![]() ![]() He was, as Randy Roberts wrote in "Papa Jack," "physically and verbally destroying the white man's myth" of superiority. Johnson was, of course, doing more than winning the heavyweight championship. Who taught you to hit? Your mother?" Although most of what he said was relatively banal, it was always accompanied by a sardonic smile. Johnson's specialty was taunting his opponents during the fight, a trait that would eventually became a prominent part of Ali's repertoire.ĭuring his December 1908 title-winning bout with Tommy Burns, Johnson mocked Burns from the onset: "Poor little Tommy, who told you you were a fighter?" And on the rare occasion when Burns managed to land a punch, Johnson laughed and said, "Poor, poor, Tommy. As the first black heavyweight champion, Johnson was already in a dicey position, but that didn't deter him one iota from spouting off whenever he felt like it. Until the arrival of Ali, the king of trash-talkers was arguably Jack Johnson. Gorn's book "The Manly Art": "Journalists marveled at creative swearing, his clever epithets for opponents and prodigious boasts about himself." It was trash talk before the term was coined and became his personal catchphrase. Sullivan and I can lick any son-of-a-bitch alive." ![]() During his countless stage appearances, this Boston Irishman of working-class stock would introduce himself by bellowing, "My name's John L. It's impossible to know which boxer hurled the first insult, but it was undoubtedly during the early days of bare-knuckle prizefighting.įittingly, it was a fighter who spanned the bare-knuckle and gloved eras that became America's first superstar, and trash talk played no small role in his rise. ![]() Following a series of inflammatory tweets aimed at heavyweight contender David Price earlier this year, the British Boxing Board of Control told Fury to tone down his rhetoric.Īlthough there is an epidemic of trash talk throughout the modern sports world, boxing had a leg up due to its longevity and confrontational nature. The undefeated British heavyweight, who fights Steve Cunningham on Saturday in New York City, is notorious for his outrageously raw comments. are generally regarded as boxing's best trash-talkers, but for the first time in years they have a serious contender in newcomer Tyson Fury. When it comes to trash talk, boxing is a natural.Ĭurrently, Bernard Hopkins and Floyd Mayweather Jr. But Ali was far from the first or the last. He would eventually be acknowledged as the finest proponent of the verbal affront to ever duck between the ropes, the one who turned it into an art form. The man who would soon become Muhammad Ali was already a prolific trash-talker by the time I first saw him in the flesh. I'm not sure if anybody took the bait that night, but two months later, in the same building, Clay stopped the supposedly unbeatable Liston and won the heavyweight championship. I soon realized that the Louisville Lip was bad-mouthing Sonny Liston, insisting he would "whup the Big Ugly Bear" and offering to back up his words with cash if anyone cared to bet against him. At first it was difficult to understand what he was saying above the hubbub, but even at a distance, it was easy to recognize Cassius Clay. A noisy group of people was gathered around a handsome young man who was shouting and waving a fistful of money. My front-row balcony seat at the Miami Beach Auditorium gave me a good view of the ring, but when I heard a commotion coming from just inside the entrance to the ground floor, I had to lean over the railing and crane my neck to see what was going on. ![]()
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