Why do so many of you hate on muhammad ali?

[butterfly1964]

ya think???

marciano and louis are overrated, especially marciano.

[Frazier's 15th round]

Ah, I see Ali's biggest fans Heckler and Butterfly are being irritating again. Remember guys, prime vs prime, every other boxer in history KO's Ali in the first round.

By the way, thanks for defending me, Yogi and Yaman.

[chosen_one]

ali is the greatest boxer ever imo i love ali and all ali nut huggers should be respected

[chosen_one]

if i was a admin of this forum if u didnt put ali number one i would ban you

[mokele]

a complicated, colorful personality

Ali was a colorful, complicated personality. He was almost always a loudmouth but that wasn't always a bad thing. Outside the ring he could be funny, astute, arrogant, innocent, and many other things all at once. It's no wonder Sonny Liston felt overmatched in terms of charisma. My sense is that Sonny was psychologically close to beaten before he ever stepped into the ring with (then) Cassius Clay. Liston was used to fighting scared or intimidated opponents, not ones who laughed at him and made fun of him!

I followed Ali's whole career starting from his 1st fight with Liston. I was only a boy at the time, but I saw that fight in black and white on television. I probably saw close to 20 of his fights when they happened, and now another 10 or so over the internet or on shows such as ESPN classic sports.

Inside the ring, Ali was also not always predictable. He was a great pure athlete with great speed, balance and coordination, but he had serious flaws in his boxing style that were only very rarely exposed until he had grown older and slowed down. For example, I felt that Ali lost both his 3rd fight to Norton and his fight with Jimmy Young, but Ali had created a mystique about himself and had so much charisma that he had all the judges seeing his fights in Ali's terms. I remember listening to 1 of the commentators for the 3rd Ali-Norton fight, (perhaps it was Ferdie Pacheco?), talk about how Norton was doomed to lose the last round of the fight just because Ali was dancing round the ring. It was as if Ali didn't have to land anything, just look like his legs were ok. To me that was obvious bias. Today I believe that Norton would be judged to have easily won that last round and that fight if you remove the mystique that Ali had in those days. Similarly, Jimmy Young went nearly untouched by Ali in their fight. In order to beat Ali you had to totally dominate him. It wasn't enough to substantially outland him (Jimmy Young) or push him back repeatedly to the ropes and land plenty of big punches (Norton).

Ali often clinched on the inside and in particular liked to hold behind the head. I prefer inside fighters and so didn't like that part of his style. He didn't always clinch though, and could cover up inside and wait for a chance to fire back. He got better at inside fighting and standing flat-footed as he got older. How much running around the ring and clinching he did depended on his opponent and how he felt at the time. He didn't hold much at all against Karl Mildenburger for example, but held repeatedly 1 year later against Ernie Terrell, even late in the fight when it was obvious that Terrell was a beaten man, way behind on points, and pretty much out of gas. Ali could stand flat-footed and outpunch Jerry Quarry, not at all easy to do.

You could write a 10-page article on just how and when Ali clinched on the inside. Arthur Mercante was so awed by Ali's mystique that after warning Ali a couple times for holding Norton behind the head in their 3rd fight, he just allowed Ali to do it and quit warning him again. A modern referee would not have allowed a fighter to set his own rules in the ring. Such was the power of Ali's mystique. Howard Cosell was also awed by Ali. In his fight with Terrell, Cosell kept making comments about Terrell's "octopus" tactics. The simple truth is that Ernie was slow on his feet and when he tried to fight Ali on the inside against the ropes, Ali kept tying Terrell up. Ali was far more of an octopus that night than Terrell!

Anyway I don't hate Muhammad Ali. On the contrary I view him as an all-time great but as a fighter with flaws. Was he "the greatest" as he said after the 1st Liston fight? I don't believe so. He didn't have a big enough punch, rarely if ever went to the body, did too much holding behind the head and clinching to be regarded as "the greatest". He was just very, very good, somewhere in the top 10 heavyweights of all time.

[Da Iceman]

Ah, I see Ali's biggest fans Heckler and Butterfly are being irritating again. Remember guys, prime vs prime, every other boxer in history KO's Ali in the first round.

By the way, thanks for defending me, Yogi and Yaman.

yes they do including eagle kyowa

[eazy_mas]

i don't get it? this is baffling. he is the greatest of all times, but some people hate on his so much, it's crazy! i mean they have people like louis beating ali. louis always had trouble with fast guys, like billy conn. well, who was a better fast, moving hw then ali? they said louis would counter ali all day? do you know how close he has to get to his opponents to throw flurries? ali would not allow himself to be that close. his footwork is better, so he wouldn't be cornered. theres no way ali is getting beat. ali is extremely strong! he basically manhandled liston in their first fight, and muscled "big" george foreman in '74. and he embarrased both of them! yet he is not that good and foreman could destroy him. bull! that's like saying frazier would destroy foreman when foreman destroyed him twice! and they say marciano would destroy ali, LOL!! ali would annihilate marciano in a matter of a few rounds. marciano would punish his body, worst statement ever made! marciano has a 67" reach, and ali never lets anybody get close to him in his prime, so marciano's short hands will punish ali's body. on top of that foreman couldn't hurt ali's midsection, so how would marciano? some people say marciano is the hardest hitter ever. well, he looked good fighting people with glass chins and small, bums like himself. the way i see it, the only people that think rocky could beat ali, are WHITE. and some of them are really, really racist. i mean one thread asked who would win, marciano or jake lamotta, and i swear, this guy had to be a white racist, cause he answered, "nobody beats the rock, but lamotta would do much better against marciano than that moolie clay would." well, i don't know what a moolie is, but i bet that translate into *****!
and so lamotta, a slow-footed middleweight could beat ali? and he called him clay, which proves he's white and racist, and wants to keep ali as with a white, slave name! there is no way rocky beats any top ten hw, let alone the #1 hw. frazier can't beat ali, cause he, for the most part didn't. i guarantee you all ali had to do was fight more fights and get more experience before fighting frazier, and he would have beat him. he only had two fights prior, and one was only three rounds. a prime ali would have done much better, so there is no contest. there is no real, legitimate reason why any fighter period would beat ali, because ali had great speed, great chin, and a pretty good punch, and enormous strength!

i have come to the conclusion that ali beat their favorite fighters so their mad at ali, or they are white, and need someone like marciano or dempsey to be their savior, or they are war veterans, or related to veterans, or related to veterans who died in combat, so they are mad ali didn't go to vietnam, or they didn't like ali's showmanship. do you realize that no hw copied his style yet, because it is so hard! or maybe they want their favorite fighters to be the greatest, so they are mad that their not. also he is 15-3 against hall of fame heavyweight fighters. he has the best resume ever, i just don't understand how people can hate on him so much? what has he ever done to ya'll?

The more sucess you have the more haters you have.

There are many thread talking **** about Mayweather too because he is 1 P4P boxer.

[Da Iceman]

Ah, I see Ali's biggest fans Heckler and Butterfly are being irritating again. Remember guys, prime vs prime, every other boxer in history KO's Ali in the first round.

By the way, thanks for defending me, Yogi and Yaman.

i think your an alt.

[RockyMarcianofan00]

Why do so many people hate ali?
hm i know many reasons. I personally don't hate the guy completely, he was brilliant in the ring at times, alot of its what he did out of the ring. Well here's some good examples, The guy was loud and flashy, ****y sometimes arrogant, some people like that some don't. The guy called himself the greatest, how much more ****y can you get. Here's an example, I saw the trailer for the super fight (don't turn this into Marciano v Ali PLEASE) and they were asking them what they thought of each other, and Marciano said "Well i never knocked opponent before a fight and well i'm not gunna start now, Ali is good and it should be an interesting fight"
Ali said "Marciano's a good fighter but he's slow and swarms at times, now there's now human being alive that can catch me with slow arms etc"---something along the lines of that.
so he was ****y for one

two, guy from what i understand cheated on his wife.
three and most hated for- he refused induction into the army. Now i know vietnam was a controversial war etc. I don't really care that much, but the point is he wasn't fighting the vietkong he would have gone over and done exhibition bouts to raise morale in the troops. Many people believed he changed his religion to not have to participate in the war. now look at what he changed it too, Islam (if i'm correct), that was a very hated religion.

whether he did or he didn't not go into the army because of his religion it doesn't matter really. In a sense you could say it helped him, because i do firmly believe that the way he was in 1967, he wouldn't have been able to beat, George Foreman,Earnie Shavers,Maybe even Joe Frazier. so in a way it helped him in a way it didn't.

I remember hearing in 1960 something he was rated the most hated fighter but in the 70's he was loved so, whatever the reason he was brilliant in the ring, personally i wouldn't say the greatest but top10 at the very least

[Da Iceman]

i dont like him because joe frazier gave him money, then as soon as he got out the car he started bashing him calling him a gorilla and he made fun of joe frazier like no other opponent b4. joe was talking about how great a fighter ali was then he turned on the radio ali was making fun of him.