On June 20, 1967, Ali was convicted of draft evasion, sentenced to five years in prison, fined $10,000 and banned from boxing for three years.
Draft dodger
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he and rocky M are the greatest.
I used to deliver papers in the 1970s highlighting Ali, Sugar Ray, and others and remember so much greatest about him. He was and is an inspiration. My mother loved his boxing.
Long live Ali. What a great boxer and a historic shaper of American culture.
Surely would have liked to see him and Te'ofilio Stevenson enter the ring together. Roughly the same size, foot speed, and hand speed. Te'o had a deadly right. Clay could take a better punch than some thought.
Clay carried and toyed with my favorite, Floyd Patterson, to attempt to do physical damage to him. Called Patterson an "Uncle Tom". Totally dominated in the fight but carried him into 12th.
A draft dodger huh? Well he was in good company with Dick Cheney (5 deferments) who said he had "other priorities", Donald Trump (5 deferments), John Ashcroft (7 deferments), Tom Delay(academic deferment) who said he would of liked to have served in Vietnam, but was"unable to since all the positions were taken by blacks and Hispanics." and last but not least Denny the diddler Hastert (medical deferment for a bad knee) which did not keep him from wrestling for his college team.
At least Ali had the balls to come right out and say he was against the war and that he would accept the consequences of his actions, unlike the aforementioned chicken hawks who weaseled their way out of serving.
BTW, his conviction was overturned in 1971 by the U.S. Supreme Court on a unanimous 8-0 decision, with Thurgood Marshall abstaining.
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Wop....thanks for the list. BUT you left out another prominent draft dodger.....Bill Clinton. Did you know that Howard Dean was another draft dodger?
Yes I knew about Clinton, everybody does. Didn't know about Dean though.
I left out a lot of others because It would take hours to list them all.
He was a conscientious objector and he won is case that went to the Supreme Court that proved his claim was legit, although he still lost a few years boxing because of it.
That's one of the first fights I remember paying attention to. Floyd Patterson was the King of The Ring in our household. My Grandpa hated the soon to be Ali until the day he died for the way he cut-up and pummeled Patterson that night. Ali did the same to George Chuvalo a few years later, but for not as long.
As Ali was a fighter who generally put the opponent away when he'd given the crowd their money's worth, I've wondered over the years if their wasn't some bad blood behind the scenes between the two camps in both fights? Stuff like that didn't get reported on like it does now unless there was a major public blowup.
If you are asking about bad blood between Paterson and Ali, Patterson called him Cassius Clay, not Ali. He also said that he would be a champion for Americans, not just Black Muslim Americans.
I hated Ali. I rooted for every opponent every time he fought, simply because he was obnoxious and arrogant. I was raised to do your job, work hard and don't do the talking, let your actions speak for themselves. Seeing all these video clips over the weekend from the past just reminded me how much I hated the guy. I can't stand to watch people brag. The greatest compliment comes from someone else acknowledging how good you are.
With all that said, I won't disrespect the guy since he recently passed. I'll admit, he was a great boxer.
With all that said, I won't disrespect the guy since he recently passed. I'll admit, he was a great boxer.
I thought all of that stuff was entertaining and funny. It was interesting to see old clips of his fighting and poetic taunts to challengers.
The sad part of all this is, Clay would never have seen any action. He would have fought 2 years of exhibitions and then been honorably discharged. Bad advice.
Smh read much? Since you don't, I'll recap for you. Countryroads said he didn't like all the bragging. I responded by saying that I thought the bragging and the pre-fight poetic taunts to opponents were funny and entertaining. Now you're caught up. I watched as many of his fights as I could and each was different. He beat some guys senseless who had no business being in the ring with him but that happens with all fighters, sometimes you get mismatches. If you're still upset about something that happened in an Ali fight decades ago, don't be mad at me, be upset with the promoters that set up the fight. I don't even recall the fight you're speaking of but I doubt that anyone put a gun to Patterson's head to make him get in the ring with Ali that night. Apparently Patterson thought the paycheck was worth the risk that the fight presented. If Ali was talking smack to Patterson while he was whipping his @ss then perhaps Patterson had made some unfortunate comments to Ali before the fight and it was payback time, who knows...To answer your question, if I did see it I probably thought it was boring as the fight would have been a disappointing mismatch.
Here's one about women although about halfway through it cuts off to a song so no use watching after that, unless you want to listen to the song. It's interesting to see how different things were back then. This was 40 years ago and I assume Ali didn't hold these views, or the ones in that last video I posted, his entire life but anyway it's amazing to see how much things change. He basically speaks of his wife as if she is his property.
Most of the bragging and trash talking was to hype the fights and increase the gate. Ali probably learned that from watching Gorgeous George and some of the other wrestlers of his youth.
Damn Cunty, I finally am in 100% agreement with a post of yours.
I'll be back, gonna go eat some **** to get the bad taste out of my mouth.
I never had a problem with a man bragging if he could back it up. Ali could back it up.
As for howling about draft dodgers, why do you think college enrollments and applications to grad schools went through the roof between 1965 and 1972 as entrance requirements went down? Young men looking for a deferment, hoping like Hell the war was over when it ran out, and sympathetic college administrators giving them a hand.
I knew a guy who shot his off his little toe and part of the next one when he got a high draft lottery number. His friends still call him "Limpin' Larry". Guys would try to give themselves hernias and all sorts of other injuries to avoid the draft, their ingenuity was comical.
A good number of them are the same guys who were hollering for war in Iraq in '03 when they were too old to go and there was no draft to get their little princes.
As for howling about draft dodgers, why do you think college enrollments and applications to grad schools went through the roof between 1965 and 1972 as entrance requirements went down? Young men looking for a deferment, hoping like Hell the war was over when it ran out, and sympathetic college administrators giving them a hand.
I knew a guy who shot his off his little toe and part of the next one when he got a high draft lottery number. His friends still call him "Limpin' Larry". Guys would try to give themselves hernias and all sorts of other injuries to avoid the draft, their ingenuity was comical.
A good number of them are the same guys who were hollering for war in Iraq in '03 when they were too old to go and there was no draft to get their little princes.