Reserved: Mohammed Ali Remembered
- Thread starter Doctor_Van
- Start date
I never understood why everyone got such a kick out of this guy. He was a draft-dodging bigot who was abusive to women.
And it wasn't like he was invincible in the ring. He lost fights and even that toothless, punchy club figher from Bayonne NJ dropped him.
And it wasn't like he was invincible in the ring. He lost fights and even that toothless, punchy club figher from Bayonne NJ dropped him.
It boggles my mind that someone wouldn't understand what Ali meant. It went way, way beyond sports. He represented the black struggle for survival back in the 60s and 70s when the struggle was actually real. He embraced his blackness and backed up his words with performance. He fought wars in the ring. He epitomized everything that young blacks aspired to be. Of course that is gonna resonate.
NickleDimer
Post 'Til Your Fingers Bleed
Ah yes. A moral evaluation of "the blacks" by a high school grad in the exburbs.
That high school education taught me exburb is not a word. The word you're looking for is "exurb". Are you one of those educated folk that goes around saying you "could care less" about something on a daily basis?
I'm almost always up late on Fri nights.
There's nothing worse than when a famous person you don't care about dies. The media won't shut up about it for days.
If this is not an attempt at trolling then you must know nothing about the history of boxing. Ali fought in the greatest era of heavyweights and beat them all until he was way, way past his prime and took on Larry Holmes when he was 38 years old. He never got knocked out or TKO'd. His bouts against Frazier and Foreman are legendary, and as gdog said transcended sports. Also remember he lost 3 years at age 25 due to being banned.
Yes, a blight on his record. The fight should never have happened. Ali had early onset Parkinsin's Disease, the Nevada Gaming Commission allowed him to fight anyway, Promoter Don King got a huge purse for Ali to fight, and no one in Ali's camp had the balls to convince him to not fight Holmes - not that he would have listened anyway.
The Holmes fight does very little to diminish his career; it would be like saying Michael Jordan is not the greatest basketball player because in his last two seasons at Washington he couldn't even average 24.0 ppg.
Like when these blacks dunk a basketball. Just lay it in like a gentleman, for crying out loud.
No he meant exurbs - which are the outliers of the true suburbs like KOP (where I used to live). Royersford-Limerick-Pottsgrove = exurbs.
RimJobLarry also lost 3 years due to being banned.
Singularly gifted as a boxer (before the ban and the first Frazier fight) and as his own publicist, but a deeply flawed and often immoral human being. Was terrible to his first three wives, refused to go to Vietnam only because of his 15 year membership in a racist, anti-Semitic cult, affiliated himself with the KKK, and perhaps most shamefully, his decade long campaign to make Joe Frazier a villain in the black community.
He deserves credit for moderating after Elijah Muhammad's death, but there are a lot of parts of his story that will be lost to history.
Boy though, was he something in the ring, and fought and beat all comers.
He deserves credit for moderating after Elijah Muhammad's death, but there are a lot of parts of his story that will be lost to history.
Boy though, was he something in the ring, and fought and beat all comers.
I was there for that, Anarchy. It was both exciting and also a very emotional moment.
I just love all these bozos who trash everyone who dies. He was 2 years older than me so I kind of grew up with him. Every kid growing up loved him. Yeah he had a dark period in his life when he followed Malcolm X and the Black Muslims. But the good he did later in his life far outweighs that. Everyone rooted for him when he fought.
I did not have a great historical perspective of Ali. What struck me was in 96 he light the torch in Atlanta. That was a significant moment. He was already gone at that point, suffering from CNS illness. It's amazing to think they let him fight and essentially kill himself slowly. Watch him lighting the torch. He lived another 20 years. The guy was only 54 at that point. Boxing is a dumb sport.
Everybody knows that college dropout TheFoyeEffect would have been first in line to go to Vietnam. Would give him first hand experience in 20th century conflict (his specialty, if you don't remember)
First time I have ever agreed with anything you have said..yes boxing is a dumb sport...I wonder if he would have known that he would live the last 20 years of his life a punch drunk idiot would he have ever started to fight....would anyone in their right mind?
Anyways I grew up rooting for Smoking Joe who could beat him at will...Ali not that great of a fighter. More mouth than anything....The forerunner to Mike Tyson.