Muhammad Ali and Language

Muhammad Ali, who passed away last Friday, was exactly the kind of athlete I dislike. Loud, brash, trash talking, arrogant, egotistical. Norman Mailer wrote a book about Ali’s fight with George Foreman and through the text Mailer seemed downright humble, even while writing about himself in the third person.

I ought to hate Ali (sports hate). I wrote an essay about how much I admire Roy Halladay’s business-like approach to the mound, and Roy still encapsulates the athlete I most love to watch.

But in fact Ali is one of my favorite athletes of all time, not to mention one of my favorite people.

When I was a kid I had two books on athletes that I read over and over, one on Roberto Clemente and one on Ali. The third athlete I obsessed over was Mike Schmidt, but I actually got to see him play. Clemente had already passed away and Ali was retired, both were legends.

But with no disrespect to the excellent Clemente, it was Ali that always excited my imagination.

Ali was the champion no one thought could be the champion. Twice, against Sonny Liston and Foreman, people legitimately thought there was a chance Ali’s opponent might kill him in the ring. Twice he knocked out that opponent.

But if we’re being honest, Ali wouldn’t have been the greatest without his mouth. I’m not adding anything here when I say that it wasn’t what Ali said, but the way he backed it up.

For me, though, what’s enduring is his creativity with words. He didn’t just trash talk, he had a rhythm to his talk, a poetry. We remember what he said because more than being arrogant, he was clever.

No one has done this since. Not even close.

Here’s what Ali said before fighting Joe Frazier for the third time:

It will be a killa and a thrilla and a chilla when I get the Gorilla in Manila.

Everyone remembers those lines, the nickname — full of racial tension — Ali had given to Frazier. That quote became the title for the fight, the “Thrilla in Manilla,” which was one of the greatest sporting events of all time, and which Ali won.

The talk was trash, yes, but it was smart trash, and the fight backed it up.

Contrast that with Lebron James and “The Decision.” All James said was that he was “taking his talents to South Beach,” which is not only boring, but incorrect since the Heat’s arena isn’t on South Beach at all. If you’re going to have a TV special to announce your free-agent decision, you’d better be entertaining, and correct. James wasn’t either.

Another immensely talented athlete who’s arrogant without any of the charm is Bryce Harper. Upon the National signing Max Scherzer, Harper infamously quipped, “Where’s my ring?” There’s a presumptuousness to what Harper said, not to mention a lack of any kind of wit, which you never see in Ali. The Greatest made predictions, sure, but never presumptions. Also, Ali won. Harper’s ring count as of right now: zero.

The list goes on and on.

Point is, Ali had a way with language that no other athlete has since him. Ali wrote poetry. Ali cared about words, recognized their power. He didn’t write all his famous lines (“Float Like A Butterfly Sting Like A Bee” was actually written by Drew Bundini, for example), but he knew their importance and used them to perfection. Of course there are other egos the size of Ali’s — it’s tough to get to the pinnacle without having at least some ego — but none of the linguistic showmanship. And, certainly no results quite as great as Ali’s.

I don’t want to imply that reading about Ali and his word slinging as a kid made me a writer. That’s not it. But the fact that I became a writer, one obsessed with the right words in the right places, might explain why I never lost that infatuation with Muhammad Ali when by all other metrics I should have.

To close, here’s maybe the best trash talk ever. We’ll miss you, Champ.

I done wrestled with an alligator, I done tussled with a whale; handcuffed lightning, thrown thunder in jail; only last week, I murdered a rock, injured a stone, hospitalised a brick; I’m so mean I make medicine sick.