Michael Moynihan
THE revival of interest in Muhammad Ali, whose 70th birthday occurred last week, can be dated back to When We Were Kings, the 1997 documentary about Ali’s clash with George Foreman in Kinshasa in 1974, the Rumble in the Jungle.
Ali is in irresistible form in the documentary, dazzling with his wit and good looks, eulogised by George Plimpton and Norman Mailer, and it’s hardly surprising that a rash of books and a biopic, with Will Smith in the title role, followed.
Ali’s status as a boxer is assured — lightning fast and brave as a lion, he won the heavyweight title against both Sonny Liston and Foreman all the odds — but the growth industry in books dealing with the fighter’s wisdom is pretty misguided.
Ali’s devotion to the Nation of Islam, for instance, was skewered by writer Stanley Crouch many years ago: Crouch asked how anyone could be taken seriously when they subscribed to the Nation’s doctrine of racial development, which involved mud people, a mad scientist called Yakub, and a promise from God to the white race of supremacy for 6,000 years.
Another aspect of Ali’s career which doesn’t chime with his benevolent status in today’s popular culture is his treatment of the late Joe Frazier when the two men were boxing rivals.
Ali described Frazier routinely as a gorilla, and ugly, which are pretty routine insults for a fighter to throw out. However, in describing Frazier as an Uncle Tom, a black man complicit and subservient to whites, Ali was being unnecessarily cruel.
It wasn’t so much that Frazier lacked Ali’s way with words but, as some writers pointed out, Frazier had come from grinding poverty compared to Ali’s relatively comfortable upbringing — not to mention the fact that Ali, in the early part of his career, had been managed by an all-white syndicate of businessmen from his home town of Louisville, Kentucky.
Furthermore, it was grossly unfair to Frazier, who had been very good to Ali when the latter had lost his heavyweight crown; Frazier spoke up for Ali and helped his opponent out with financially.
Finally, as has happened with some more recent sporting icons, Ali’s private life rarely made headlines when he was at the height of his powers. You could argue that a sportsman’s private life should stay that way, and usually we’d agree, but that doesn’t excuse the very public humiliation Ali visited on his wife before the Thrilla in Manila of 1975.
Ali had arrived in Manila with his girlfriend, Veronica Porsche, and when she was referred to as his wife at a press event he didn’t correct the record. This was too much for his actual wife, Belinda, at home in Chicago — she flew out to Manila, tore strips off Ali and then flew straight back home.
It’s an old saw that the most you should expect from your sporting idols is sporting excellence, and Ali fulfils that role magnificently, with some unforgettable performances in the ring. He made the hugely courageous decision not to go to Vietnam, for which he was punished with the clearly illegal removal of his heavyweight title.
But these books like The Tao of Ali or Words of Wisdom From Muhammad Ali? Seconds out.
Source: http://feeds.examiner.ie/~r/iesportsblog/~3/Z0xcpZCnN6o/post.aspx
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