1 hr. ago
A while back I wrote a story on the ferocious and nearly fatal rivalry between Muhammad Ali and Joe Frazier. One of the highlights was getting to interview legendary sportswriter Jerry Izenberg, who covered both men and got to know them well over the years.
At some point well after both fighters had retired, Izenberg was working on a retrospective about their trilogy and so he reached out to Ali for an interview. They talked for a while, Izenberg told me, and then Ali asked if he was going to talk to Frazier next.
"I told him, 'Yeah, I'm going to call him as soon as I hang up with you,'" Izenberg said. "So Ali told me, 'Listen, when you talk to Joe, tell him I didn't mean any of that stuff back then. Tell him it was all just to sell tickets.'"
By "that stuff," of course, Ali meant years worth of relentless verbal abuse. It was way beyond the typical pro fighter trash talk. Ali had portrayed Frazier as an ignorant mule. He'd called him an "Uncle Tom." Frazier's kids got in fights at school because they heard classmates repeating things they'd heard Ali say about their father.
Ali's taunts reshaped public perception about Frazier in ways that hounded him for the rest of his life. The semi-fictionalized version of Frazier that Ali had aggressively marketed to the public and the press supplanted the real Frazier in many people's minds — and for a long, long time. Now here he was, years later, asking Izenberg to apologize on his behalf and let Frazier know it was all just business.
#frazier #izenberg #talk #tell
At some point well after both fighters had retired, Izenberg was working on a retrospective about their trilogy and so he reached out to Ali for an interview. They talked for a while, Izenberg told me, and then Ali asked if he was going to talk to Frazier next.
"I told him, 'Yeah, I'm going to call him as soon as I hang up with you,'" Izenberg said. "So Ali told me, 'Listen, when you talk to Joe, tell him I didn't mean any of that stuff back then. Tell him it was all just to sell tickets.'"
By "that stuff," of course, Ali meant years worth of relentless verbal abuse. It was way beyond the typical pro fighter trash talk. Ali had portrayed Frazier as an ignorant mule. He'd called him an "Uncle Tom." Frazier's kids got in fights at school because they heard classmates repeating things they'd heard Ali say about their father.
Ali's taunts reshaped public perception about Frazier in ways that hounded him for the rest of his life. The semi-fictionalized version of Frazier that Ali had aggressively marketed to the public and the press supplanted the real Frazier in many people's minds — and for a long, long time. Now here he was, years later, asking Izenberg to apologize on his behalf and let Frazier know it was all just business.
#frazier #izenberg #talk #tell
