4-1 and 2 of those wins were Daniels and Stander but Bugner, Quarry and Ellis were the other 3. Frazier was formidable but never really regained the eye of the tiger he had in Ali 1 IMO

 

I think that it is oversymplifying things. Anyway, Frazier knew by then that it bugged him badly but persisted with it. It wasn't a one-way assault.

 

I think Floyd called him Clay all the way. He still did in Hauser's biography, at least. The two of them made peace personally, but Floyd never changed his mind about the Black Muslims and that may have been his way of showing that.

 

Well Floyd was a street smart Brooklyn kid and he knew the Black Muslims were just a gang.

The group of Black Muslims that had Ali out of Newark N.J. were known to be drug dealers and hoodlums.

Jeremiah Shabazz was one of the leaders under Herbert Muhammad. I met with Jeremiah later on, he had some influence with Murad Muhammad and Razor Rudduck. When asked about Ali and the Muslims influence, Jeremiah said we had control of his mind and thus his pocket.

Floyd s brother in law ( they married 2 sisters) was a well-connected ex-fighter an Italian guy who had some connections. Cus D'amato also knew a lot of people but was looked down upon by a lot as an undesirable. Floyd recognized the Black Muslims as a gang, Floyd was a gentleman but knew the streets

Fighters like Floyd and Joe Frazier had strong Christian roots and they took offense to the Christian religion being called a white mans religion when in America there was a strong History of Black Christian churches and Black Christian music. They looked at the Black Muslims as a racial divider instead of one that united, especially when the Non-violent and brilliant Martin Luther King did more with love than anyone ever did with hate.

Shame what happened to King, the King family do not believe that James Earl Ray was the killer as for Malcolm-X they say Farrakhan had a hand in his demise.

Bad times in this country that needed to be sorted out but there are always 2-sides to the Black Muslim-Black Christian conflict and the so-called Uncle Tom reply by the fighters who did not call Clay - Ali was more of a defense of holding on to and defending there Black Christian roots and the fact that they were called Uncle Toms for doing so

 

I agree with Floyd. The Black Muslims was a joke. A bad one.

But when it came to "slave names" I actually think they had a point. If I was named after a guy who owned my forfathers as live stock, I wouldn't be too keen on that name. And if I changed it and people refused to accept that, it would be **** me off as well.

Hell, I know people who change their names for all kind of reasons and I don't make a point of refusing to call them by their new names. And if I for some reason did, it wouldn't be hard to figure out it would make them mad.

Ali had changed his name 7 years prior to FOTC and had been in several well publicised rows with people who called him Clay. Frazier knew this, but still persisted with Clay. Of course he was looking to get under his skin.

He made light of everything Ali stood for, and Ali called him an Uncle Tom. Hey, if you play the game...

 

I agree, I am not Black but I do not like the slave history of the U.S. or South American country's but many white Europeans and middle-eastern decent Americans have slave roots from the Old-Country or where dominated and taken over by Empires.

Each group that came from Europe to America was treated liked the lowest of lows

Ali had an Northern-Irish Grandfather on his fathers side named Clay and some white roots on his mothers side

Joe Louis had some American Indian and white roots, Jack Dempsey had American Indian blood.

I can see taking offense to that(slave names) but I can also seeing fighters like Frazier and Floyd being proud of the strength survival of there ancestors and how they overcame with faith, song and prayer.

 

I think Floyd was very erudite in his dislike of the Black Muslims. And I generally agree with what he said. There were of lot of not only disgusting but also ludicrous things with the Black Muslims's beliefs (and Ali often came off as an idiot - in best case - when spouting them). But with the name changing I do think they had a point.

 

Why didn't they change their names to African names instead of middle eastern names then?

 

Because those that changed their names were generally Muslim and got a Muslim/Arabic type name.

 

I haven't seen Frazier portrayed as such back then. But maybe they did, I don't know. Today it is forgotten about, though. It is always described as a very one-sided war of words, where Ali does all he can to get to Joe but Joe only does his talking in the ring.