"Hey James -
“With your writing talent and boxing experience I'd love it if you'd write something about Ali. Love him or hate him, he was awesome in his prime, A heavyweight with the speed of a lightweight. I think the mold was broken after him. I just thought it'd be a great piece coming from you.”
-Shayne
Sorry for taking so long, Shayne, but since I am not among the worshippers of Ali I thought I should show some respect and hold off on this.
Last week a lady friend asked me, “What made Ali the greatest?”
My answer was, “Because he said so, and because he was the media darling of the largest generation in Western history. He was a light-skinned black man with Caucasian features from a long line of house hands, who white men of the Sixties and Seventies cheered as he beat up and besmirched with racial insults dark-skinned black men descended from toiling field hands. Ali was the perfect hero for the sedentary white man, the proto-type of the martyr criminal of today who based his own shtick on the antics of a white pro-wrestler named Gorgeous George. When Ali returned to reclaim his boxing crown after being stripped of the title for refusing to be drafted into the unpopular Vietnam conflict, he was asked before a live TV audience if he still believed that white people were “devils.” He said that even though some white people had been good to him that most were naturally evil devils. The white crowd applauded. This is the watermark for white guilt and self hatred in the U.S. and marks Ali as a sociological phenomenon.”
Ali the Boxer
Ali only fought one man that was his size. All the rest of his opponents were smaller than him. He had the perfect physical form for the art of boxing, possessed the speed of a fast middle-weight and had the best chin and best right hand in the business. Though he is known for his jab, his was technically unremarkable, even flawed. In my opinion only three boxers could have beaten him in his prime:
Jack Johnson, Joe Lewis and Vitali Klitschko.
Of the 145 greatest modern boxers, I ranked him #18 overall and #5 among heavyweights. Ali was a tragic figure of Homeric proportions, who, if he would have been coachable, and had been willing to work hard and consider the advice of genius boxer Archie Moore, would have been unbeaten. His ego was such that he was not only uncoachable but was unable to reinvent himself as he aged, taking brain-damaging punishment as he fought on into infirmity.
Ali the Man
How does Ali rate in the four key masculine virtues as codified by Jack Donovan in The Way of Men?
I will rate him in each area on a 1-10 scale with the perfect hero, Roland, scoring 40.
Strength: 10
Courage: 10
Mastery: 7
Honor: 4*
*Ali was only loyal to his faith and his family, not to his nation, his race, or his class [fellow boxers, who he treated horribly], with 2 points each being awarded for his courageous allegiance to faith and family. Of course, due to the conflict between his faith and his nation, he was only eligible to score an 8.
Masculinity Score: 31, quite a man by any measure, love him or hate him.
Indeed you are correct about the source of Ali's shtick James. As a lad I watched Ali on a talk show (Merv Griffin I believe) when he revealed that he modeled his ring persona on Gorgeous George. Heretofore athletes in serious sports were expected to be be humble and modest on the English model. Not boastful, arrogant and opinionated like an Irish ruffian (See Tyson Fury). Ali changed that. A lot of white people thought Ali's banter was witty and cute. He was novel. Most athletes were dull as a spoon and seldom had anything to say that anyone who wasn't a sports fan wanted to hear. Plus Ali got a lot of support from whites because he came of age in an era when guilty Liberal whites wanted to see a black person succeed, at anything. The truly annoying thing about Ali was that he inspired the rise of so many fair weather boxing fans. All of sudden all these white Liberals who knew shit about boxing became opinionated boxing fans. We saw much the same phenomenon occur years later when Tiger Woods first broke into professional golf, didn't we? Finally, for everyones' further edification and viewing enjoyment here's Muhammad Ali's opinion on inter-racial marriage: youtube.com/watch?v=D7Ka40KovVo