The red boxer and the blue boxer

http://oregonmag.com/TheBlueBoxerED.htm | April 1, 2002 | Larry Leonard

[WaterDragon]

He is, like all great figures, controversial. I don't like some of the things he did, but I love one thing he did. In my opinion, this man supercedes even the factionalism he claims. He's not a black hero. He's a human hero. He taught us all, every one of us, regardless of our race or creed, a lesson about life.

There are two kinds of fighter, the red one and the blue one. The first is aggressive, attack-based fellow. The other is what is known as a counter puncher. His is a philosophy of reaction. Some argue that a battle cannot be won with defense. This is not true, as the most vicious assault troops of Hitler learned at Stalingrad. If you have the ability to suffer like a Russian, even Germans will finally shake their heads and go home.

The key to the blue boxer, the counter puncher, is an understanding that the instant someone throws a punch, he breaks his defense to do it. While that hand is moving forward or moving back, the red fighter is vulnerable. The blue fighter has not been expending useless energy, like wind attacking granite. He is fresh. If the blue fighter is fast enough, as was Cassius Clay, now known as Muhammed Ali, his one blow delivered delivered at that time will have more effect than the ten thrown by the aggressor.

That's right. Probably the greatest fighter who ever lived, Ali was a counter puncher. He could run backwards faster and for a longer time than anyone in history. The only times he was aggressive was after he finally slipped in that one punch that staggered his opponent, and of course, during the press conference. Ali was a classic blue fighter. That meant that while he slipped and deflected much of his opponent's aggression, he nevertheless took a lot of blows. A counter-puncher has to be able to take a lot of blows. That's why he trembles, today.

So, he is wounded, and The Greatest, all at the same time. (snip)

(The complete article is not presented here)

[WaterDragon]

Inspirational!

[RLK]

Clay could do many things because he didn't need to contend with the likes of Marcianno.

[RLK]

In Clay's time Boxing had become boxing. Marcianno could box, but he was a powerful fighter who could go 15 rounds without slowing down. He was a body puncher, somethin that has not been seen in 40 years. Men would bleed internally for weeks after a bout with him. After three rounds with him there wasn't enough strength left in an opponent to counterpunch.

Clay had a trick. in close fighting he would put his weight on an opponent to wear him down. The tactic works agains boxers, but not against body-punching fighters. This is what Marcianno loved. He's knock their guts out when they did it.

[poet]

Or Mike Tyson early in his career.

[RLK]

Tyson is a pretty tough character. He would have given Clay a tussle and might have beat him. He isn't going down with one punch.

[ThePythonicCow]

Sports Illustrated once had a series of some dozen photographs, taken with a strobe light flashing once every 1/100th of a second. Ali stood in a dark room with a punching bag in front of him and his gloved hands at his side, awaiting the flashes. When the flashes began, he was to punch the bag. In the third frame, his hands are moving. In the twelth, his punch has landed.

Blinding inhuman speed. A thing of beauty.

[ThinkLikeWaterAndReeds]

That's right. Probably the greatest fighter who ever lived, Ali was a counter puncher
Ali was a boxer, not a fighter - big difference. Boxing happens in a ring with limiting rules of contact. Fighting, on the other hand, has few if any rules or limits and debilitation or death is the result of loosing. Bruce Lee is probably one of the worlds best all time fighters - he could incapacitate any opponent within 60 seconds and proved it on many occasions.

[ThinkLikeWaterAndReeds]

Here is something that was brought to my attention - be inspired by this:

Ali was knocked flat on his back in the final round of his first fight with Joe Frazier. He was also knocked down in the 11th round. The media will not show a picture of Ali down. They have falsified that to the extent that sportswriters actually write today that Frazier never beat Ali.
Doug Jones, an overweight lightheavyweight, beat the crap out of Ali two fights before Ali supposedly was able to beat Liston.
Henry Cooper, in Ali's next fight, knocked Ali down just as the fourth round ended. Ali then got a rest of over 10 minutes while his corner claimed his glove was torn. Ali suddenly tried to stand up after about four minutes of smelling salts during this 10-minute rest. His cornermen pushed him back down immediately. That showed he would not have been able to answer the bell after the legitimate one minute rest between rounds.
Ali's fights with Liston were fixed. The Muslims from the main mosque in Chicago visited Liston and showed him photos of his wife coming down the steps of his house in Las Vegas and of his mother standing in the aisle of a grocery store in Little Rock, where she lived. Liston forgot how to fight.
Jimmy Young, who Ali's muslim backers forgot to visit, gave Ali a boxing lesson for 15 rounds and laughed in his face while he did it. The media refuses to mention that fight, or even allow a photo to be shown of it.
Ali is the only heavyweight champion in the history of boxing to lose his title to fighter who had only seven professional fights (Leon Spinks). In the fixed return fight, Spinks took cocaine earlier on the evening of the fight--he left for ring without his protector on and had to go back and borrow a sweaty one from lightheavyweight Mike Rossman, who had just fought. Spinks' cornerman, Georgie Benton walked out of the ring after 6 rounds, saying he wanted to be no part of what was going on. Benton's exact words to me, "It was fixed."
Ali was a mediocre heavyweight who struggled with a number of nothing opponents--yet he is sold today BY THE SAME MEDIA THAT SELLS BILL CLINTON as "the greatest of all time."
What horsesh*t.

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The story that is always avoided with Ali is the story of the murderous black muslim group that he was connected with.
Sonny Liston forgot how to fight after they visited him. (They had killed Malcolm X just before Ali "beat" Liston).
They also killed a large number of women and children at a Washington DC Hanafi muslim home which basketball player Abdul Jabbar supported.
Jabbar will never discuss this publicly (he wants to stay alive).
The muslim group Ali was with kill other blacks like flies. They wipe out whole families.
This story will NEVER be told (or even touched) by the big media.
. Sports Illustrated and the rest of the media continually run the picture of Ali standing over Liston in their fixed fight.
When Ali got back to his corner and they took out his mouthpiece, the first thing he said was, "I think he laid down."
Every former champion (Joe Louis, Jack Dempsey, Gene Tunney) and every opponent of Ali and Liston(Floyd Patterson, George Chuvalo) said it was an obvious fake.
Longtime sportwriter Jimmy Cannon wrote, "The punch wasn't hard enough to break an egg."
Sports Illustrated brazenly sells, RIGHT IN YOUR FACE, this picture of a FIXED fight.
You will see this picture on every newstand you pass now. THIS IS THE WAY THE BIG MEDIA DOES IT (on much more important subjects).
They repeat and repeat and repeat the SAME lie until it becomes a fact. The massive sell of Ali is of no interest in itself, but only as a demonstration of how the media sells something once it receives its instructions.

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. When Ali lost to Joe Frazier he waited until the swelling on the right side of his jaw (from Frazier's left hook) went down-- and then he went on a marathon series of radio and TV talk show appearances where he called Joe Frazier an "Uncle Tom" for accepting an invitation to the White House after the fight. Ali couldn't beat Frazier in the ring, so he went after Frazier in this fashion.
The communication was directly to the black community, many of whose members take such statements (directions) as gospel. Frazier had to pull his kids out of public school and hire 24--hour bodyguards because of the number of death threats he got as a result of Ali's "Uncle Tom" campaign against him.
A few years later, Ali accepted an invitation and went to the White House after his fight with Foreman--but he didn't say anything about his being an "Uncle Tom."
. . Recently Ali and his shill writer Thomas Hauser published a book titled "Ali: A Spiritual Journey" consisting of "sayings" by the "philosopher" Ali about how one should love his fellow man--which got the expected revolting, sycophantic rave reviews.
When NY sportwriter Phil Berger collaborated with Frazier on his recent autobiography--he was told he would never get anything printed again by big media people. The book was attacked in a FRONT PAGE article in USA Today BEFORE it even came out.
WHY?
Because it merely told the facts about Ali's poison toward Frazier as part of telling Frazier's story. For some strange reason Ali HAS to be sold by the media-- and anyone who knows the facts on Ali and tries to get them out finds out very quickly that the gigantic, phony sell of Ali must not be tampered with.

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It is a mystery to me WHY whomever it is who runs things chose Ali to be sold in this fashion. During his career as a fighter Ali was a clownish figure who would do anything to get attention. What exactly do those who run things have to gain by this ridiculous, unrelenting sell of their Ali?

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Once a Washington Post reporter said to me,"Ali is the greatest fighter of all time."
"That's very nice," I said. "Why is he the greatest fighter of all time?"
"Because he was against the Viet Nam war," the Washington Post writer answered without hesitation.
"Wouldn't that make Jane Fonda the greatest fighter of all time?" I asked him.
. Ali holds the distinction of being the only heavyweight champion in the histsory of boxing to lose his title to a fighter who had only seven professional fights (the magnificent Leon Spinks).
And when he won the "title" back by running away and grabbing and holding on for 15 rounds against a kid who had taken cocaine earlier that evening ( and who was so disoriented that he left for ring without his protector and had to go back a borrow a sweaty one from Mike Rossman, and whose cornerman Georgie Benton walked out of the ring and the arena after 6 rounds saying he wanted to be no part of what was going on). And for that they call him the greatest of all time.
What if Joe Louis or Jack Dempsey lost their title to a novice kid who had only seven professional fights ?
And won the "title" back by running away and grabbing and holding on for 15 rounds against the same kid?

[ThePythonicCow]

Yes - the same article was "brought to my attention", by freepmail. It may (or may not) have a good basis in fact, though I find the "conspiratorial tone" to be annoying. All in all it shows an interesting resemblance to the events, media and reactions of some to Klintoon.

Perhaps what annoys me about the tone is its breathless outrage, grasping for conviction at every turn of phrase. It's hard to trust such. Contrast that reaction with Bush's, especially in his two best speaches, Sept and Jan, before Congress -- strength and determination, willing to call Evil when he saw it, but not obsessed with convincing others of the Evil at every turn of phrase.

[Lejes Rimul]

Seriously dude, get over it.

[ThinkLikeWaterAndReeds]

OK dude, there, i'm over it.