DING!

 

I think the world is only still here because these two guys did not have a grudge against each other.

Someone should probably make a really bad movie about it like they did with “Birth of the Dragon” so no one would see the Quentin Tarantino version, which has probably already been scripted and visualized.

I will ask one question of Jonathan Eig. Did Ali ever throw a serious punch in his life at anyone without a glove on?

I don’t think that there is any question that both men would be willing to die before accepting defeat on pride alone.

I think some parameters have to be set. I don’t think that we can talk prime vs. prime, because potentially neither had one.

Since Ali was talking at colleges and performing in shows during his exile. I think that physically as a force of nature, he was in his prime the night of the Cleveland Williams fight, but would you pick Ali that night over Ali the night he was as angry as he was at Ernie Terrell?

On both of those nights, I think that you have to take into account that Ali does not realize that he can take punishment yet, because he never had to then.

If you pick a specific date say the Williams fight then Ali declines every day post Williams, while Lee is improving other than Ali’s gained knowledge that he can take punishment.

The only flaw I see in talking about Lee vs. Kareem is that the only reason Lee had to engage was that he was being forced to the top of that tower.

The first thing you sort of want to do is say no weapons, but Bruce used weapons. Mike does say in the “Better Call Saul” episode “Does Lee have a gun?”

You want to put them in a ring, or a house or something. I suppose that there were some sort of rules the day of the Lee/Wong Jack Man “fight,” but Lee wasn’t in the mood to kill that day and his opponent was not willing to die.

If this were a movie then they would put loved ones at risk to make them engage, but let’s make it pure and just say that it is a matter of pride. That alone is still enough for either to be willing to die.

I have no idea if Lee thought there was some code scenario. where two men could fight weaponless with no rules to the death and actually have to engage, maybe Matthew Polley would know.

Ali did take punishment from Antonio Inoki , but likely only because he was constrained by rules and if Lee has no rules then neither does Ali.

So I really think that you have to say that on some day in time that there was a perceived slight between the two, where both would want the other one dead.

I can’t see this leading to a conventional fight. If both want the other dead to preserve their name then there can be no negotiations.

People will try to argue that Ali would do this as a stunt that he can promote for a year, but I don’t think so because he could have done that with Wilt Chamberlain and chose not to do so.

I don’t think a slight would happen in person, but it could happen from states away or even continents away.

That really makes things ugly.

Lee liked to run in gangs and dealt with a lot of secret societies.

Ali was actually in a very dangerous secret society, one that did have a lot of guns, and one that had already shown that they were willing to use them. Of course Elijah Muhammad would not want this to go down in any way, the only time he ever really acted on this scale was against Malcolm, and that was clearly not a fair fight, but it was one that Elijah could afford to battle because Malcolm was stranded and the FBI was happy about that.

The only fortunate thing about Lee’s premature death is that if he had received global renown after the release of “Enter the Dragon,” then the stakes for the world are even higher.

Still in their lifetimes basically Ali had all of Africa at his disposal, and Lee probably had all of Asia.

At all times when this slight could have happened, Richard Nixon was in full power and had it backed up by the U.S Military. Nixon already had proven that he was willing to cause untold deaths in Asia or anywhere just to be president. Sadly the answer to this question is Nixon, who would be already looking for something to exploit to get the taint of Viet Nam and its repercussions off of his legacy.

Ali and Lee, whether either would believe in rules, both had social consciences. Nixon did not in any way at all. Nixon would be willing to fight until no one was left alive but Nixon and people to fawn over him.

The global implications of any slight between the two are endless and all bad.

Even talk of this on any level more serious than a bookstore debate or a computer simulation today are dangerous, because of the world wide legacies of both men.

Fortunately, both men are mostly beloved by the same people at this point.

But the moral equivalent of Richard Nixon is currently in power so care needs to be taken with this debate.

Mostly, we need to be happy that neither of these icons had anything but mutual love for each other and a mutual hope for society, if that were not the case the world could potentially be in much worse shape than it is now.

What might have happened in real life had Lee lived is that some sort of fight would have been set that would have been promoted and hyped around the world in enormous fashion just from the Ali side.

Howard Cosell would definitely have done some very inflammatory pre-fight interviews and done the play by play. It would have been broadcast to and watched by the whole world.

Elvis Presley, Bob Marley, and Pele would have been at that fight in person.

Had this happened the two would have likely come out of their corners with their eyes glaring pure hate and once some sort of bell were rung they would have embraced, which could have led to world peace. That could potentially have happened.