Why did Muhammad Ali disrespect Frazier so much?

I think it is more this than people are comfortable with.

I think Ali convinced himself that he hated Joe, who didn't deserve that disdain, but Muhammad needed a symbol of all that had been done to him; All he had been through. He wanted his belt back, he wanted to take it back, and he wanted to destroy who held it. To that end, he tried everything, I think; Psychological warfare, bullying, **** talking to prop himself up. He tried to dominate the narrative.

And yes, Frazier wasn't actually very adult about how he handled it, but it was his one chance at transcending a glass ceiling and becoming iconic. He hated Ali, then beat him one on one, and had 15 minutes of fame. Then Foreman trounced him, Ali beats Foreman to become the toast of heavyweight history, and then, to top it all off, Ali beats him TWICE, and rewrites the memory of their series. ESPN makes it a point to mention, for example, that Ali won the series when it plays Thrilla...With FOTC conspicuously absent.

Joe was second best, and the odd man out. Given how badly he was torn up, there was always going to be some residual hate. Like how kids get told that bullies will one day clean their toilets when they are rich and successful? Well, Frazier cleaned Ali's toilets, metaphorically speaking, ending his life pretty darn poor and forgotten outside the boxing community, while Ali remains a transcendent icon. Pretty tragic, honestly.

I'm still not convinced that they didn't make peace in private while agreeing to keep the show up for the public. That would explain the inconsistency in Joe's comments about Ali over the years.

 

I agree with this Ali was furious with the establishment but I also think he thought it an insult that Frazier had somehow displaced him. Have you seen the Cus Demato discussion of Frazier before they fought? The part where Demato bust a move and asked 'what if Frazier does this' and Ali responded 'Frazier isn't even that good' was comical but somewhat rang true, he didn't rate Frazier's skills.

Suposedly while training hard for some of his fights Ali would say 'I need to prove I'm the better scientific boxer' (I recollect that from his biography I read as a young teen 19 years ago - can't believe it's that long ago)

Well I can see other reasons, being humiliated, having your kids bullied as a result. But to be honest if anyone bullied my daughter I would AT LEAST have words with them and their parents.

But all the Ali/Frazier/Foreman stuff aside, what did Frazier have after he lost to Foreman and Ali in Manila and his career was done? He didn't have anything, I know as a man it feels to lose everything you have and have things that don't compare in your hands and that's how I think he felt. Like many a sportsman his potential was burned out before he was 30 and he was washed up.

I doubt this to be honest, remember the 'I wish I could have pushed him into the Olympic Flame' comment, that was pure hate and resentment. Frazier hated Ali, Ali didn't hate Frazier, he had no need to, he had everything even though his champion party finished the legacy and lifestyle was withstanding.

But they didn't need to kiss and make up, but that doesn't make Ali a terrible person, or Frazier either, just 2 great men with a grudge

 

I don`t believe for one minute that Ali cared for Frazier. Ali treated he along with Patterson and Terrell with utter scorn. If it was Chuvalo or Wepner for example saying those despicable things about Frazier ... Frazier`s anger and hatred for Ali came agter Ali turned on him and used his blackness against him. As for heis kids being bullied (actually happened) I am quite sure that Frazier WOULD have met Ali in an alley and handled it man to man if Ali would have met him. As for the washed up burned out comments, every fighter finds themselves in that spot. It was wrong what Ali did, and blaming Frazier for being `sensitive ` ? `Smokin` Joe Frazier sensitive, is way off the mark ...Peak years ?? Gold medalist (fought with a broken thumb) beats Ali in THE biggest fight ever ! Who could top that ?? Of course after that ne nver scaled those hights, but damn those are amazing heights he did scale !!!

 

A troll's gotta do what a troll's gotta do.

I've heard this theory tossed around before and it doesn't make the blindest bit of sense.If you were truly scared of another fighter, you're not going to do everything in your power to irritate and **** them off, because this, if anything, is going to give them even greater motivation to want to tear your head off.



I mean, Ali faces this guy with just two fights under his belt in four years, desperately chases a rematch with the guy after losing, then gives the guy a rematch within a year of reclaiming the title, but he's scared of this guy?:huh

 

I think that's too far.

This wasn't just a schoolyard bullying, this was a man using nationwide (and then some) media to paint him as cowardly and racially inferior at every opportunity.

The media ate that **** up. They loved how cruelly Ali was treating him.

It was a spectacular verbal beating and Frazier had no hope to respond in kind.

Frazier couldn't escape that, Ali even went to his gym and whipped up crowds to jeer and laugh at him. Then called him out to a fight in the street (he left when Frazier came to answer him)

It even followed his kids to school! Obviously that's what's going to happen when you convince large swathes of the nation that someone is racially inferior, a coward, a race traitor e.t.c.

How exactly does an adult deal with that? Those are extraordinary circumstances.

 

The incident involving Ali going down to Frazier's gym for a potential bout of fisticuffs is pretty well documented, and what actually happened doesn't quite fit your own tinted version of events.

 

I'm going off memory, it has its faults.

I may be mashing it together with another incident, but that is one of the many times where Frazier was harassed by a man he used to consider a friend.

Cry baby? Hardly. He would've settled it on the street in a heart-beat.

 

Right on with that !! I have to laugh at comments of Frazier being a cry baby. Frazier would have handled ANY issue man to man...

 

I'm not sure why Ali disrespected Joe so much. It was far more intense than any of his other usual antics ("the mummy" "the washerwoman" "dracula" "peanut head" "the bear" "the octopus" etc) had he left it at calling Joe a gorrilla, then fine. But he took it too far with the uncle tom comments and harrassing Joe face to face, through the media, and via any other form he could.

The only other person Ali went so far out of his way to harrass was Sonny Liston, and he didn't take the insults nearly as far with him.

It's hard to blame Joe for holding a strong grudge against Ali for the remainder of his life.

You push for a man to be allowed back into a sport he was exiled in during very heated times, you give him money, you help him out in everyway you can, and the minute that man gets what he wants, he turns on you and starts being a complete dick.

After the antics were in full swing it inspired kids at school to bully your kids with the same garbage to the point where you need to pull your kids out. While you're worrying about issues your kids are facing as a result of one man being a *****, you're being plagued with harrassment to your face and seeing it everyday on TV and in the newspapers. Go through that for half a decade and you're gonna be one pissed off person.

 

Frazier idolized Ali and cared for him while Ali was making no profit. Frazier was deeply disappointed by Ali´s arrogance.
And Ali, I think he was scared of Frazier, Fraziers left hook against Ellis and Foster showed Ali what to expect.
And Frazier was black the way Ali could´nt be- Frazier was streetsmart, Ali was not.

 

The funniest thing about all of it was an interview Frazier gave several years ago.

He said the Uncle Tom stuff hurt him the most.

Frazier said that after Ali said that about him he stopped running with his hood on so people wouldn't think he was peeping in windows.

 

Ali is a complex character, and has the best marketing in sports history. There is no doubt that he was an incredible figure in boxing history - he elevated the profile of the sport - but I'm willing to suggest that he is a cynical man who has never really believed in very much more than himself and what serves his own interest.

His position as a civil rights figure is dubious at best. The Nation of Islam that he prescribed to was a cultish group which preached hatred and supported a con manwho called himself a prophet.

The conceit of Ali is difficult to measure. Frazier always maintained that in their first fight Ali was punching him saying 'Don't you know I'm God?' - something that Ali always denied and seemed embarrassed about.

Ali's entourage was a legendary circus of parasites and hangers on - with Ali at the middle of it all holding court.

Ali saw himself as being without equal. His ego was bloated and over-blown. The disrespect, the racism, the abuse that he poured on Frazier - to cause Joe embarrassment, hurt, anger - whatever - can easily be attributed to 'upping the gate' (Ali once told Chuck Wepner to call him a n****r on camera to up the gate - Wepner refused) but this was more.

Nobody threatened Ali more than Joe Frazier. Norton was some kind of anomaly. Foreman was not a problem. Since the fight of century, the image of Joe Frazier stalked Ali psychologically.

So Ali, not a saint, a flawed and conceited man, given to fits of vanity and pride, circled by vultures and parasites, said and did some pretty dreadful things. I genuinely think that he reflected on those days with some degree of regret in later years.

 

Ali was quite stupid in addition to being an *******. He referred to Frazier one time as just being a "fugilist". Yeah, that's stupidity..just like it would be if some other lesser fighter had multilated a term like that.

 

The problem with the threats toward his family was what made him more angry though......I don´t think Ali had something to do with it but the guys from Nation of Islam ? Yes.
I think that was the major problem....

 

The thing about Ali-Frazier that matters the most is that when both men were simultaneously at their near best, Frazier won...that is, of course, that he won the FOTC...something that Ali never got over. No one was going to deny Joe Frazier on the night of March 8th 1971...no one.