Muhammed Ali: Hero or Scoundrel????

Great Debates
1

After listening to Joe Frazier being interviewed on the Howard Stern show this morning, I’m wondering if you think Muhammad Ali has been getting a break from the PC crowd over the past decade or more, or if people like Joe Frazier and others need to get over stuff that took place 20 plus years ago.

I’ve heard over and over how Ali was a hero who stuck to his principles and his religion and refused to fight in the VietNam war, even at the cost of his World title and risk of imprisonment. How Ali became a hero around the world to the point that you could ask just about anyone on the planet who he was, and they would know. How Ali was the arguably the greatest boxer, maybe athlete of the 20th century. Ali, a hero to African-Americans.

Yet, when you hear the bitterness in Frazier’s voice, you remember there was a dark side to the man as well. Mercilessy beating on an aging Floyd patterson asking “What’s my name?” over and over again because Patterson kept calling him Casius Clay. His big mouth and how he berated opponents such as Sonny Liston and especially Frazier, calling him a “gorilla”, a term that Frazier took as a racist remark because of his very dark skin. The early 70s Playboy interview, where he made what could be construed as very racist remarks. How Liston laid down for him. That Frazier was robbed of one of the fights. That Ali . . well maybe was not “The Greatest” after all. And, if you want to get ugly, you could try and label him as a “draft dodger” while American boys were dying in his place.

What’s your opinion: ALI, perhaps the greatest fighter ever, Olympic hero, ambassador to the world, great showman, a man of principles bravely fighting a crippling disease??

Or ALI, sadistic loudmouth, draft dodger, racist pig, overrated boxer who everyone is afraid to badmouth because he has a disease and is a hero to the black community, and to many around the world?

Just some debate fodder!!! :mad:

2

Maybe he’s both. He’s a person who was a very good fighter, who is bravely facing a terrible disease, but he also is a person who’s done some pretty bad stuff.

3

Here’s a recent Salon article on that new bio of him:

http://www.salon.com/books/feature/2001/06/06/ali/index.html

Me, I have a hard time admiring anyone who makes a living beating the living crap out of people.

4

To respond directly to the OP’s opening statement, I don’t think Ali’s been getting a break from anybody. The credit he is given for the positive things he has done is well-deserved, and plenty of people are still criticizing the negative as well.

He was radical in his thoughts and actions, to say the least. If nothing else, he expressed, loudly and in public, the voice of a black American during a time when black voices were not usually a part of public forums. He called for action, but also education and community activism.

I think it’s difficult to label any athlete as a “hero,” but I would say Ali’s stance on Viet Nam, and his activism in the black community were in fact heroic. His knew that his views were unpopular and placed his career in jeopardy, yet he stuck to his principles and faced the consequences.

I really don’t like boxing, and consider it a vile sport, so I can’t comment on his behavior in the ring. The general standards for the sport strike me as pretty low. Ali was banned from boxing from 1967 - 1970 for his actions outside of the ring (refusing to fight in Viet Nam), longer than some other persons have been banned for oh, say biting off one’s opponent’s ear. I don’t see how Ali can be criticized for mercilessly beating on an aging Floyd Patterson, because I think that’s his job. I personally think it’s a creepy job, but I’m not the one making the rules. If Patterson was so aged that we should have special sympathy for him, he had no business being in the ring in the first place.

I would highly recommend Muhammed Ali: The People’s Champ, a collection of articles and essay on Ali, edited by Eliot J. Gorn. As you might guess from the title, it comes out on the side of “hero,” but also includes a fairly decent examination of the “scoundrel” aspects of his career.

5

The Nation of Islam during the '60s was prone to spouting rhetoric that, coming from a white group, would have been labelled as hideously racist and offensive. Think of a whole group of Louis Farrakhans and Khalid Muhammeds, and you start to get the picture.

And Ali could be a major jerk. Some of his behavior towards his opponents (and his wives) was inexcusable. He was also the second best heavyweight of the twentieth century - Joe Louis was first because of his record against the best in the world for a dozen years. And don’t give me anything about Ali losing his best years because of the Viet Nam war - Louis spent several of his best years in the Army fighting a certain German fellow.

That having been said, at least he did stand up for his belief that he should not participate in the Viet Nam war, and it could have cost him big time. Not clear on why he couldn’t go to Viet Nam because it was against Islam, but he could be a professional boxer, which is equally against Islam. He had an absolute genius for self-promotion, and was a genuinely great athlete.

He went on boxing way too long, and has been reduced to a wreck as a result. He should have retired after the Thrilla in Manila. His choice, his problem.

Wonder how much longer he has to live.

Regards,
Shodan

6

FTR Shodan, IIRC Ali has Parkinson’s which accounts for his current physical condition. It is not currently believed that this condition can be brought on by boxing.

Tinker

7

delphica, I think you’re right on. I also think that the attitude toward Ali at the time was whether you were pro- or anti- Vietnam War: if you were anti, you loved the guy; pro, and you thought he was a traitor. As the war continued and the country began to rethink its stance, Ali’s anti-war sentiments began to be embraced by more and more citizens.

We all knew he was an uneducated man, had chosen a profession as obnoxious as the war itself, yet laid his profession and body (possible imprisonment) on the line. His sentiments were simple (to paraphrase a famous example), “I don’t have nothin’ against no Viet Cong.” After his first visit to an Islamic country, he reported that he saw blondes, brunettes, black people, white people – and knew that he couldn’t harbor hate for any of them, that we are all sons and daughters of Allah. His split from the more militant forms of Islam took place at about that time.

Given the hatred and violence within our own country during the '60s, I thought he was a remarkable symbol of the times; not a perfect symbol. but a man with grace and courage who spoke for many of us, not just black boxers.

When he lighted the torch at the Atlanta Olympics I got teary-eyed. He represented much of my youth, my passion, my questioning of the status quo after the mindless-spineless '50s, the Civil Rights era, the Nixon years, the War.

God bless you, Ali.

8

  1. Even before he took more punches to the head than are good for anyone, I question whether Ali was ever bright enough to come up with a moral position on much of anything. It seems to me that it is entirely possible that his supposed heroic act in refusing induction was the result of a fortuitous concurrence of Black Muslim rhetoric and self-interest.

  2. His behavior toward Joe Fraser was reprehensible; there is no other term for it. When Ali was banned from boxing after refusing conscription, Fraser supported him in public and in private and went so far as to loan him money without any expectation of repayment. In short, Frazier was one of the few friends and defenders he had in the world of professional boxing. In the face of this, when Ali went back to boxing and got a match with Fraser, the Ali publicity machine cranked up and started broadcasting that Fraser was a tool of the White folks, an Uncle Tom. This was about as hateful and inflammatory a thing as Ali could have done in that time and place. He turned on his friend when it served his purposes.

  3. His behavior toward his wives (?) children and hangers on was, again, ungracious and crude. As with Fraser, he seems to have had no sense of responsibility and to have been concerned with nothing but his own gratification. Any syncopate who promised to entertain his ego had his allegiance. Whenever someone quit satisfying his ego and his craving for immediate gratification, or interfered with it, that person was discarded.

A fine boxer - sure. A hero - not in my book. Just one more opportunist - maybe.

9

Frazier was an Ali supporter, and did everything he could to help Ali get his boxing license back for one reason – a big payday of his own. Frazier needed Ali to return to the ring because there was no one left for him to fight (for big bucks) while Ali was banned from boxing. I don’t condone some of Ali’s remarks prior to their first fight, but he has appologized to Frazier. It’s Frazier who has never let it go, even after the appology.

And it’s boxing folks. You beat an opponent any way you can. Ali could “get to” his foe’s better than anyone. Everyone except Frazier seemed to get over it.

I mentioned this in another thread, but if you get a chance, check out the movie “When We Were Kings.” A great documentary about the 1974 Ali/Foreman fight.

10

Vinnie Viriginslayer: You act like when Ali was whippin’ on Patterson’s ass he WASN’T in a match at the time with a trained professional who has already a two-time world champion. “Aging” Patterson my ass. If Patterson pulled that “Cassius” shit on Ali in the 12 round fight in '65, Patterson was only 30 then. If Patterson pulled that on Ali in the 7-round fight he lost in '72, he was barely 37. Man, Foreman fought professionally when he was fifty! Either way, he was only six years older than Ali! Floyd committed a serious breach in disrespect when he refused to call Ali by his rightful, chosen name. He deserved that beat-down. He needed a righteous kick in the ass to follow through.

You need to be very careful in the context in which the word “racist” is thrown around. One black man calling another one a “gorilla” is about as racist as a white man calling another a monkey’s uncle.

But yeah, having a debilitating nuerological disorder pretty much makes Ali judgement-proof. Same, sadly, as Sen. Strom Thurmond of my home state.

Great fodder, eh?

Spavined Gelding: You seem determined to paint Muhammad Ali as a meglomaniac, a womanizer / abuser of women – ungracious, crude, with no sense of responsibility, hangers-on, synchopants and no appreciation for family. Dude, that’s Babe Ruth. Please cite some examples of this supposed egregious and hateful behavior of Ali’s, and when you’re done wasting time looking these nonexistant actions, take a moment and rethink your position. It had better be some wife-beating shit of Tysonesque proportions or I’m shaking my head at your desperation. And you say opportunist like it’s a BAD thing. Hey: it’s only bad if he took unfair advantage. I don’t see where or how.

Shodan Joe Louis fought the Axis like Elvis fought in 'Nam: hardly. People like to talk about his match in '38 but conveniently like to forget he got BEAT like a PUNK by Max Schmeling in '36 and counted out in the 12th round. Took him two years to train to beat the Aryan. He and Jackie Robinson kicked it in uniform in WWII as morale boosters, but Ali was given no such assurances. Make no mistake – they ALL lost prime earning years when they weren’t boxing professionally. But Ali alone was punished, ostracized and vilified for his refusal to fight in America’s half-ass war effort.

Cheerful sentiment about how long he’s got to live. Your mama.

Eve: Great link to the Salon article, even if you’re not into boxing. But EVERYBODY’S boxing willingly, and they’re carefully conditioned to take punishment you and I probrably couldn’t. I do admire that kind of resolve, training and dedication, in a detatched way.

11

What interests me here is that I have alwys been a great admirer of Ali ever since my parents hated him as Clay. Go figure those teenagers hey.

Recently I was in a bar with some younger workmates and on the TV was Ali vs Norton, with no sound. We spend lunchtime drinking while Ken Norton beats the hell out of Ali.

To demonstrate my greater wisdom I explain that this fight Ali loses ONLY because his jaw was broken in an earlier round.

Imagine my surprise, when Ali WINS this fight. I had never seen it before…it is Ali vs Norton II not I, and I have to admit Ken was robbed.

Perhaps a pointless side issue, but it shows the whole world wasn’t against him.

Hero? Maybe.
Scoundrel? Not likely.
Greatest boxer ever? He only won the title so many times by losing it first.

Unforgettable? Definately!

12

There is an alarming tendency on this board for people who disagree with what they might read here to demand authority and evidence for opposing conclusions. In general that might be a good thing and stimulate intellectual rigor, but often it involves reinventing the wheel and it gets a little silly when we get into demands for evidence that Mohammed Ali was manipulated by the Black Muslims, that he behaved atrociously toward Joe Frazer, that he has been less than gracious toward his families and that he has been for the most part motivated by self-interest. If you want evidence, go read the newspapers for the past 40 years.

The question is whether the man is a hero or a scoundrel. I say he is neither. He is, or was, a superb professional boxer, but it probably is not a good idea to sleep with him, befriend him, or do business with him. There are a lot of people you can say that about.

There is an other question here. Just what qualifies a person as a hero? In general it seems to me that a basic requirement for hero status is to go do a thing at great personal risk that does not serve self, but rather benefits someone else and for which the is no immediate self gratification. The simple performance of duty or and more than competent exercise of professional skill simply does not pass the threshold for heroism. That a person is extraordinarily skilled in a field that required personal risk, as Ali was, and trumpets his skill to the four winds, does not take him over that threshold.

13

Dear Gelding,

  1. I’m no expert in forensic debate, but if you’re going to take a stance, that you at least take the time to cite some specific facts and incidents to back your conclusions. There is nothing “alarming” about doing that, nor in this trend on the boards. Note, too, I asked you to please cite specifics… I demanded nothing, except perhaps, that you stop tossing around ill-formed opinions based on no apparent evidence disguised as facts.

  2. I can’t be bothered to look through FOUR DECADES’ worth of news coverage about this man when I have --really-- NO idea what you’re talking about when you call Ali “ungracious”, “crude” and an “opportunist”, etc.

  3. Is it the Joe Frasier thing-? You’re going to paint a man for a name-calling incident that happened 30 years ago that he’s already apologized for?

  4. You kill me with your limited understanding of trash-talking between black men and how it’s perceived by other black people: “Calling Frasier an Uncle Tom was the worst thing Ali could have done.” Trust me. There’s way worse than that. If it bothered Frasier, then it worked as psychological warfare. If it STILL bothers Frasier, he should grow the fuck up. Please note that black people are not so simple-minded as to BELIEVE trash-talk in the course of a bout. It’s like believing Christina Aguilera when she dissed Eminem. Ali’s loudmouth ranking of his foes was one of the cultural reasons he was so beloved.

  5. You SAY you don’t think Ali’s a scoundrel, then state it’s not a good idea to sleep with him, befriend him or do business with him – thereby indirectly opining that he’s an unfaithful/abusive husband, a backstabber and a cheat. Man, if you’re going to trash a man, at least be up front about what you’re doing. Lie to yourself if you must, but don’t lie to ME.

  6. If you don’t see how, as a black man in the 1960s in America, Ali’s name change and religious conversion to The Nation of Islam, (and still later, Al-Islam), his refusal to be inducted into the armed forces to fight in Vietnam for a cause he had no stake in and his own country wouldn’t even CALL a war, his very publicly befriending nationalists like Malcolm X, were heroic acts that threatened his well-being and career at NO benefit to himself nor pleased the white establishment that ran boxing, then there’s really nothing we can say to each other. Your heroes are probrably not mine.

  7. But really – to suggest there’s no immediate self-gratification in heroic action is DUMB. (Almost as dumb as suggesting it can’t be accomplished in the course of performing one’s duties.) If you don’t realize people act heroically, in part, because they feel better about themseves when they do, then you’re probably a person who thinks a great deal about doing good deeds in the distant abstract without putting it into practice too often. I think your definition of heroism is terribly restrictive and flawed. Much like your consideration of Muhammad Ali. (You could at least SPELL the man’s name correctly – if you cared about getting facts straight.)

14

It is interesting to see what was said before the first Ali vs. Patterson fight and then to see what happened later before the second fight. Personally I think it was two men fighting for what they believed and I admire both of them for that and the fact that they could grow so as to accommodate each other.

I liked Joe Frazier but I am afraid that he can’t get over the fact that Ali “whooped” him the last two times. He might not have liked what Ali said but he still laughed all the way to the bank with his share of the extra money Ali brought in.

Ali was a loudmouth at times but: Grant drank too much and Lee was fighting for the wrong cause. Eisenhower had a mistress, Rommell found himself in Lee’s shoes and Churchill smoked cigars. So what? they were all heros.

I personally would love to hear whatever Ali had to say right now.

Did Ali really hurt Joe that bad or has Joe just found a means to use Ali one more time so he can laugh all the way to the bank?

15

Dear Askia, I don’t think I have said much about Ali refusal of induction. Now, I will say this: I know too many dead men and boys who had no more interest in Vietnam than Ali did, to regard that particular piece of business as heroic.

In terms of authority and factual basis for my own judgment about the man, do you deny that Frazier befriended Ali and that Ali engaged in a hateful name calling campaign? Do you deny that he abandon his family? Do you deny that many who slept with, befriended or did business with the man can and do think that their trust was betrayed? Just making the man a sports celebrity does not make him a hero.

One of the great advantages of being a proto-geezer is that you get to rely on your own memory of events, albeit as strained through the newspapers. I don’t claim that Ali was not a superb prizefighter. Clearly he was. What he was not was a hero.

16

First off, Askia and Gelding, I want to compliment you on your debate. Both of you have done a great job of challenging each other and it’s been a more than entertaining thread! Some comments:

Askia:

The purpose of my OP was to SPUR debate. I am confused as to my opinion of Ali right now- I’ve always looked to him as a figure to be admired, yet am constantly getting arguments from the other side.

Please do not attack me for the arguments presented in my OP: I hope I got this across, and maybe I didn’t, so I will amke it clear now, that any statements about Ali in the OP are arguments that are not neccesarily my own but ones that I have personally read or heard form BOTH sides.

And, it appears you are leaning towards the pro-Ali as a hero side, I didn’t even bring up the failed marriage issue.

You added:

“You need to be very careful in the context in which the word “racist” is thrown around. One black man calling another one a “gorilla” is about as racist as a white man calling another a monkey’s uncle.”

If you read the link brought up by Eve, when Ali made the gorilla comment to Joe Frazier, many, including Joe, took it as racist. In my OP I said that Frazier took the comment as racist. I’m not here to define the term “racist”- just to say that evidence shows Joe Frazier seems to think Ali made a racist reamrrk, and whether or not it was, well, agian, I’ll be more than happy to thow that out there for more debate!!

17

Vinnie Virginslayer

The Tao of Muhammad Ali
by Davis Miller

Try it - works for me.

18

Vinny: You can’t really think I’m attacking YOU personally, do you…???

Re: The Salon.com article. Nowhere in the 3 page piece did I read the words, “Joe Frazier and others believed Ali’s name-calling to be racist.” The closest thing I saw was the phrase ‘victim of racial stereotyping’ and that ‘[Joe] was deeply hurt by it.’ (My eyes can’t roll back far enough to indicate my utter dismissal of that. Boo-hoo.) Ali called Frazier uglier than him (He was!), he called him a gorilla (Look at him!), called him a Tom (He was!), said he hung around white people too much (He had a white girlfriend at the height of the Black Power movement!) – But I don’t see where his behavior was particularly outrageous since Ali treated nearly ALL of his opponents like that. Ali habitually insulted his opponents’ looks, intelligence, power and speed before and DURING a fight. If Frazier got the worst of it, that’s because their fights were the most, brutal, the most epic, the most unforgettable.

This whole issue should have been put to rest when Frazier, fed up and ready to kick ass, punched Ali around like a rag sock in the 10th, 11th and final rounds in their first bout in March of 1971. Frazier had his chance to beat down Ali in a best of three on Oct. 1, 1975. He failed. Couldn’t let it this go 25 years ago in Manila. Oh, nOOoOOOoo. He had to carry this bullshit feeling of inadequacy around for a quarter century. When he saw Ali, trembling and ravaged by Parkinson’s in Atlanta’s Olympics in 1996, he said he wished he could push Ali into the fire. I find that more insulting than anything Ali did. As it was, Ali did say this past March:

Concerning their ‘friendship’ – I have my doubts about its depth and I have my suspicions about its sincerity – especially since they obviously weren’t close. ‘Befriended’ and ‘being friends’ are entirely two different states of fellowship. In the course of persuing a public rivalry, one should not confuse business and camaraderie. If Joe Frazier felt his “friendship” with Ali warranted no verbal abuse, that was foolish. Ali’s mouth was always his third fist. If he felt that buying off Ali’s friendship should have protected him from Ali’s wrathful tongue, then he obviously didn’t bribe him enough.

19

My comment is solely directed towards Ali’s refusal to be inducted into the American armed forces.

Whatever the motivating factors for his actions, he faced their consequences. Unlike the wave of “draft dodgers” that moved here to Canada in the 1960s, Ali was willing to put himself on the line and risk incarceration, and for that he has MY respect.

20

He was certainly a very modest person, I think we would all agree.