This Weekend's Birthdays: B-Hop, Roy and Ali

by Scott Christ on Jan 17, 2010 8:11 PM EST in Etc./Open Threads Comment 10 comments

Quite a weekend for boxing royalty. Three legends celebrated birthdays on consecutive days, so happy birthday to Bernard Hopkins (45), Roy Jones Jr. (41) and Muhammad Ali (68).

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Ali

Amazing counter right at roughly 1:20.

"Honey i forgot to duck" - Jack Dempsey

by Drunken cutman on Jan 18, 2010 9:03 AM EST reply actions

Great recent Ali highlight

Another Gorilla Productions gem

by Nick_ on Jan 18, 2010 12:52 PM EST reply actions

That is a brilliant video

"Honey i forgot to duck" - Jack Dempsey

by Drunken cutman on Jan 18, 2010 4:59 PM EST up reply actions

It’s awesome, just like pretty much all of GP’s stuff on youtube.

by Nick_ on Jan 18, 2010 6:04 PM EST up reply actions

I think they overdo the idea that Ali was a good guy. He may have been admirable for standing up for his rights and what he beleived in, but he was still behaved like an asshole to a lot of people, especially Joe Frazier.

"Honey i forgot to duck" - Jack Dempsey

by Drunken cutman on Jan 19, 2010 6:30 AM EST up reply actions

Has anyone read “Ghosts of Manila” by Mark Kram? I’ve read the preview sections on Google Books, but not the whole thing. It presents a valuable revisionist perspective on Ali.

by taco pal on Jan 19, 2010 10:30 AM EST up reply actions

Bill Simmons’ review of “Ghosts of Manila” here, about 1/4 of the way down the page. Simmons is clearly a victim of Ali hagiography himself. When he says:

Ali riled Frazier because he wanted to bring out the best in Frazier, and only because he knew a possessed Frazier would bring the best out of Ali himself. Once he returned from his four-year exile, Ali’s fatal flaw as a boxer was that he always rose/sunk to the skill level of his opponents — like Ken Norton, who gave Ali two tough fights because Ali just couldn’t bring himself to take Norton seriously, or even the Chuck Wepners and Leon Spinkses of the world.

That’s some seriously misguided bullcrap. Still, it’s a positive, and well-written, review and he rates the book as one of the 40-50 greatest sports books of all time.

by taco pal on Jan 19, 2010 10:37 AM EST up reply actions

The stuff about Frazier is hard to believe

But I could buy that Ali sometimes looked worse against lower class opposition because he couldn’t raise his game to take them seriously. This isn’t uncommon amongst athletes, especially in one on one sports.

"Honey i forgot to duck" - Jack Dempsey

by Drunken cutman on Jan 19, 2010 11:00 AM EST up reply actions

That’s a fair point. I guess I was thinking mostly of the part about Norton, who was really a great fighter, a Hall of Famer. If Ali took Norton lightly in their first bout, how would that explain Norton giving him hell in their rematch as well? There are many people who think Norton won both fights.

Norton just had the perfect style against boxers. He gave Larry Holmes hell too. To say the fights were close only because Ali didn’t take him seriously is unfair to him.

by taco pal on Jan 19, 2010 11:14 AM EST up reply actions