Boxing Memo to Fight Fans: Get Over Yourself – Muhammad Ali was NOT “The Greatest” & NEITHER was Sugar Ray Robinson the “Greatest of All Time”!

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By Andrew “Drew The Picture” Hames

Under normal circumstances, I probably wouldn’t look to make a public spectacle out of a discussion I had with an individual fight fan, but given the timing of this particular discussion being recent to my RSR debut article on the “GOAT” concept, and how descriptive I believed my response to have been in explaining my position on the issue, I felt it was appropriate here. And to the fellow fight fan Chino Moreno I had this discussion with, the fight game needs more realists like you, that could acknowledge the merit in an argument they initially looked to oppose. That’s not an easy trait with the machismo attached to today’s fight fan. My hat is off to you sir, and going on to even “like” the comment thereafter says a lot about your character.

Someone had posted a topic asking whether or not the great Muhammad Ali was the true “TBE”, an argument that soon spun in reference to recently retired, unbeaten champion Floyd Mayweather, JR.’s credentials for the “GOAT” or “TBE” discussion in comparison with historical greats usually associated with such praise, citing that Floyd had never even won the coveted Fighter Of The

Decade Award as a sense of laughable dismissal. I responded simply by saying “Funny, none of the recent FOTD winners are even in the “TBE” discussion”. Keep in mind while reading this that I
began my public appeal here proclaiming my disbelief in any fighter realistically laying claim to the “GOAT” distinction to begin with before misinterpreting my response. So often, my strong bias against media distortion is misconstrued as a personal bias for Floyd…

Fellow fight fan Chino Moreno initially took exception, responding with “It is a self-proclaimed term “TBE” that Floyd just made up for himself and G.O.A.T. or A.T.G, are terms that we used to describe those great fighters like Ali”. Anyone who holds any great fighter dearly enough to take offense to brutal honesty just may want to click out of this article right now…. Below will be a likely controversial response…

“And just the same, when Ali decided to call himself “The Greatest”, it was just as much of a “self-proclaimed term that he just made up for himself”, even admitting that he himself believed Ray Robinson to be the true “Greatest” the entire time he donned the nickname, no different from Mike Tyson saying he was the “Baddest Man on the Planet”, or John L. Sullivan saying “I’ll lick any son-of-a-bitch alive”. The point is that fighters have always created monikers to etch their names in infamy, and this is a commonplace thing in the sport. We probably wouldn’t be so anxious to give Ray Robinson that “GOAT” title if he’d been a rich, arrogant asshole calling himself “TBE” the entire time, especially while he was predominantly beating up a bunch of white fighters during a highly prejudiced era of the sport. It changes the entire image of a fighter and how his words, actions and even accomplishments will be perceived. You’ll always find the negative in someone you’re already predisposed to disliking in the first place, so if Robinson were the same flamboyant, outspoken, braggart prick Floyd is seen to be, chances are you probably wouldn’t be so quick to forgive his shortcomings. Your perception of him would likely remain regardless of what he did or didn’t accomplish .It’s all sentiment over substance my friend. In other words, smoke and mirrors”‘…

I hope to illustrate how just as we are all flawed by human nature, so too are we as fans of a sport that glorifies human beings to begin with. Every fight fan has his own hypocrisies, and would quickly protest till the end of time if his idol was robbed in a fight they placed a hefty wager on, but wouldn’t complain nearly as loudly or demand the money be taken back if they or their idol were the beneficiary of a robbery suffered by another opponent. That’s what makes these discussions subjective to begin with. Obviously, no one is obligated to agree, but we should understand the nature of what can and cannot be introduced into a debate as fact or truth. It may even come as a shock to many to learn the striking amount of similarities between “Money May” and the “Sugar Man” for instance, which we’ll discuss another time. In short, a boxing discussion is nothing more than what you think and what I think, but neither of us should think that what we think is more worth thinking, just because more people think it. Makes sense, you think?

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