Who are your favorite role models in boxing, not particularly your favorite boxers?

As a bi-racial person he let Black people know they could be anything they wanted to be and that was enough for me.

 

Tiger Flowers
Gene Tunney
Briscoe - true blue collar fighter, kept his job with the Phili garbage cooperation well into his career, stayed with his wife for the duration, not read any adverse literature about him, so yes BB.
Stay safe guys.

 

While he did do some good things, yeah, he's no role model. Womanizing, cheating, arrogant braggart who utterly disrespected the reigning and linear champion in multiple ways when that champ was the guy who helped him get his boxing license back and who helped support him when he didn't have a license.

Ali is an icon and was a force of nature, but he isn't a role model.

 

He was raised middle class, born with athletic abilities bordering on the supernatural, had the support to get into boxing at a young age.

Joe Frazier was raised dirt poor, too short and stocky, had an arm that was broken and healed improperly, half blind in one eye, was out on his own since he was a young teen, had absolutely no support, no nothing. And he never used the white man's racial insults against another black man.

Yet Ali is the hero you choose as an example of anyone being anything they want through force of will? Respectfully, I'd suggest Frazier is a far better example.

 

Felix Trinidad, how can you not like the guy and respect him as a role model.... Extremely gracious and generous, never talked bad about any boxer, he was a champions champion. Loved his people with a passion and was extremely charismatic, believed he was destined to become a great fighter. Didn't have problems with the law, kept a low profile, helped the poor and is still beloved in the Island of Puerto Rico.

 

Impregnated teenagers- pro race segregation and an abuser.

 

James J. Braddock

 

Max Baer. He brought a lot of humanity and humour into the ring, and I greatly respect him for it. The Cinderella Man's portrayal of him was criminal.

Also Max Schmeling. He didn't have to financially support Louis after his career ended, but he did anyway.

 

I'm not the only person who thought he was a role model:


Reggie Jackson in mourning, says Muhammad Ali was 'gift from God for all'

Jackson expressed what Ali meant to him in greater detail in a 2001 interview, quotes that were republished Saturday by the Louisville Courier-Journal.



"Do you have any idea what Ali meant to black people?" Jackson said. "He was the leader of a nation, the leader of Black America. As a young black, at times I was ashamed of my color; I was ashamed of my hair. And Ali made me proud.


"Do you know what it did for Black Americans to know that the most physically gifted, possibly the most handsome, and one of the most charismatic men in the world was black? Ali helped raise black people in this country out of mental slavery. The entire experience of being black changed for millions of people because of Ali."


https://www.nj.com/yankees/2016/06/reggie_jackson_in_mourning_says_muhammad_ali_was_g.html

 

Evander Holyfield …Miguel Cotto…Timothy Bradley

 

Holyfield had his issues. An idiot with money and whose pastime was impregnating a different lady every day of the week it seems.

He's definitely a model for dedication to fitness and training though.

 

He’s humble …down to earth …yet confident…and he never gives up

 

A role model is not someone that you think is perfect…a role model could be someone who shows you how to handle adversity…or how to be successful

 

Earnie Shavers, Lance Whitaker, Scott Ledoux.

 

Cornelius Boza Edwards