Smokin' Joe.......

[Joe]

I saw some interviews with his son and him where his son and his family were after him to "let it go" with the Ali grudge.
But....that was also about the time the Ali movie and the When We Were Kings documentary came out - so it all could have been orchestrated. But Joe either got screwed out of money or mishandled it.
At any rate, he was representative of the hard-hat guys and Ali was representative of the peace movement and the liberals. When was the last time two fighters were representative of anything other than themselves? They didn't bite anyone's ear off back then - they fought.

[Mike P]

Ali won most of his fights before they even started, by getting into his opponent's head. He had Sonny Liston beat in their first fight before it started. Sonny was a classic bully, but there were two things that Liston was deathly afraid of---needles, and crazy people. Ali played the crazy role to the hilt. Liston was so reluctant to mix it up with Ali, and so frustrated by not being able to land a big punch, that his corner put liniment on his gloves, hoping that it would get into Ali's eyes, and Liston could blindside him. It almost worked---Ali managed to dance around blinded, and almost quit on his stool between rounds. Angelo Dundee rinsed his eyes and shoved him back out, and in another 15 seconds or so, his vision cleared. By the time of the rematch, Liston knew there was no way he could beat Ali, so he took a dive. Liston's fear of needles was legendary, so when they reported his death as a heroin overdose, many were suspicious.

The head games didn't work with Frazier. But that didn't stop Ali from trying.