The documentary What’s My Name is the latest about the Greatest, and one of the best
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Documentaries about Muhammad Ali aren’t exactly in short supply. The boxer’s life and career have been examined from dozen of angles since his rise to fame: A.K.A. Muhammad Ali came out way back in 1970, when he was still in the thick of it. Facing Ali, from 2009, tells Ali’s story from the perspective of the fighters who faced him. Best Documentary Oscar winner When We Were Kings zooms in on one specific fight and the politics surrounding it, 1974’s “Rumble In The Jungle” pitting Ali against George Foreman. I Am Ali, from 2014, uses audio recordings Ali made of himself as its hook. His story has been told and re-told.
And yet, unsurprisingly, there’s still plenty more to say. Ali’s life was so outsized and incredible that every new angle from which it’s dissected yields something new. In What’s My Name: Muhammad Ali, director Antoine Fuqua (Training Day) chooses to let Ali tell his own story through interviews, fight footage, and home movies from throughout the champ’s life. There’s no voice-over, no talking heads, and no new interview footage whatsoever, which frees this 165-minute film—delivered by HBO, for no clear reason, in two parts that will air back to back—to let Ali and his history speak for themselves.
Watching Muhammad Ali talk could be just as fun and engrossing as watching him fight, and often more so—each contributed equally to his celebrity. What’s My Name shows Ali grow from a shy Olympic medalist to a trash talker par excellence in no time—inspired, as Ali tells it, by the wrestler Gorgeous George. Ali knew early on that he could box, and he knew almost as quickly that if he made his bouts seem personal by insulting his opponents, people would be all the more excited to see him. At first, he was hated for his arrogance and his poetry, but as he says in an interview here, “Boo, scream, yell, throw peanuts—do whatever you do. But pay to get in.”
But if he had only been an overly confident loudmouth, his legend wouldn’t have grown as it did: It wasn’t long into his career that Ali took a turn toward activism, befriending Malcolm X and joining the Nation of Islam. Ali’s refusal to be drafted into Vietnam isn’t given tons of screentime here, but Fuqua did dig up some amazing footage of other black athletes—including Jackie Robinson—criticizing Ali for his political stances. But Ali was a man of integrity and assuredness, and he could articulate his points of view with such wit and brevity that it was impossible to argue with him. And few people wanted to, because not only was he incredibly charming, he was also, for a time, the greatest boxer in the world.
And that’s really where What’s My Name spends most of its time—in the ring. There’s little to nothing about Ali’s complicated family life or his consistent difficulties with money. (For a bruisingly complete picture, check out Jonathan Eig’s recent biography.) But his fights are covered spectacularly: Fuqua uses new music to provide tension, and he strategically mixes old footage—often grainy—with still photos, sharp and gorgeous. Practically the only new onscreen graphic in What’s My Name is a running tally of Ali’s wins and losses. (Spoiler: He lost some fights, especially toward the end.)
Along with the bouts themselves, interviews abound, from Dick Cavett to smaller shows to those incredible press conferences in which Ali rarely failed to jump from his chair and smack-talk his opponent. You could argue that many of those were done for show—and to goose ticket sales—but the footage of Ali with Ernie Terrell offers a tense snapshot of the time. When Terrell tauntingly refers to Ali as Cassius Clay—his birth name, which he changed after converting to Islam—Ali calls him an Uncle Tom, and tells the cameras that he’s going to “whip him until he says Muhammad Ali.” It’s from their fight that What’s My Name takes its name. You can see and even occasionally hear Ali yelling at Terrell as he delivers a savage beating, “What’s my name?”
With Ali’s later ascension to hero status, it’s easy to forget what a difficult path he had to forge, and what resistance his fights for equality were met with. By stripping most of the standard documentary crutches from his version of the story, Fuqua lays it all bare, and the resulting portrait is vividly detailed even as it’s understandably incomplete. But that’s a small problem considering that covering Ali from every angle would require many more hours than the three-ish that Fuqua had here—and considering there are so many other docs out there to fill in the gaps.
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I’m really looking forward to this, and… I have HBO lately. Or. You know, someone does.
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1330059/This is the best documentary about Ali because it showed what an asshole he was.Mohammad Ali was basically just Connor McGregor. The only difference is that he had some legitimate social causes to hitch his horse to.
Naaaaaaaaah
Now that’s how you do a hot take.
I mean, watch the documentary and hear it from Frazier’s own words, as well as those of Ali’s doctor and cornermen. But yeah, hot take if you’re ignorant.
Oh I’m not saying Ali wasn’t a jerk, but the line “Mohammed Ali is basically just Connor McGregor” is an all-time hot take. “Hot” doesn’t mean “wrong” by the way, just controversial. Although in this case it’s also wrong.
The major qualifier I used is that Ali had tumultuous times to cement himself as something more than just an asshole. If McGreggor was famous during the Troubles, I think he would probably have been outspoken as well and had a reputation similar to Ali. He did a lot to shed light on the struggles black americans were having, but at the same time, insulted and degraded a fellow black man who was infinitely more in tuned with being black in america. There’s a lot of outspoken assholes who get the benefit of the doubt because they did something good. Ali, in my opinion, is one of them. McGregor, in my opinion, is simply too stupid or just doesn’t have a social cause to be a part of, so his negative attributes are never hedged or softened by positive ones.
If McGreggor was famous during the Troubles, I think he would probably have been outspoken as well and had a reputation similar to Ali. That’s a really interesting thought. Totally agree.There’s a lot of outspoken assholes who get the benefit of the doubt because they did something good. Ali, in my opinion, is one of them.Totally. Most of his bad behaviour really isn’t that bad to me, but reading about how Frazier took it, and never let go it it, is admittedly really fucking sad.
I don’t disagree about him being an asshole (because he certainly could be one), but there’s a huuuge (note those extra u’s!) difference between being outspoken about an issue, and risking jail-time and the best years of your athletic career by refusing to serve the war machine in any capacity.Also, Ali lived a long life, and I don’t think we should be defined by one or even a few periods of that life, but rather the impact we had on people to the end of our lives. Ali had very positive impacts on many lives.
https://thestacks.deadspin.com/my-dinner-with-ali-511528500
http://www.espn.com/blog/new-york/boxing/post/_/id/391/joe-frazier-often-had-a-new-york-state-of-mindI don’t at all think he was an asshole for being outspoken about black people’s lives in America, nor for not fighting in the Vietnam war. It was specifically the fact that he made an actual working class hero (Frazier) into the villain in the eyes of his fellow black men and women. That’s fucked up.
That is fucked up, I agree. My point is that “Ali was an asshole,” is not nearly as true as “Ali could be an asshole.” When there are 5 positive stories for every negative one, “he was an asshole,” doesn’t really do a person justice.
“Joe Frazier’s a nice fella, he’s just doing a job. The bad talk wasn’t serious, just part of the buildup to the fight. The fight was serious, though. Joe spoke to me once or twice in the middle, told me I was burned out, that I’d have to quit dancing now. I told him I was gonna dance all night.”“I’m sorry Joe Frazier is mad at me. I’m sorry I hurt him. Joe Frazier is a good man, and I couldn’t have done what I did without him, and he couldn’t have done what he did without me. And if God ever calls me to a holy war, I want Joe Frazier fighting beside me.”“I said a lot of things in the heat of the moment that I shouldn’t have said. Called him names I shouldn’t have called him. I apologize for that. I’m sorry.”“The world has lost a great champion. I will always remember Joe with respect and admiration. My sympathy goes out to his family and loved ones.”
“In the lead-up to the Manila fight as well as each of their other two encounters, Ali verbally abused Frazier. Ali nicknamed Frazier “The Gorilla”, and used this as the basis for the rhyme, “It will be a killa and a thrilla and a chilla when I get the Gorilla in Manila,” which he chanted while punching an action-figure-sized gorilla doll.”
“Ali’s preparations were upset before the fight when he introduced his mistress, Veronica Porché, as his wife to Ferdinand and Imelda Marcos. This angered his wife, Khalilah Ali, who saw the introduction on television back in the States, and subsequently flew to Manila, where she engaged her husband in a prolonged shouting match in his hotel suite.[13][14]”
So it’s fair to conclude you weren’t around at the time, cause if you were you would know that the relationship Joe & Muhammed had in front of the cameras was very different to their friendship when no one was watching. Joe Frazier was appalled at the treatment Amerika had meted out to Ali and he went out of his way to make sure the fight happened. Both agreed that the way that the rednecks were carrying on could mean that at least one maybe both of ‘em would be barred from fighting again. They went offshore to be certain the fight would happen and they agreed that the best way to capture ignorant but paying eyeballs was for Frazier to play the downtrodden loyal vet and Ali to be the take no prisoners angry african american. There was nothing personal in any of it, it was just bizness.
I mean, Joe Frazier had a voicemail greeting where he sung a song taking credit for Ali’s Parkinson’s disease, held a grudge against Ali the rest of his life, and died pretty much penniless while Ali didn’t. But yeah, it was all business, one that Ali got literally all the benefits of.
http://www.espn.com/blog/new-york/boxing/post/_/id/391/joe-frazier-often-had-a-new-york-state-of-mindI’m guessing that’s all business too? Holding a grudge to your dying day?
He came off as a bit of a prick in When We Were Kings also IRC.
He forfeited his very lucrative career, and more, by refusing to be an african-american recruitment tool for the US Army, in a country that continued to be pretty unfair to african-americans.I’d call that a pretty hefty horse at the very least.
Like a lot of people he wasn’t any one thing. He was a wildly entertaining and legitimately historically important figure. His battles to stand up for his religious freedom, his opposition to the war, and for the rights of African Americans were inspiring, heroic, and worthy of the praise they receive.He was also an arrogant prick who treated women horribly and exploited the same racism he spent so much of his life fighting to sell the Frazier fight. I do not blame Frazier at all for holding a lifelong grudge against him. People are, unfortunately, much more complex than we sometimes want them to be.
You’re talking personality and not ability, right?
I’m not disputing his abilities as a boxer at all.
Peerless wit.
He’s NOT Connor McGregor. He’s an historic figure in sports. O’Connor didn’t pave the way for activism among athletes. O’Connor didn’t take his principles to the Supreme Court. O’Connor didn’t face persecution because of his religion.O’Connor never risked his livelihood for what he believed in. Or prison for that matter.O’Connor never faced down the mob in his sport.O’Connor didn’t have a legendary 20 year career. Didn’t win an Olympic gold medal. Didn’t win change his sport with flair. Didn’t win 3 championships. O’Connor didn’t represent his whole country at the Olympics.Was Ali bad to his women, yes? Sadly so. Was he a dick to his opponents? Yeah, a little too often.But don’t compare a legendary figure to an asterisk because they share one or two similarities.Jab. Shuffle. Anchor punch. Out.
I thought the ‘Latest ‘n the Greatest’s’ name was Sexy Sadie.