That was what Muhammed Ali meant in those days. Even my Mum, no fan of the sport (or most sport it seemed) was riveted to the screen. “But he’s got brains, and that may make the difference”. How he’d destroyed two guys that had given Ali a terribly tough time in the ring. How he’d lost some of his speed and skills over ten years. He told me how unlikely it was that Ali would win. Only due to Dad did I know what was going on – like most kids that age I paid no attention to newspapers, magazines or TV beyond cartoons (and back then, Thunderbirds). There were more important things than school. To this day I don’t know if he even checked with the head teacher. It was well before school was over, I know that. In any case, Dad arrived at our little country primary school while I was on the playground in early afternoon. But I think he sensed that with Ali this all came with a wink. My Dad had loved Muhammad Ali from the early 60’s, unusual given that Dad had little time for blowhards. ![]() But before the fight a reporter said to Clay, as an introduction to a question, “We’ve been watching Sonny Liston…”, and quick as a flash, Clay interjected, “Ain’t he ugly?!”. In truth, Clay was scared witless of Liston (“the big ugly bear”), who, in frustration at Clay’s antics at one point produced a gun and started firing…blanks. On hearing who they were, Ali replied with wide eyes, “Well, if you guys are named ‘the All Blacks’, you gotta be good!”īut my favourite was before his first fight with Sonny Liston. In 1972 some of the All Blacks who were touring the UK at the time were introduced to Ali, who was in London at the time training and promoting. Yes, Ali was like many dyslexics, able to compensate his inability to read with an excellent and on-the-spot verbal expression – although some of his lines such as, “No Viet Cong ever called me ‘nigger'” were fed to him by the Black Muslims. the way he portrayed Frazier as a ”Uncle Tom” even after Frazier had supported him for his stance on the Vietnam war! Yet in the real world Ali had genius level intelligence for promoting his fights (and including himself) and also for practicing what Steve Waugh called ”mental disintegration” of his opponents.Some of which showed the ugly side of Ali esp. One aspect about Ali`s live is he is the proof of how unreliable I.Q tests and school systems are at judging someone`s ”intelligence”.Īli left High School with a D minus and missed out on the first draft into the army because his I.Q score of 78 was to low (the army lowered their requirements later as they needed more ”canon fodder” for Vietnam) You won’t even stand up for my right here at home. Want me to go somewhere and fight for you? You won’t even stand up for me right here in America, for my rights and my religious beliefs. You my enemy, not no Chinese, no Vietcong, no Japanese. If I want to die, I’ll die right here, right now, fightin’ you, if I want to die. I could be there for 4 or 5 more, but I ain’t going no 10,000 miles to help murder and kill other poor people. You want to send me to jail? Fine, you go right ahead. I resist plaudits about being a “great person” which come from being famous, but I have always admired his courage regarding the draft and what he said to make his point… ![]() He refused the draft for Vietnam and was stripped of his world title.
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