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RIP Muhammad Ali

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Posts

  • AngelHedgieAngelHedgie Registered User regular
    l_g wrote: »

    Like I said, real-life Character Action Game hero. All of the charisma, too!

    And the moral courage. At the height of his career, he took an incredibly unpopular stand, refusing to be drafted because of the pisspoor way the US treated black people. This act would cost him 5 years in his prime, and is believed to have been a factor in the onset of Parkinson's, as it pushed him to extend his career beyond what he should have.

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  • JimothyJimothy Not in front of the fox he's with the owlRegistered User regular
    Xaquin wrote: »
    I actually thought he died decades ago =(

    I was also under the impression that he died a long time ago

    But it occurs to me that that might actually be a testament to him?

    Because I'm pretty sure what little I know of him I learned in history class

    And how many people that will die in our lifetime are thought of primarily as a historical figure?

    Anyway, The World's Greatest is a good song that I associate with a particular time in my adolescence. Maybe not the most amazing thing, but he left some impact on my life through that.

  • madparrotmadparrot Registered User regular
    l_g wrote: »

    Like I said, real-life Character Action Game hero. All of the charisma, too!

    Every bit as fast with his mouth as with his hands

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xGuL1mQKdR8

  • l_gl_g Registered User regular
    https://youtu.be/zWnt4Z2Z9N0?t=620
    Skip to 10:15 and you will realize he could basically do this in real life:
    7d1mexas24otq.gif

    Poor Brian London. The way he reacted to those feints, and before long was completely mesmerized by them! And then Ali unloaded 12 punches on him in about 3 seconds!

    Cole's Law: "Thinly sliced cabbage."
  • MaximumMaximum Registered User regular
    A true American hero. I can only imagine the great things he would have accomplished if didn't contract Parkinsons.

  • OlivawOlivaw good name, isn't it? the foot of mt fujiRegistered User regular
    It's also worth noting that Ali was a heavyweight

    If you've seen a modern heavyweight boxing match, you will not see anywhere near the energy or stamina Ali displayed

    Most heavyweights get tired just walking toward each other after the bell rings, let alone dance around showering their opponent with fast combinations

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  • l_gl_g Registered User regular
    Olivaw wrote: »
    It's also worth noting that Ali was a heavyweight

    If you've seen a modern heavyweight boxing match, you will not see anywhere near the energy or stamina Ali displayed

    Most heavyweights get tired just walking toward each other after the bell rings, let alone dance around showering their opponent with fast combinations

    That said, heavyweights in his day were a lot lighter. He weighed in at ~200 lbs. in his early fights. The most decorated heavyweight champs of recent times, the Klitschko brothers, weigh in at like 240 lbs. Ali probably wouldn't qualify as a heavyweight at all today!

    But among his contemporaries, his athleticism was absolutely something else. He was absolutely expending a lot more energy dancing around his opponent for round after round, but it was his opponents that gave out first.

    Cole's Law: "Thinly sliced cabbage."
  • DiarmuidDiarmuid Amazing Meatball Registered User regular
    edited June 2016
    Everyone should watch When We Were Kings

    Diarmuid on
  • Metzger MeisterMetzger Meister It Gets Worse before it gets any better.Registered User regular
    Ali is a titan. There is likely not a person on earth who doesn't know Muhammad Ali, at least by reputation. The man defined an entire sport for decades.

  • Munkus BeaverMunkus Beaver You don't have to attend every argument you are invited to. Philosophy: Stoicism. Politics: Democratic SocialistRegistered User, ClubPA regular
    Yeah, but it's hanging on the wall for religious reasons, not because of anything he did.

    Humor can be dissected as a frog can, but dies in the process.
  • RMS OceanicRMS Oceanic Registered User regular
    Dubh wrote: »
    I'll always respect Muhammed Ali for beating Superman in a boxing match

    (seriously, though, the guy seemed pretty frikkin' rad IRL)

    That comic is actually pretty good.

    That story about his post-Olympic treatment is heartbreaking.

  • The Cow KingThe Cow King a island Registered User regular
    edited June 2016
    Shit I didnt know he was a gold medalist

    I just loved watching his matches and admired and respected eveything he did outside of that

    RIP :(

    The Cow King on
    icGJy2C.png
  • The Cow KingThe Cow King a island Registered User regular
  • ToxTox I kill threads he/himRegistered User regular
    CkGeEM9WsAAM_RX.jpg

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  • YaYaYaYa Decent. Registered User regular
    this is a weird thought

    but man Ali would have been an incredible podcast host in his later years

  • ToxTox I kill threads he/himRegistered User regular
    YaYa wrote: »
    this is a weird thought

    but man Ali would have been an incredible the greatest podcast host in his later years

    Twitter! | Dilige, et quod vis fac
  • TubeTube Registered User admin
    I could give a fuck about Muhammad Ali as a boxer. As a revolutionary figure who stood up to an establishment that oppressed him and said "no, I will not fight for you" at a time when doing so put him at enormous personal and professional risk he's one of my heroes. To say, essentially "I am not your brother, abuser, because you wave a flag. My brother is the viet cong you would have me kill on your behalf"

    I actually mentioned this recently, but "No Viet Cong ever called me a n*gger" is something I will remember for my entire life as one of the most powerful expressions of an ideal I have ever heard. Muhammad Ali would not compromise his ideals, no matter what it meant for his career and legacy.

  • WeedLordVegetaWeedLordVegeta Registered User regular
    there are great pieces written about ali as as a revolutionary, as a muslim, as an ideal to aspire to

    here's an amazing piece about a man and a boxer

  • Munkus BeaverMunkus Beaver You don't have to attend every argument you are invited to. Philosophy: Stoicism. Politics: Democratic SocialistRegistered User, ClubPA regular
    My favorite story about Ali is how he conned a photographer from Sports Illustrated when he was 19:
    The underwater shots of the boxing legend were taken in a Miami swimming pool in 1961. The 19-year-old boxer, then still known as Cassius Clay, was training in the pool when Schulke arrived to discuss the shoot for Sports Illustrated. He explained to the photographer that a previous trainer had encouraged him to practice in the pool as the water resistance acts just like weight.

    However, when Schulke suggested the underwater shots to the magazine, the idea was rejected. "When I called the editor at Sports Illustrated, he thought I was crazy for taking pictures of a boxer in a swimming pool,” wrote Schulke in his 2003 book Witness To Our Times. “So I called Life magazine, and they liked the idea. In those days, Life loved to beat out its sister publication on a story, so I went back to take pictures in the pool."

    On the day of the shoot, Schulke had already taken several photos of the boxer before capturing the best-known shot. "I turned around, and there he was, standing on the bottom of the pool,” he later recalled. “I mean, that's very hard to do, and he's in a perfect boxing pose. So I swam over real quick and I got about six pictures of him. He was holding his breath all this time and not making any movement."

    It was three years later when Schulke went to photograph the boxer again that he found out he had been fooled by Ali and his trainer.

    He explained: “We were looking through a scrapbook, and when he came across my underwater pictures he winked at me. I realized he had taken me. I learned later he and his trainer had come up with the whole story on their own. He didn’t even know how to swim…. he fooled everybody - and it made fantastic pictures.”

    history-ali.jpg

    Humor can be dissected as a frog can, but dies in the process.
  • ToxTox I kill threads he/himRegistered User regular
    Obama wrote:
    Muhammad Ali was the Greatest. Period. If you just asked him, he'd tell you. He'd tell you he was the double Greatest; that he'd "handcuffed lightning, thrown thunder into jail."
    But what made the Champ the Greatest - what truly separated him from everyone else - is that everyone else would tell you pretty much the same thing.

    Twitter! | Dilige, et quod vis fac
  • BlankZoeBlankZoe Registered User regular
    Muhammad Ali managed to have two of the most badass names of all time

    Both that and Cassius Clay are so good

    CYpGAPn.png
  • TankHammerTankHammer Atlanta Ghostbuster Atlanta, GARegistered User regular
    I never knew much about Muhammed Ali for a very long time. I knew he was a very accomplished athlete who made his reputation punching other men for sport, I knew he liked to spit personal, verbal abuse about his opponents before he beat them physically, and I knew he was a black icon during the time of civil rights because he was a black world heavyweight champion in the time of very overt, institutionalized racism.

    I really thought for most of my life that the man was just that time period's version of Mike Tyson.

    I feel absolutely ashamed that I didn't know more about him as a person and a leader. I knew very little about his political side other than his membership in the Nation of Islam. I feel like I had just assumed he was just another trash-talking, arrogant bully like so many other sports stars but he wasn't. He was an actual hero. So now I wonder. Was it my own prejudices that formed this false image or was I simply shaped by the bias of those who taught me my history?

  • RoyceSraphimRoyceSraphim Registered User regular
    edited June 2016
    One of the things I missed when my family and I fled Somalia was a picture my father took with Ali at a hotel in Saudi Arabia.

    Dad said Ali was glad dad didn't do the stupid mock punch pose.

    Photographs.....

    RoyceSraphim on
  • TefTef Registered User regular
  • PinfeldorfPinfeldorf Yeah ZestRegistered User regular
    I once heard a person say "Nobody will ever be as good at anything as Michael Jordan is at basketball" and Muhammed Ali was the first counterexample that came to mind. I watched hours and hours of footage during my teenage years trying to learn his foot and head movements and never came close. Had he not missed 5 prime years in the sport he would be more well-known as a fighter than Bruce Lee, I believe. Him contracting Parkinson's really shone a light on it and has lead to a lot of research and treatment options for one of the worst neurological conditions we've discovered, and the world was certainly made better by his life and controversies.

  • JavenJaven Registered User regular
    They're playing some of his fights on ESPN Classic. Ali/Liston in 64 right now

  • XehalusXehalus Registered User regular
    if there is a heaven he should in the vip line

  • AthenorAthenor Battle Hardened Optimist The Skies of HiigaraRegistered User regular
    His funeral's going to be held at the "KFC Yum!" stadium?

    ... I hate branding stadiums.

    He/Him | "A boat is always safest in the harbor, but that’s not why we build boats." | "If you run, you gain one. If you move forward, you gain two." - Suletta Mercury, G-Witch
  • AthenorAthenor Battle Hardened Optimist The Skies of HiigaraRegistered User regular

    I'm curious what he thought of Creed. (which I haven't seen yet, sadly)

    He/Him | "A boat is always safest in the harbor, but that’s not why we build boats." | "If you run, you gain one. If you move forward, you gain two." - Suletta Mercury, G-Witch
  • OghulkOghulk Tinychat Janitor TinychatRegistered User regular
    Muhammad Ali is literally one of my historic heroes

    He was a man that stood up for what America actually fucking means in a period where it consistently compromised its virtues in pursuit of hate (and still does really).

    But not only that, the man was a boxing genius. The way he moved was unbelievable, the way he studied his opponents became something would-be boxers aspired to be like, the way he analyzed his opponents movements inside and outside the ring left resulted in leaving them breathless and tired. He was a boxer that could have easily taken opponents to the time and have the point for every round, but instead knocked them the fuck out and put himself in danger for the love of the sport. And then, even after the match, he hugged his opponents, he congratulated and viewed them as his peer, not as someone below him or someone to pity, but as someone who stepped into the ring with him. That was in itself a brave act in his later years, and he appreciated that as he appreciated anyone's sense of bravery, especially as he fought for civil rights.

    I can only imagine, given Obama's comment on Ali above, that the boxer must have been very influential for the president.

  • RobonunRobonun It's all fun and games until someone pisses off China Registered User regular
    Today's #Ham4Ham is a tribute to Ali performed by a member of Hamilton's ensemble cast. I like to think he would've approved.


    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sb9onRnEEzo

  • Desktop HippieDesktop Hippie Registered User regular
    bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-36496473

    Thousands have lined the route of Muhammad Ali's funeral procession, throwing rose petals in front of the cortège and chanting his name. Among the speakers giving eulogies are Bill Clinton, Billy Crystal, Malcom X's daughter and Muhammad Ali's wife. Will Smith and Lennox Lewis are among the pallbearers.

    President Obama can't make it as it's his daughter's high school graduation today.

  • CenoCeno pizza time Registered User regular
    edited June 2016
    Nvm

    Ceno on
  • DJ EebsDJ Eebs Moderator, Administrator admin
    can we please not turn every thread about a dead celebrity into a clearinghouse for dead celebrity news

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