Boxing legend Muhammad Ali is dead aged 74. He was without doubt the greatest sportsman of the last 50 years and one of the most recognised people on Earth.
It will be interesting to see if the anti-boxing movement tries to make much of his Parkinson’s disease.
http://i.imgur.com/wv0fgl7.jpg
Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee
Never got his point across.
The only boxer I (and many others) enjoyed watching, and possibly the only genius the sport ever produced. Thriller In Manila and Rumble In The Jungle are the two greatest boxing movies ever made, and they’re real. I always thought Cassius Clay was the coolest name ever, but he didn’t like it because it was a “slave name”, apparently. But that’s how I think of him, as Cassius Clay. Not a slave, but a master and a true champion and hero.
Cassius Marcellus was named after a famous Kentucky abolitionist.
A propos the Fabs, they hadn’t wanted to meet Clay as he was a mere challenger and not at all fancied to win. ‘Who were these little faggots’, he asked afterwards.
When Liston was taken to see them in concert, he was rather dismissive – ‘my dog could play the drums better than that kid with the big nose’.
And it’s ironic that he swapped his “slave name” for the religion of slavery. The Islamic countries of the middle east supplied African slaves for centuries and slavery existed in Saudi Arabia and Yemen until 1962
For such a well-loved figure it’s ironic that he converted to Islam, now the most toxic belief system on earth
I prefer to reflect on his civil rights campaigning and total opposition to Vietnam at a time when being vocal on such things was dangerous.
About which he said “my enemy is the white people, not the Vietcong”.
Ali’s opposition to the war was racial, not political.
In terms of how black people were treated in the former slave states of the USA, in South Africa and in colonial Africa in those days, such a view is not surprising.
Ali being black and all, made his opposition to the war political as if that wasn’t obvious.
African Americans were disproportionate victims of the Vietnam war, in terms of the numbers drafted, killed & injured. Not to mention almost complete lack of support upon arriving back home to a country that was still dragging its heels about even ensuring their right to vote.
Unlike their white fellow citizens, very few had the option of a term in the National Guard or pissing about in the Coast Guard for a spell rather than getting shot at by diminutive folk in black pyjamas.
Not enirely surprising then that Ali was motivated to take the stance he did.
I saw a news report last night about him being on life support in hospital.
I suspected he’d not be around for much longer.
A -truly- iconic figure of the 20th century. I can remember watching his title fights on TV as a child, with my parents and siblings. An amazing, awe-inspiring figure in his prime.
His principled opposition to the Vietnam war cost him dearly, in terms of his boxing career.
He was never quite as sharp once he returned to the ring after being stripped of his title in 1967 for refusing the draft. He lost 4 vital years of his career when he was at his physical peak.
As for his conversion to Islam, he switched from the Nation Of Islam to mainstream Sunni in 1975 and then switched again to Sufism in his later years. There are worse strands of Christianity than any of these.
Name them. The NoI have long advocated segregation of the races; no miscegenation and have always been of the belief that whites are ‘devils’. Their views on homosexuality and women would have you clutching your pearls.
It’s populated by shakedown artists, thugs and race hustlers right to the very top.
If you want to see how enlightened Ali could be, check out the Parkinson interview where the mask slipped.
The Spanish Inquisition.
Is that one still going?
But were you expecting them?
NOBODY expects the Spanish Inquisition
I was expecting a moronic comment, though probably along the lines of Westboro Baptist Church. Dredging up the centuries old shenanigans of a bunch of overexcited Spaniards was an unexpected delight.
Spot on Ianness Because calling out the bombing of black churches, the picketing of service personnel funerals, the attacks on family planning clinics, the continuing presence of the Klan, all in pursuit in the great good work of the Lord Our Saviour- *that* is what would be moronic.
So, I thought I’d dig out some tortilla munching Torquemadas from, like, the good old days.
‘Picketing of service funerals’ – yes, you win the cuddly toy – that’s the Westoro Baptist Church – nut job father and family.
As for the rest, I doubt you’ll find significant percentages of practising Christians supporting such heinous acts. Unlike the findings of polls taken among the adherents of the Religion of Peace when it comes to their, all too regular, acts of terrorism.
As regards the sinister Nation of Islam, I read today that Ali was frightened to leave them in case they murdered him like they had Malcolm X.
I’m still waiting to hear which are the ‘strands of Christianity’ which are worse than the barbaric death cult of Islam.
Great news on the cuddly toy front! If available, I’d like a baby elephant in sky blue please.
Also, loving your argumentative style. Equal parts selectivity and conjecture, and a nice side of bombast.
Of course, all Muslims support terrorism. Including Richard Timson or whatever he calls himself. Well known fact! I see my error now. The notion that other creeds could perpetrate or support similar acts? Now or ever? Nonsensical!
Look forward to the baby elephant!
This has been on the cards for some time. I remember his appearance at the Atlanta Olympics and wondering how long he had left. So fighter in every way.
Incredible personality. The way he treated Frazier was really poor and only apologised to Frazier’s son – wouldn’t do it to his face. But what he did for black pride was incredible.
when we were kings was great and I enjoyed the movie Soul Power about the accompanying concert. Impressive line up
Performers in the film include James Brown (“Soul Power”), The Spinners (“One of a Kind”), OK Jazz featuring Franco, Bill Withers (“Hope She’ll Be Happier”), Miriam Makeba (“Qongqothwane” a.k.a. “The Click Song”), B.B. King (“The Thrill Is Gone”), Pembe Dance Troupe, The Crusaders (“Put It Where You Want It”), Fania All-Stars featuring Celia Cruz, Danny “Big Black” Rey, Afrisa featuring Tabu LEY, The Mighty J.B.’s (“Cold Sweat”) and Manu Dibango.
The DVD includes bonus tracks of James Brown (“Try Me”), Sister Sledge (“On and On”), Abeti and folk dance performance Pembe Dance Troupe (“Stilts and Bells”).
Fania All Stars In Africa a compilation of their shows before the fight is a great DVD. In Africa they were as popular as any of the American acts.
The soundtrack to the film Muhammad Ali The Greatest included this great Mandrill track
That is saddening news.
He had flaws, of course, but had boundless genuine charm and courage and managed to bring grace to a brutal sport. He also super cool.
It was reckoned that in the 70s his was the most recognisable face on the planet – not bad for pre internet days.
Anyone who hasn’t seen it, do check out ‘ When We Were Kings’ the documentary made around the Rumble In The Jungle. Gripping stuff.
A genuine hero. RIP.
Just on the concert
Here it is on YouTube- great performance by the Spinners at about 37 mins followed frustratingly by a short excerpt of Franco at his peak
https://youtu.be/DzAylBftstQ
“Why should I fight the Vietcong? No Vietcong ever called me nigger.” Great man.
The ‘nigger’ line was originally from Stokeley Carmichael.
Nice, moving interview with “The Reverend” Al Jackson on Today this morning. Really brought back to me how brave and principled Ali was.
Jackson? I believe you may be confusing the dead drummer with notorious con man, race hustler, tax evader and shakedown artist -Al Sharpton.
Isn’t that Jesse Jackson? During the 1980s he tried to run for President, but controversial remarks about Jewish people (which he called “Hymies”) and the dubious claim that he helped Martin Luther King after he was shot changed his fortune.
Yes. Easy mistake though what with them all looking the same an’ that
Before anyone faints, this was a joke.
I couldn’t see if you were smiling.
😀
You are Gazza, and I claim my £5.
The greatest. R.I.P.
The pictures for the training session in the OP are well known, but I only found out the other year that there is video footage too.
https://youtu.be/6lAXBqU7840
I don’t know if he was the greatest sportsperson, but he was the greatest person in sport.
Not really a boxing fan now, but watching him beat “unbeatable” George Foreman as a 12 yr old with my dad is one of the sporting occasions I have never forgotten.
That’s not fair, your dad using a twelve year old to help him.
I agree, I think it’s a bit of a stretch calling beating people up a sport. I think greatest sportsman nominations should have is own thread (I think I’d probably plump for Franz Beckenbauer). He was undoubtedly a great entertainer though. I wonder if he would still make such an impact today. I have no idea who the top boxer is these days let alone what they look or sound like!
I’m not a boxing fan by any stretch of the imagination. But Ali was different. He moved like a dancer and he was beautiful to watch. He was also hugely entertaining, eloquent and funny with it. That’s why I say he was the greatest sportsman.
In parochial old Britain today of course we’ll see a million repeats of Ali being knocked down by Henry Cooper (before beating him of course) and goofing with the Beatles.
Calling what he did “beating people up” is like saying Mozart smacked the keyboard.
I’m not convinced about that analogy. Ultimately it didn’t matter if Mozart did just smack the keys because the end result was he produced tunes that have stood the test of time. The result of what Ali did was beating people up. It was the way he did it that was admired.
You are truly a very funny man.
He got into boxing in order to beat up the kid who nicked his bike. Ali had no illusions that what happened in the ring was anything other than brutal, no matter how well he danced.
Boxing is a sport. Beating people up is a hobby.
Richard Starkey and Reg Dwight were others who threw off the shackles of serfdom.
Sorry – this was meant to be posted further up thread.
But while I’m here @johnw – what the actual fuck are you talking about? Franz fucking Beckenbauer?
Can I just make a request? If you’re going to use language like that, please don’t post in a way that I get it as an email. Thanks.
Apologies – as I didn’t realise that using the at symbol launched an email.
My question, intemperately worded as it may have been still stands.
Well, I wouldn’t normally respond to anyone using that sort of language and I’m not sure there’s an awful lot of justification required. He played at the highest level as a player and coach. Despite being associated with many players who were less than sporting in their approach, he always seemed to conduct himself very well. If I thought more about it, I may come up with another name but Beckenbauer’s name was the first I came up with in reaction to someone (actually many people) suggesting the title should go to a boxer.
Perhaps you should read about “Der Kaiser’s” behaviour in the 1975 European Cup Final where he intimidated the ref and linesman into disallowing a previously awarded goal in a game that Leeds had dominated until that point, and had had two clear, nailed on penalties denied. Suspicions of the ref being nobbled are unproven but widely believed.
Anyway, he would not be on my list at all never mind the top of it.
John – As Esch points out Beckenbauer was not unfamiliar with football’s dark arts but in any event that is not the point at stake.
It is about the colossal impact he had on society, on our times, way beyond the confines of boxing.
Surely, you’re not suggesting the Kaiser had similar cultural affect are you?
On the subject of boxing as a sport, you may have a moral objection to it being called sport, but given the athleticism, agility, stamina, resilience and sheer physical courage required to box professionally, I would argue that it is the greatest sport. Which in turn was graced by The Greatest.
I’ve no moral objection, just an objection. Sport has always been a hard thing to define as it seems to mean different things to different people. Is snooker a sport? Certainly no athleticism required. Is dancing a sport, certainly grace and athleticism required. The OED doesn’t help either – “An activity providing diversion, entertainment, or fun; a pastime.” It wouldn’t be too much of a stretch, with that definition, to suggest includes playing a musical instrument. Perhaps that’s how it should be, something we all have our own loose interpretation of. If we all agreed about sport and music and came to it from the same direction, the world would be a poorer place…. and most of us here would have to find something more useful to do with our spare time than to talk about it!
Beck enabler who refused to cooperate with the inquiry into Qatar getting the WC?
He’s not the cleanest pair of hands
All sport is about beating the opponent up. It may be very literal in boxing but it’s there in all sports.
The very definition of grace under pressure, in every aspect of his remarkable life.
A sad, sad day. Truly remarkable man.
Second all the recommendations for When We Were Kings, and also Norman Mailer’s The Fight.
50 years later, Cassius Clay meets the Beatles again. Skip to 4mins in
A superhuman athlete, an all too human human. He transcended his country, his sport, his place in the world and will outlive his time.
Aeternum vale.
Good obit in New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/04/sports/muhammad-ali-dies.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=span-ab-top-region®ion=top-news&WT.nav=top-news&_r=0
He was a big part of repelling the would-be invading Scrubb forces with Superman…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superman_vs._Muhammad_Ali
Sorry. I am a big boxing fan but the way Ali acted towards Joe Frazier in the run up to their fight in Manila is shocking. He threw every cheap racial epithet in the book at him because he was out of favour with Ali’s puppet masters The Nation of Islam. For those interested there’s an excellent book on the subject called ‘Ghosts of Manila’
All those pithy one liners he came out with? All direct from the Nation of Islam. An ideology in synch with ISIS.
‘Genius’ Ali was borderline special needs (IQ around the 80 mark) and had the ear of the last person who spoke to him. For this reason NoI kept him very close to them at all times to espouse their demented racist ideology with a spoon of sugar for the gullible whiteys and to recruit more to their ranks.
Ali believed that homosexuality is an evil abomination and that white people were *literally* devils, created by a dark Angel on an island in Greece. He told several interviewers, live on national tv, that he thought whites were devils.
And yet we all loved him.
As the press today will lament ‘The Greatest’ they will no doubt resume their hypocritical moralising tomorrow against “homophobic and sexist” Tyson Fury.
Not the greatest at all.
Yes, there is that. But thanks to our deeply ingrained white guilt we can somehow overlook it.
Frazier gave him money and found him work when he was shut out of boxing and then called Frazier and Uncle Tom.
What is the source for the low IQ reference @niscum ?. I know he initially missed out on draft due to IQ testing but that seemed like a setup by his Louisiana backers to get him out of draft, and before that relationship ended, after which the push was to get him into the draft.
I read that he refused to go to Vietnam because of his Islamic religion.
From Wiki:
In relation to integration, he said: “We who follow the teachings of Elijah Muhammad don’t want to be forced to integrate. Integration is wrong. We don’t want to live with the white man; that’s all.”[106] And in relation to inter-racial marriage: “No intelligent black man or black woman in his or her right black mind wants white boys and white girls coming to their homes to marry their black sons and daughters.”[106] Indeed, Ali’s religious beliefs at the time included the notion that the white man was “the devil” and that white people were not “righteous”.
He was absolutely loathed by mainstream America by the end of the ’60s.
Niscum is also right to point out Ali’s disgusting behaviour towards Frazier, a man who’d helped him financially when Ali was at a very low ebb. Ghosts in Manila is a fine corrective to some of the emetic guff we’ll be force-fed over the next few days.
That being said, I adored him as a boxer, particularly in the mid-60s when he was at his peak, displaying his dazzling skills. His showmanship and his charisma, allied to his brilliance and courage, made him one of the greatest sportsmen of the century.
I’d also recommend ‘Shadow Box’ by Plimpton; ‘The Greatest’ by Hauser and, already mentioned, ‘The Fight’ by Mailer. They all give great insights into his character and personality.
More on their relationship here:
http://www.si.com/vault/1996/09/30/208924/muhammad-ali-joe-frazier-war-of-words
Ali couldn’t read or write until he taught himself in adulthood. IQ tests at the time disproportionally favoured the literate.
Hey, yes apologies I don’t have a source for the IQ assertion, other than it fits in with his description in the book referenced that he was very easily influenced and easily led. It’s something I was told by someone I can vouch for who knows his stuff.
I think as you say though it may be that he performed badly to avoid draft or as Tigger says that he did badly because it’s culturally loaded test. Or, it may just be completely false and you’re right to question it.
His performance at this meeting suggests that at a time of functional illiteracy, he could be more leader than led:
http://www.cleveland.com/sports/index.ssf/2012/06/gathering_of_stars.html
Muhammed Ali was not brave, not great, not a hero, not an iconoclast – but luckily we have a couple of bloggers who are.
I think he probably was most of those things, you know. But like most people, he wasn’t perfect.
Very imperfect. Very great.
I remember British heavyweight boxer Richard Dunn was holding court in my local in Aberdeen one night many years ago, the evening before the Yorkshireman was flying out to work offshore, and he was talking about his fight with Ali in 1976. Ali was deeply insulting to him and about him before and during their first press conference, and Richard was all for starting the fight there and then, he was so angry and hurt by what Ali said. after the press conference was over, he made a beeline for Ali, only to be met with a smiling man who had his arms outstretched. “Richard” he said “pay no heed to that shit in there, I’m just trying to sell tickets, make us both rich men”. The man was charming and friendly, a “proper toff” said Dunn.
When it came to the fight itself, Dunn told us that though he couldn’t really get close to Ali, the man wasn’t hurting him either, so, “a lucky punch, just one, and I’m champion” said Dunn.
At the end of the 4th round, Dunn thinks he’s doing ok, and he is in a clinch with Ali shortly before the bell. Ali whispers in his ear: “Richard, you’re a nice guy, but I’m getting bored. You’re going down in the next”.
And so it happened. Dunn has only memories of sparring with Ali in the 5th, then coming to his senses in his corner.
“I never saw the punch coming. I never even felt it, but it put my lights out.”
Good tale Geach and showing that boxing, more than any other sport, is about confrontation and getting an edge. However that edge is got. And after the fight, the embrace.
Priceless. If true, that encapsulates why I have always admired him as an athlete and a boxer without equal.
All true. Richard Dunn himself was a huge man. and a gentleman, very self effacing. If anyone asked him to recount the story, he would ask for a payment of a £iver per person, collect it and put it into whatever charity jar was behind the bar, and oft he would go. A nice man. I wouldn’t spill his pint tho’.
Richard Dunn was on our local news programme last night playing tribute to his former opponent. Retired to Scarborough and walking with a stick, probably because of injuries received in an offshore accident, he was as endearing as ever, spoke very warmly of Ali and ended the interview in tears.
R.I.P. Mr. Cassius Clay
Can YOU spot the celebrities watching the greatest fight of all time and space?
http://i.imgur.com/4qPPBsX.jpg
I can’t believe Bono didn’t get a ticket.
The comic (and full list of clebs) http://jamieonthewing.blogspot.co.uk/2016/06/muhammad-ali-versus-superman-dc-1978.html
The one I first saw and perhaps the biggest celeb is Alfred E Newman under the 4th rope.
I think that’s the only Scientist LP that I don’t own.
I’ve just read that in later life he converted to Sufism.
Like, er, Richard Thompson.
To be loathed by mainstream America, if true, is surely a good thing!
Can I clarify that I have absolutely no white guilt at all. Not one bit, I’ve just checked. Do some/most white people have it? Genuine question.
In the fevered imagination of some of the Anti Bien Pensant League that gather here, we all do.
Any praise for anything outside the white canon is just reflex inverse racism. Do you see?
Any criticism of non-caucasian cultures we self-inhibit. Do you see?
Miles Davis? Muhammed Ali? Horrible people. Desperately flawed. Faults we dare not point out as we are in thrall to their ebony allure and dismay at our alabaster purview.
Do you see? No, me either.
Bit of a minefield. I find it best to just channel all my hatred towards Boris Johnson. Saves so much time.
Bob was a fan too
http://i.imgur.com/D9Ze6QN.jpg
Interesting comments from George Foreman.
Of course it can be said that this all just post-career post-death glorification of Ali, especially given what he said about Foreman (though much less than his malice towards Frazier -who Ali called the best boxer after Ali so perhaps the reason for the intensity of the invectiver…bit I digress) anyway Foreman says he was a part of me like Joe Frazier was- you couldn’t talk about one of us without the other. Can kinda get that.
https://www.theguardian.com/sport/video/2016/jun/04/george-foreman-on-muhammad-ali-he-was-truly-beautiful-audio
invective…but
Don’t worry kids, we’ll always have his record (that’s record singular) . Here are both sides of his 1964 single
Does @beany have this I wonder?
Sadly no. Neither do I have this LP.
Makes me want to listen to