Muhammad Ali

He clearly was a clever guy. Maybe not academically..

 

You have to be clever to be one of the greatest sportsmen of all time. Anyone who thinks you don't have to be smart to box at the highest level doesn't understand boxing or sport in general.

 

I've said consistently that Ali most likely recognised the error of his ways as he matured and got older, but that doesn't remove what he did and who he was for a part of his life.

Words to promote a fight indeed! No wonder you're lashing out having been called out on that! :smiley-laughing002:

 

I'm not going to lie that you need a great understanding and intelligence of boxing and also natural talent to be as great as Ali but you don't need to be smart to be goodles at most sports especially boxing. Floyd May weather arguably one of the best boxers ever can barely read ffs.

 

A lot of the time the intelligence comes from the trainers, your Angelo Dundee's and Cus D'Amato's of the world, boxers need to have the ability to follow their trainers instructions and have the physical prowess in order to stand a chance. Most of the time in a boxing match you're fighting with instinct - no thought required.

 

I thought on the Parkinson show along with other interviews
He gave he wanted to help to make things better in the black community
Re drug taking gang shooting prostitution black on black murder.

WheN this was sorted They would be better equipped in
his eyes to integrate & not be looked on as second class

This was a guy who fought in the Olympics & won a Gold
Medal for USA & came home & could not get served
In Some restaurants because of his colour.

 

Just because you have a low IQ does not mean you aren't clever.

He was very * shrewd.

 

Are you admitting that you were wrong when you said that his antics during those years he was a member of a race hate group were all simply words to sell fights?

 

Obviously it worked both ways, hate bred hate, but that's no excusing his opinions just because of what possibly caused his views. Nobody stops to think why a neo-* is a neo-*, they just hate him for it.

 

Mate, go and look up the history and politics of the Nation of Islam. That's what he was a part of, and the views he put across for quite a while.

He wasn't a civil rights activist like Martin Luther King, he was a guy who at the time believed in segregation and the supremacy of the Islamic religion.

 

I'm talking specifically where he was scathing of
HIS black community killing raping prostituting & terrorising
Their own people / community.
He wanted to help stop that before moving on

 

Watching the Parkinson interview it's sad the way he thought. However he was a product of the time, I bet a lot of people thought that way back then, especially people from the deep south.

My Gran as well still maintains to this day that blacks and whites shouldn't marry, and it took her a while to accept my sister and her partner.

It's considered racist in this day and age and rightly so but it seemed to be more the norm back then.

I'm certainly not going to vilify a black man from the deep south in mid 20th Century America for distrusting white people and wanting 'his kind' to stay away from them.

And as has also be said, he changed his views somewhat in later years, moving with the times.

 

Last paragraph sean is relevant to many of us, myself definitely included.

 

I'm not setting out to vilify one of my personal hero's but some people seem to not want to acknowledge this big flaw about Ali I can understand why he was racist at some point but it doesn't make it right or change the fact that he was indeed a racist.

 

That's all everyone is doing, understanding it. Same as you.

What's with the daft crying smiley?

 

PaulM seems to have a hard times coming to terms with and has accused people of trying to attack a deadl man and ruin his name or some *. I'm on my phone must have added by accident.

 

Fair do's mate.