Written By:
te reo putake - Date published:
5:14 pm, June 4th, 2016 - 19 comments
Categories: International, us politics -
Tags: muhammad ali
Sad news that Muhammad Ali, the greatest boxer the world will ever know has died of respiratory illness.
Ali was more than just an astonishing sportsman, he was a man of considerable spirit and conviction. In the mid sixties, he turned his back on riches and fame on principle. Refusing to go fight in Vietnam, he was threatened with jail and stripped of his world heavyweight title. He also abandoned his birth name, Cassius Clay, referring to it as his slave name. He embraced Islam and rebuilt his boxing career, going on to win the title again in 1974.
The Rumble in the Jungle and The Thriller in Manila will live forever in sporting history as boxing matches that became events bigger than the sum of their parts. He helped make televised sport a global phenomenon.
Ali was probably the first modern athlete who took on the media and forced them to write about him in his own terms. He was social media before there was social media. He was fast, funny and clever. A poet, a comic, a politician and a pariah with pride.
Speaking of social media, America’s most famous anti-Muslim bigot has been quick to respond to the news:
“Muhammad Ali is dead at 74! A truly great champion and a wonderful guy. He will be missed by all! ”
Yeah, thanks Donald. You’d have happily locked him up, you tool.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6igy7hmildM
RIP Muhammad Ali, America’s favourite Muslim, the Greatest Boxer Of All Time.
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The Black House!
Labour are just doing Rope-A-Dope. We’re gonna crush em like bugs.
Muhummad Ali wasn’t wrong all those years ago, when as Cassius Clay was about the face Sonny Liston in 1963 I think it was, he told the world he was the greatest. And indeed he was the greatest. In fact one of the best and great sportsman to live.
When Ali retired from boxing, he said “I don’t miss boxing. But boxing will miss ME!” Again proving he was dead right once more, because in my mind boxing will never be the same after the great Mahummad Ali.
A sad day. The Louisville Lip has gone.
RIP Mohammed Ali.
“No Vietcong ever called me nigger.”
Sums up the guy so beautifully.
R.I.P.
DS – you should at least quote Ali and not.. Nice Guys Finish Seventh : False Phrases, Spurious Sayings, and Familiar Misquotations (1993) by Ralph Keyes
The guy was a legend.
Close enough DS…
Thanks Kevin, awesome clip.
Muhammad Ali on integration/inter-racial relations….
“It’s nature to want to be with your own kind”
Can we put aside pedantry just this once? Yes, it’s a slight paraphrase of what he said. It is, however, the spirit of it, and is generally how the (much longer) speech is remembered by history.
“No Vietcong ever called me nigger” were the 6 most powerful words ever spoken about the Vietnam war.
Everyone knew Afro-Americans were doing a disproportionate amount of the dying in Vietnam. In one sentence Ali turned the tables on the generals.
It was a brilliant tactic for which Ali will always be revered in the annals of radical politics.
“Everyone knew Afro-Americans were doing a disproportionate amount of the dying in Vietnam. In one sentence Ali turned the tables on the generals.”
I thought it was the Vietnamese who did the disproportionate amount of the dying.
Nobody likes a pedant, Rocco. AmaKiwi’s point is pretty obviously about the American military. Sharpen up.
I have less than zero interest in boxing, but this,
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/muhammad-ali-on-not-all-white-people_us_563a5e9ee4b0307f2cabb2e6
(Ali telling Parkinson what racism is).
Weka. I’m not fond of boxing either..and gradually becoming disillusioned with collision sports generally, but couldn’t help watching and admiring Ali.
On ‘Muhammad Ali-This is your life’- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZWZOBX1vE7A&t=2222s , the last shots of Joe Louis , the ‘Brown Bomber’ might have given him food for thought.
Ali was a great boxer but a rather unpleasant human being. Let’s not delude ourselves that he was anything more than a superb athlete and a very clever media operator. He was to Nation of Islam what Tom Cruise is to Scientology – the glamorous face of the unpleasant cult.
EDIT – Actually, forget Tom Cruise. Ali reminds me awfully of Donald Trump. Way better hair, though.
“Ali was a great boxer but a rather unpleasant human being.”
No, Ali was a great boxer and a complex human being. In the latter he was like almost everyone. And to say the least, he annoyed a lot of old white racists. He can be forgiven quite a bit for that.
LG-Islam is a tad more than a cult. The logic of relating Cruise/Scientology’ to Ali/ Islam and then Trump escapes me.
Key has tweeted that he remembers meeting Ali in 1983. Can’t remember how to spell Muhammad, though.
“@johnkeypm
A legend has passed. I had the honour of meeting Muhammed Ali in LA in 1983. A real privilege.”
Can’t remember what his position was a couple of years earlier during the Springbok tour either.
Kia ora guys and great tribute to a great man. As posted on our Facebook “….There are many disabled who grew up on this man’s time and will remember…..and on behalf of Disabled Liberation Aotearoa DLANZ….RIP Great Man”