The Top 5 Reasons You Can't Blame Joe Frazier for Hating Muhammad Ali

[butterfly1964]

Walking around with all this baggage in yourself is just not good.

Coming up on "The Top 5 Reasons You Can't Blame"...

Frazier should have bried the hatchet years ago, instead of keeping the grudge like he actually wanted to keep it.

That ball was on the line!

It gets by Buckner!

Michigan can't take a timeout!

Tunney is down!

No good, wide right!

The Top 5 Reasons You Can't Blame Joe Frazier for Hating Muhammad Ali

Hello, I'm butterfly1964, and Welcome to The Top Five Reasons You Can't Blame. A show that takes a look at boxing personalities and establishments who have made questionable decisions, controversial comments, or unpopular stances, and take a deeper look into these matters. My job is not to further villify these individuals, but to challenge conventional wisdom, and reexamine what has been accepted as fact. In this episode I'm counting down the top 5 reasons why you can't blame Joe Frazier for hating Muhammad Ali, even to this day. Their rivalry the spanned 3 fights, 41 rounds, and four years, had captivated the public's imagination and trancended boxing. But the rage that fueld Frazier's tank to give his all in the trilogy is still burning, to the point that no one can explain. Before I count down the reasons why you can't blame Joe Frazier, Here's a look at the start of their feud.

After Ali was banned from boxing, Joe Frazier came on the scene and tore throught the division with a vengence. A fight with Ali once he came back was prevalent.

Both men gave their best in all three fights. Frazier though it was a personal duty to beat Ali.

After the Thrilla in Manila, Ali called frazier's son marvis and told him that all those things he said about his father, he didn't mean them. Well, when Marvis told his father, Joe ignored it.

Even the people that worked for Joe after he retired, couldnt evn mention Ali's name for fear of being fired!

Frazier took everything Ali said seriously, even though Ali didn't think it was a big deal. He really despidsed Ali in a way that makes you question Frazier's integrity.

In 1996, when Ali carried the Olympic torch, and lit the fire to start the games, Joe Frazier watched it, and replied that he wished Ali had fallen in.

Why would he say that in 1996, more than 20 years after their last fight? Frazier should have bried the hatchet years ago, instead of keeping the grudge like he actually wanted to keep it.

Ali issued apology after apology to Frazier, which Joe Rejected them all.

The tension between the two probably climaxed in January of 1974 at ABC's Wide World of Sports shortly before their rematch, when their infamous brawl occured.

What, you in this too?

Get down Joe!

Your in this too?

Quick! Get down Joe!

Pushes Frazier down

What a scene we hane here! Frazier is apparently angry! Muhammad called him ignorant and he's really angry!

Walking around with all this baggage in yourself is just not good.

Before I count down the top 5 reasons why you can't blame Joe Frazier for hating Muhammad Ali, here's a reason that didn't make the top five. I call it, "The Best of the Rest".














Best of the Rest

Frazier is Underrated - The things that Joe Frazier accomplished in the boxing ring give almost instant top ten heavyweight status. However, he is overlooked by many boxing and sports fans in general, partly due to his losses to Ali and George Foreman. Ali gets more prase as a fighter than Frazier does, this may be part of the animosity that Frazier feels towards Ali.

























Coming up next on The Top Five Reasons You Can't Blame, we'll discuss Joe Frazier's roots.

[butterfly1964]

Welcome back to "The Top 5 Reasons You Can't Blame Joe Frazier for hating Muhammad Ali".

Now we are ready for the countdown, starting with Reason #5.

















5: Upbringing - Frazier was born in rural South Carolina, where his father was a sharecropper. Frazier grew up poor and that made him tough. Because of this, he wouldn't take any smack from anybody, and Ali was no different.

Frazier never really had the ability to brush soething off from nothing, because his father instilled him an attitude of hard-work, and seriousness.

Reason #5 might have had something to do with Reason #4. Here it is.




















4: Philadelphia - Frazier at the age of 15 moved to New York and then to the "City of Brotherly Love". He learned boxing in probably the toughest city in America.

In those Philadelphia gyms they have wars! In sparring sessions, that just go all out and fight to the end. You have teenagers coming out with broken noses and cauliflower ears, and Frazier was part of that, and he was just a tough individual, and very serious about everything, and those gyms taught him toughness.

Frazier just wasn't accumtomed to hearing the things that Ali said, and he took it too seriously.

Stay tuned for more of our countdown of the top 5 reasons you can't blame Joe Frazier for hating Muhammad Ali.

[butterfly1964]

You're watching The Top 5 Reasons You Can't Blame Joe Frazier for hating Muhammad Ali

Let's continue the countdown. Reason #3.



















3: The Vietnam War - Frazier and Ali's bitter rivalry started because many people in society branded them in to two different categories. Ali represented the younger generatin, the rebels, the one's opposed to the conflict in Vietnam, while Frazier represented the hard hats, the war veterans, the old guard that was patriotic to their country no matter what the reason was. Frazier and Ali got aught into the crossfire of the political times, and that's how the rivalry fueled.

Ali got most of the young people on his side, and Frazier was misunderstood and ridiculed by those people, and that had an effect on the way Frazier thought of Ali, because he felt that Ali was responsible for it.

You can't really blame Frazier because if it wasn't for the Vietnam War, the rivalry wouldn't be as bitter as it was.

How did that grab you? If you are still unsure, then try this one on for size, Reason #2.
























2: Muhammad Ali - Ali brought all the hate on himself by being mean to Frazier.

Before the banishment, Ali was at his peak, not just physically, but financially, and in popularity. During his exile, Frazier would help him out financially. Ali needed the money, but he still had a sort of dislike for Frazier, cause he was being frazier's charity case all of a sudden. And so Ali turned on him.

In the first two fights, Ali branded frazier as the white man's champion, and in the third fight, he was the gorilla, and Ali named a lot of his fighters, but he took it too far with Frazier.

Frazier's kids were tormented at school, because the school kids would call their father ugly, all becaus of Ali's tactics.

To refer to Frazier as an Uncle Tom... sucking kind of guy is the worst insult you could give a guy that was nothing but raging black!

I don't blame Frazier because Ali brought all the hate on himself.

Coming up, our Number 1 reason why you can't blame Joe Frazier for hating Muhammad Ali. Here's a hint.

All I know is that the world was treated to 41 of the best rounds in the history of boxing!

[butterfly1964]

We're counting down The Top 5 Reasons You Can't Blame Joe Frazier for Hating Muhammad Ali. Before we get to the top reason, here's a recap.

Number 5: Upbringing



Number 4: Philadelphia



Number 3: The Vietnam War



and...



Number 2: Muhammad Ali

We all ask ourselves why certain things happen. It may alter our lives for the worse and may "cramp" our style. It may even make us uneasy about certain things. But sometimes, just sometimes the bad things that occur turn out to be a blessing in disguise. Reason #1.
















1: That's What Made Their Rivalry So Great - Although Joe Frazier is recognized as a great fighter, he stood only 5'-11", had a short reach, and at times has shown himself to have a vulnerable chin. The bottom line is that Ali brought out the best in Frazier, and let's face it, vise versa.

If Ali hadn't tormented Frazier like he did, I'm not sure if Frazier would have beaten Ali at all. Ali by doing that actually pushed Frazier to the point that Frazier was dead set on shutting him up.

For that time, the hate was a good thing, because it made both fighters work hard to gain a victory, and their fights turned out to be classic fights in part because of the bitterness between the two. I mean in every great rivalry, their is bitternes. If you don't have bitterness, you don't have a rivalry!

In their third fight, Frazier was written off as washed up and Ali was a clear favorite. But because of Ali's pre-fight mind games, Frazier got himself in the best shape he's been in for years, and gave Ali by far his toughest fight. This made Ali work hard to get the victory, and we all were treated to great boxing by both Ali and Frazier.

I understand about how Frazier hates Ali to this day, and Ali wasn't nice and all that, but hey, all I know is that the world was treated to 41 of the best rounds in the history of boxing!

This will go down in Sports folklore as the best rivalry in boxing history, probably the best rivalry in sports history!

That will do it for this edition of "The Top 5 Reasons You Can't Blame". Maybe I've changed your mind. Maybe not. But hopefully, you'll look at this issue in a different light. I'm butterfly1964, thanks for watching.















In 2002, Frazier and Ali met in public at the annual NBA All-Star Game and publicly made up and buried the hatchet, ending the almost 35 year rivalry between the two, supposedly.

Butterfly Productions Inc.
© 2006

[butterfly1964]

Well, guys, how did I do?

[BKM-]

Good, but a few things were left behind. Ali really stabbed Frazier in the back, if you know what i mean.

[butterfly1964]

Good, but a few things were left behind. Ali really stabbed Frazier in the back, if you know what i mean.

That was reason #2.

[BKM-]

You're right.

[The Troll]

Reason #1

Ali, one of the biggest pieces of **** ever in pro boxing.

selfish primadonna mediawhore.

[The Raging Bull]

Ali, one of the biggest pieces of **** ever in pro boxing.

selfish primadonna mediawhore.

Shut the **** up. He rejuvenated the sport when it was at a deep low because of the mob and made people interested in it again.

He was a showman and played to his strengths. Isn't he allowed to do that?