Joe Frazier - Right to be bitter.....or too sensitive ??

Reading Hauser's book on Ali at the moment and the most interesting part is the Ali-Frazier saga........Ali was very vocal about Frazier...Certainly some of the stuff about his Uncle Tom status and his lack of intellect could be construed as hurtful......

But as my Old man always used to tell me why care about comments from someone you don't care about....

Did anybody really think Frazier was an Uncle Tom??
Did Frazier make his name with Ali ???
Did Frazier make millions with Ali ???

People are sensitive in this life........Some peope find it hard to let go......(My Wife used to at three in the morning earlier in our marriage) However should Ali be to blame for a guy that takes it too seriously??.......After all Don King used the Uncle Tom line on Holy often enough and Douglas they couldn't be bothered...Pride does come before a fall and never more so than in Frazier's case.....

Ali called Patterson a rabbit and an Uncle Tom he chose to ignore it....No one in their right mind thinks Patterson is an Uncle Tom or they shouldn't....

Joe Frazier was a proud man but maybe the problem with Ali lay elsewhere I don't know.............

For me he was too sensitive!!........Did he really have a right to be bitter...Not sure he did......Ali was Ali...........end of!!

This one divides opinions Truss.

I recall Joe made the point of his kids getting bullied at school etc about it. We like to remember the more playful ones but some of Ali's verbal assaults were vicious. So, I can understand why frazier would be p*ssed about it, but personally yes i think he was too sensitive. Certainly i think as time went by, Ali had mellowed and was embarrassed by some of his earlier behaviour, but frazier wouldn't let it lie and seemed to revel a little in Ali's parkinsons.  

Frankly, if you can't move on, you're consumed by the bitterness. Frazier's problem more than Ali's in my view.

I agree Milky.........Rob has been bullied at school......We all have to some degree.........

Think Frazier's hatred was so extreme he blamed Ali for all his woes.........

...........You are either a glass half full or glass half empty type..

My guess is Joe was the latter..

I tend to fall more on Smokin' Joe's side, personally, and think he had every right to be bitter towards Ali.

Did any sensible, even-handed observers view Frazier as an Uncle Tom? I highly doubt it, or at least they shouldn't have done. But you have to remember Ali's position by the time the sixties had ended and the seventies had begun, which is when tensions between him and Frazier really started to boil over (so basically when Ali was granted permission to box again). By 1970, though he was still far from universally loved, Ali was no longer anywhere near as reviled as he had been by the masses when he a) joined the Nation of Islam or b) when he refused induction.

By 1970, most of America now shared his initial opposition to the war in Vietnam and, on top of that, most were now firmly of the belief that a rank injustice had been done unto Ali when his title and boxing licence had been stripped from him. This wave of sympathy, along with the struggle he'd faced since going public with his conversion to Islam in 1964 right through to his ban being lifted in 1970 (and you can throw in his colourful, telegenic personality which was a stark contrast to the bleak Frazier's for good measure, too) meant that he now had a legion of fanatical followers, positively engrossed in him and his life, who would happily hang on his every word.

So in short, it wasn't just Ali calling Frazier an Uncle Tom, a dumb gorilla or a fake world champion, it was millions of others, too. Case in point, the way that Frazier's children often returned home from school crying because of other kids rolling those lines out about their dad.

The line "sticks and stones may break my bones but names will never hurt me" is, as far as I'm concerned, a load of old horse manure for the most part and it's a pretty rare person indeed who can have such scornful insults thrown at them and be able to brush them off completely or give them no thought at all, particularly when it's being done by someone who you've helped out in the past (in this case, Frazier aiding Ali financially every now and them during his exile).

The irony is that Frazier, born in the deep south in to poverty (Ali's upbringing was much more comfortable) and a victim of the poor education in place for many blacks before intergration of schools, was the very definition of the kind of person who Ali always claimed he was representing when he stepped through the ropes. He might have expressed it in an engaging way, but let's be frank, Ali's theory that Frazier had somehow betrayed his background was a load of cobblers.

I see what you're saying Truss in regards to the fact that the war of words elevated the rivalry and added financial clout to it, and that Frazier perhaps could have made more of an effort in retirement t achieve a proper reconciliation between himself and Ali, but I do think that Ali overstepped the mark with some of his comments about Frazier and that Joe had every right to feel aggrieved.

You're reaching and being very patronising when you suggest millions others were calling him it too because Ali did........

People have their own minds and people were aware of Ali's over-egging every pudding...

There will always be ignorant types..

Not every Irishman who wants a free Ireland is a terrorist...

Kids are kids Mate...I'm sure If someone calls rooney crap on match of the day Rooney's kids would get it...

I disagree entirely......

I suspect what Frazier is really frustrated about is that he is best remembered for fights he lost. For someone who is one of the greatest heavyweights of all time that must rankle.

For me personally you can say what you like before a fight, call a guy a mug or a bum or whatever you like, provided you shake hands afterward and show that it was in good sport to psyche yourself up or gain a mental edge. But if these comments aren't rescinded and are "personal" then of course Joe has every right to bear a grudge for it. I mean, wouldn't you bear a grudge if someone branded you as something you're not and your kids got bullied in school for it? I'd want to kill the guy myself - but then I am a very angry man...

I think there is much to your post Mamba........Jealousy no doubt played it's part...

Have no doubt though 90% of black Americans had nothing but admiration for Frazier..and the other idiots shouldn't have mattered.

Is very difficult to say to be honest because not a one of us can really say in the heightened civil rights era of the late sixties/early seventies what having the tag uncle tom actually meant to a black person but we can and probably all have read enough to imagine it is about as bad an insult as possible and one that should not have been thrown around lightly.

As Chris has said Frazier was pretty much the polar opposite of what the term meant and should really have been the poster boy for the struggles black folk endured, pulling himself up from abject poverty to success and riches literally through the sweat on his brow, as indeed had Patterson, the previous victim of Ali’s loose tongue.

As I have said countless times the ongoing airbrushing and deification of Ali is a process that makes me want to puke. He could be downright cruel, frequently to folk who had done nothing to deserve it and in the case of Frazier to someone who had done acts of kindness to him in the past and Ali gets far too much of a pass for his conduct in these areas.

However nearly 40 years is a long time to be angry and bitter with someone and if you want to argue Joe could have moved on or been a little more forgiving later in life I would not argue too greatly but for me he had every right to be offended and particularly as his conduct previously had been sufficient for Joe to consider Ali if not a friend then at least someone who would have respected him.

It was the act of Frazier going to the President saying "give him his licence back and I'll beat him for you" that inspired the Uncle Tom comments (All Frazier needed to do to make it worse was to add "boss" to the end of that sentence).

Ali was very vocal about the Civil Rights issue and, to him, the man responsible had to be the President. Now for Frazier to then go cap in hand to the Big White Chief begging for a favour was utterly abhorent to him and he felt Fazier had betrayed everything that he and thousands of others had fought and campaigned against.
I don't believe it was ever put to Frazier in such simple terms and perhaps, if it had, he may have understood why Ali was so upset by it.

Let's not forget that Frazier needed to beat Ali to become the "real" champion in the eyes of many. He was always considered to be the guy looking after the title until Ali came back and that hurt him. Frazier's motives for wanting Ali to regain his licence weren't borne out of sympathy for his plight.

I think its more due to the fact that Fraizer lobbied to get Ali his licence back and helped him out as a friend that he felt more betrayed in that sense than the actual Uncle Tom jibes.

thats what i gathered from a documentary i watched a few years back on the subject.

Would that be the documentary that was made and funded by the friends, family and supporters of Joe Frazier? A documentary so biased they practically tried to suggest that Joe Frazier was actually the first man on the moon, had developed a cure for cancer and solved world hunger but people in charge just wanted to keep him down.

That is definitely the one Dave!

They were also going spare about the Rocky statue in that documentary if my memory serves me right.

Rowley wrote:Is very difficult to say to be honest because not a one of us can really say in the heightened civil rights era of the late sixties/early seventies what having the tag uncle tom actually meant to a black person but we can and probably all have read enough to imagine it is about as bad an insult as possible and one that should not have been thrown around lightly.

As Chris has said Frazier was pretty much the polar opposite of what the term meant and should really have been the poster boy for the struggles black folk endured, pulling himself up from abject poverty to success and riches literally through the sweat on his brow, as indeed had Patterson, the previous victim of Ali’s loose tongue.

As I have said countless times the ongoing airbrushing and deification of Ali is a process that makes me want to puke. He could be downright cruel, frequently to folk who had done nothing to deserve it and in the case of Frazier to someone who had done acts of kindness to him in the past and Ali gets far too much of a pass for his conduct in these areas.

However nearly 40 years is a long time to be angry and bitter with someone and if you want to argue Joe could have moved on or been a little more forgiving later in life I would not argue too greatly but for me he had every right to be offended and particularly as his conduct previously had been sufficient for Joe to consider Ali if not a friend then at least someone who would have respected him.

Other fighters accused of the Uncle Tom tag by Ali let it go.......I think maybe the Uncle Tom stuff was a smokescreen.......Maybe joe was bitter he didn't feel he got his due respect like Larry.........

Ali was deified but how much of the abuse was gaining an edge or trying to and playing the game....Ali made a lot of people a lot of money...

Frazier never complained about the money.

I think dave got it pretty much spot on

TRUSSMAN66 wrote:

Rowley wrote:Is very difficult to say to be honest because not a one of us can really say in the heightened civil rights era of the late sixties/early seventies what having the tag uncle tom actually meant to a black person but we can and probably all have read enough to imagine it is about as bad an insult as possible and one that should not have been thrown around lightly.

As Chris has said Frazier was pretty much the polar opposite of what the term meant and should really have been the poster boy for the struggles black folk endured, pulling himself up from abject poverty to success and riches literally through the sweat on his brow, as indeed had Patterson, the previous victim of Ali’s loose tongue.

As I have said countless times the ongoing airbrushing and deification of Ali is a process that makes me want to puke. He could be downright cruel, frequently to folk who had done nothing to deserve it and in the case of Frazier to someone who had done acts of kindness to him in the past and Ali gets far too much of a pass for his conduct in these areas.

However nearly 40 years is a long time to be angry and bitter with someone and if you want to argue Joe could have moved on or been a little more forgiving later in life I would not argue too greatly but for me he had every right to be offended and particularly as his conduct previously had been sufficient for Joe to consider Ali if not a friend then at least someone who would have respected him.

Other fighters accused of the Uncle Tom tag by Ali let it go.......I think maybe the Uncle Tom stuff was a smokescreen.......Maybe joe was bitter he didn't feel he got his due respect like Larry.........

Ali was deified but how much of the abuse was gaining an edge or trying to and playing the game....Ali made a lot of people a lot of money...

Frazier never complained about the money.

I'm not sure that Ali's Uncle Tom stuff was a smokescreen. Given his association with the Nation of Islam and his opposition to Vietnam, it's not unrealistic to assume he really did think that anyone who wasn't actively and vocally involved in the civil rights movement was providing their tacit consent to the status quo.

As for Frazier's bitterness, some people just find things hard to let go. Look at Joe Kinnear's persecution complex for a current example. In both cases, you have to suspect that they would have been far better off if they had been able to let the past be.

Maybe it wasn't but I think only the extremists were behind Ali...........A minority believed Uncle Tom was a rightful label for Joe........

Everybody else held him in awe...

jbeadlesrighthand is a helluva name........where did you dig that up ??

Who knows if other fighters who were called Uncle Tom by Ali were able to let it go? Bruno was called Uncle Tom by Lennox Lewis and it still bothered him years later.

In Joe's case I think an Uncle Tom comment thrown at him once or twice may not have bothered him but it's the amount of times he had to hear it and the comments about him looking like a gorilla and to make it worse the fact that people would stand there and laugh at Ali ridiculing him. That's got to leave a mental mark.

It's easy for people who weren't at the end of Ali's verbal tongue lashing to say Joe should have just gotten over it. They're not the ones who were being laughed at.

Bruno is hardly a good example Atila.........Guy had a breakdown..........No time for him anyway....

Saw a KO article where he told Honeyghan to basically be a good boy..say the right things and you'll make more money...

So not a great example

TRUSSMAN66 wrote:Maybe it wasn't but I think only the extremists were behind Ali...........A minority believed Uncle Tom was a rightful label for Joe........

Everybody else held him in awe...

jbeadlesrighthand is a helluva name........where did you dig that up ??

My first post was on the boxing forum. I always thought it would be funny to listen to commentary of Jeremy Beadle in a fight. I know it's wrong to make fun of someone's disability, but I have a juvenile sense of humour. Would have worked better without the character limit on names of course.

I don't really know enough about Ali to have an opinion on whether he was manipulated by those around him. He strikes me as a man of enough intelligence to be able to form his opinions. That said, given that he seems to regret his actions, perhaps that's down to the fact that he moved away from the NoI.

Jeremy Beadle....

TRUSSMAN66 wrote:Jeremy Beadle....

Lenny

Lon chaney was Lenny..

do the knowledge Lenny, u ugly and stupid it seems

Can you contribute or go away please..........You're boring me..

This is a valid thread that has been debated in an adult fashion. Lets keep it that way.

Rowley I have a question for you...on your pm..cheers.

Sorry Lenny, I realise that three quarters of your life is dedicated to these boards so I apologise for the lack of entertainment provided by myself.

In terms of the actual topic, imagine being a black man at the height of civil unrest and you are being called an Uncle Tom by the poster boy of the Nation of Islam. The actual implication of being an uncle tom in the black community especially at that time would pretty much put you on the opposing side of racial debate therefore I don't think Joe Fraizer was being too sensitive when being told that he doesn't stand with his own people. Ali effectively tried to ostracize Joe Fraizer and being that Smokin' Joe grew up ostracized(being black in America) it is unfair in our day and age to read a book, look back and say, oh he was being sensitive.

Apologies admin

Can we watch the abuse please.........He's getting boring...and can we check his IP address......Someone with 40 posts don't buy it..

lol hurting your feelings now am I?

check the I.P I'm original as they come!

I'm actually talking about the topic in my latest comment and have made quite a valid point...just because your life is 606v2 doesn't mean you can police these boards

Enough..Like I said you bore me..

Anybody remember sweetdeano he used to say to me.. LRR..Windy and Azumah you're all saddos who's life is 606!!

Sweetdeano.......Made fightnews look like Ali..

Bit late to the party but I would agree near enough word for word with Chris. It's one thing in boxing that I've always been interested in and I've always come down firmly in Smokin' Joe's corner.
Was Joe jealous of Ali? Yes
Dud Joe want the acclaim Ali had? Yes
Did Joe know he wouldn't be seen as the real champ until he beat Ali? Yes

Joe was a man full of pride and probably not the sharpest tool in the shed and I do think he should have let it go after all the years but to me it shows the strength of feeling of what Ali put him and his family through.

I think the whole situation escalated due to Ali's initial insults and Joe didn't have the composure to not show his true feelings. Ali could be exceptionally cruel, even to friends, to many and Joe wasn't the type to let an Insult go by unchallenged.

The just of the unfairness and bitterness was the nature of the insults but a major factor in just how they were received in America was Ali and Frazier's public profile. Basically, Ali had cult status. When he shouted people listened. No matter how stupid what he said was it had a massive impact and influence on a helluva lot of people. Joe may have retorted with the cold bare facts to refute some claims but they just wouldn't have reached the same audience and by a form of accumulation Ali's claims became truths in a lot of eye's and the prideful Frazier became more frustrated and bitter.

Apologies if that rambles I'm posting from my phone.

And from a very pro-Frazier stance.

Interesting post Bossy..........and thanks for raising the level of the debate..........

you take the chris point of view.............However I believe frazier had much to thank Ali for and tended to dwell on the negative.........

However your view seems to be more the consensus than mine..

I'm not looking to police these boards.........Just seems to me you are trying too hard..

Frazier certainly had a huge amount of game and money generated by his rivalry with Ali. However, was it worth the abuse and ostracism that he had to endure? Some would say yes. Others would say no.
Just to play Devil's advocate il sensationalise my viewpoint a touch.
I try to put myself in Frazier's shoes and having experienced the worst side of Ali 1st hand the deification would be hard to swallow for me.

Imagine you'd known someone as a friend and one day they just turned and were an absolute £&@@ to you and your family. That person then went on to drag your name through the mud on an international scale, causing problems for you and your family nationwide and even on your doorstep. You know the sins he's committed ( and I do believe Ali sank very low indeed) and then you have to watch as he becomes the most famous sportsman of all time and us portrayed as a modern day Saint. While in your hometown you don't get the respect you feel you deserve.
How would you take it?

Now as I said that's a myopic view of it but its not a million miles away.

Do you not think the huge monetary compensation and the fact that only extremists shared ali's view is enough compensation........

I'm sure many blacks who were working long hours for diddly would think so..

Is all relative Truss. Joe had an inferiority complex. Joe seen Ali as having even more money than him and not receiving the abuse. If you get what I mean?

You have a point...the thing in life is perspectives change.........

If you're poor..you want to eat.....When you can eat..you want to eat as much as you want.....When you can eat as much as you want...you want to be rich......when you're rich you want respect and a good reputation....

Frazier perhaps glossed over the negative aspects of his life too much..Instead of realising how far he had come..

TRUSSMAN66 wrote:Interesting post Bossy..........and thanks for raising the level of the debate..........

you take the chris point of view.............However I believe frazier had much to thank Ali for and tended to dwell on the negative.........

However your view seems to be more the consensus than mine..

I'm not looking to police these boards.........Just seems to me you are trying too hard..

great posts The Boss

I don't know how trying to put my points across in my own way is trying too hard. It makes no sense for you to suddenly get butt-hurt especially as you were the one who started making comments about what I said and how I said it in previous posts and threads. I am new to these boards as someone who contributes but I have been a member of both this forum and the old 606 forum so although I am only 40 posts deep, I know how things work around here and for me to say that you are trying to police the boards would be fairly accurate. Just because you have 15 thousand posts doesn't make you wiser than the next man, it just suggests that you spend a silly amount of time acting like you are

Deep Truss! Very valid point. Both were living in a different world to anything I've grown up with so we can only speculate from the outside looking in.

In the circles they played in and the ideals they craved Frazier couldn't help but feel 2nd class. I suppose there's no real middle ground in this 1. Both men made mistakes it just depends who you think made the worst 1s and just how significant you take the mistakes to be.

I'm a loser....I'm Lenny.......I don't have a life..I like sheep........

Now just leave it...

Maybe i'm being hard on Joe........It's nice to be hard on something these days....

I was kind of thinking what my priorities were back then and how they've changed.....

It was a different age and once you are financially stable you see things differently...

Other things become more important...

Like my father-in-law and how death duties may hurt my inheritence..aren't as important now..

Frazier only had his reputation to worry about once rich in a time when reputation was more important..

Still think he over sold it..though

Well I suppose you were around at the time Truss ya have plenty of years on me and contemporary knowledge

I don't know about it really its a very subjective subject. Maybe I felt like u had to take Joe's side because my mates think the sun shines from Ali's arse. Although with Joe and Marv being my 2 favourite ever fighters I just like the working class, no fuss hero types to the flashiness of their rivals. And so am stuck on Joe's side by default

Frazier didn't listen to enough of Springsteen in his later years mate..that was the prob!!

I'll always be 21 Mate..I'm never growing up..

Very few listen to enough Springsteen mate!

Fair play Truss, I'm 22 and can barely remember the joys of it haha

TRUSSMAN66 wrote:I'm a loser....I'm Lenny.......I don't have a life..I like sheep........

Now just leave it...

i'm not trying to cause trouble but you seemed intent on creating it earler, I have a right to at least fight my corner, this is the boxing forum after all

A decent age to get to on the streets of philadelphia..

thebawwse wrote:

TRUSSMAN66 wrote:I'm a loser....I'm Lenny.......I don't have a life..I like sheep........

Now just leave it...

i'm not trying to cause trouble but you seemed intent on creating it earler, I have a right to at least fight my corner, this is the boxing forum after all

I like a guy who can give it as well as take it......especially at the Oyster......

Just moved to Lincoln for work Truss. Not quite the same ring to it! And was meant to be going to your homeland to play football for the Summer too!

It's soccer..........Are you a forward you strike me as someone who is..born to run!!

Truss you're talking to an Irishman. Football is Gaelic Football to me Ye defenders have to work too hard for my liking!