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I am a writer by heart. When I write, I feel like I can be totally uninhibited and let go. This is great when I am trying to impress teachers, but I have found that it rubs other people the wrong way, like I am trying to be over-grandiose and condescending. When I read some papers that I wrote years ago, I feel a little embarrassed with what I write.

Anyways, it's my birthday tomorrow and I was going to do something original on Facebook by posting a tribute to Muhammad Ali, who has had a big impact on my life. I think this is a case where I may be overstepping too far out of the comfort zone and don't want to regret it. It is truly how I feel, but there are a lot of other true feelings that I have that are best kept to myself. I was hoping I could post it here and get some reactions from people before I post it to my social network and regret it later. Here it is:

Turning 25 is a good milestone for me to reflect on what brought me here. My idol and inspiration The G.O.A.T. I may be turning 25 today but I'm still young, handsome, fast, pretty, and can't possibly be beaten. Consider this a chance for me to give everyone else a birthday gift and take 10 minutes to watch the video. My favorite part is at 8:32. He takes a devastating punch, but springs right back up ready for more and avenges his loss. THAT is what life is about. Life is full of ups and downs. The trick is to find a way to minimize the number of valleys and maximize the height of your peaks, and Muhammad Ali helped me to try to do just that. He maximized his potential in all walks of life and still treated everyone with respect and a playfulness. I hope I can use the next 25 years to have an impact on others similar to his on me, whatever that scale may be, and still be floating like a butterfly and stinging like a bee


NOTE: I will probably delete this after a few days and get some quality feedback.

Bonkai

6:45 - 7:30 my favorite sequence, the music was spot on.

Happy 25th and keep on trying to improve, none of us will ever be perfect but we can always get better!

Strange Famous

If Ali hadnt "rope-a-doped" Foreman he might not be in the condition he is in now. If the fight wasnt somewhere as corrupt, it probably would have gone a different way (the allegations of Foreman being drugged, the loosening of the ropes...)

Sonny Liston threw both fights against him...(the second, nobody could argue about. Ali wasnt a stupid man. Do you think he didnt know that the punch in the second fight didnt land? - Yes Ive heard his claims that the punch was so fast the camera missed it... that deserves to be treated with the same respect as the average promo a professional wrestler in WWF makes)

He struggled against Norton and Frazier, both of who Foreman dismissed.

_

Ali was a good boxer, who looked slick and menancing when he was at his best... but to me he is someone who conned the world into believe his own hype. He was undoubtably brave, and had a good chin... but he relied on speed and later in his career when he lost that and gained bulk, he wasnt an elite fighter. He took too much punishment, didnt have genuine KO power himself, and was in my opinion pretty classless (yes, he was lyrical, but most of the time he used his eloquence to taunt and insult opponents in a pretty childish / playground manner)

He's probably in the top 10 heavyweights in his peak, but he was below his peak the majority of his career (same as Tyson) and that places him a level below the real greats to me.

_

To me, the achievments of Foreman's career (the two years or so he was unbeatable at the start of his career... and then the KO of Moorer) are far superior to Ali. At the same time, Foreman grew as a person, he tempered to some degree the brooding, violent personality of his youth to become a more positive person. Ali never developed as a person to me...

__________________
"Do not tell lies, and do not do what you hate,
for all things are plain in the sight of Heaven. For nothing
hidden will not become manifest, and nothing covered will remain
without being uncovered."

The Gospel of Thomas