Sucker Punch: The Hard Left Hook That Dazed Ali and Killed King's Dream

by Jack Cashill

"Everything that he has done was against this country."  Joe Frazier on Muhammad Ali   Part man, part myth, and all American, Muhammad Ali is history's most beloved, most revered athlete. But though he was "The Greatest" inside the ring, outside he was a hulking mass of contradictions.    This book is the first comprehensive, pull-no-punches account of America's least likely icon. Jack Cashill explores the changing mores and racial dynamics of the sixties alongside Ali's epic battles in the ring. "What Ali did, great or otherwise, was to channel the spirit of his age. . . . He captured the ethos of that decade all too well. It wasn't pretty. I was there, and I know what I saw."   Cashill reveals how Elijah Muhammad seduced Ali--and how that seduction spelled the betrayal of Dr. King's dream, the death of Malcolm X, the humiliation of Joe Frazier, the rise of Don King, and the tragic undoing of Mike Tyson--and proves     Ali was an unapologetic sexist and unabashed racist, calling for the lynching of interracial couples and an American apartheid as late as 1975.    Ali routinely denigrated black heroes who did not share his point of view, including Joe Louis, Jackie Robinson, Thurgood Marshall, and especially Joe Frazier.   Ali shamelessly courted some of the most brutal dictators on the Qadaffi, Idi Amin, Papa Doc Duvalier, Nkrumah, Mobutu, and Ferdinand Marcos.   With unusual sympathy and unflinching insight, Cashill assesses Ali's boxing conquests and political influence. He shows how the very figure who could have brought America's diverse people together when it mattered, instead tore them apart.   Jack Cashill has written and directed The Holocaust through Our Own Eyes , The Soul of the West and the Emmy-Award winning The Royal Years among other documentaries for regional PBS and national cable channels. Cashill has a Ph.D. in American studies from Purdue and has been published in the Wall Street Journal , Washington Post , Fortune , Weekly Standard , WorldNetDaily, and Ingram's , where he serves as executive editor. He is also the author of First Strike , Ron Brown's Body , and How Intellectual Hucksters Have Hijacked American Culture .

Genres: Sports, Biography

260 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2006

Reviews

[Zeus Polak · Rating 1 out of 5]

This was the ABSOLUTE worst book I have EVER read!!!

[Brandon Bonner · Rating 1 out of 5]

Worse book I’ve ever read. The only reason I continued to read was to see how much farther insane the book would get. Cashill does his best job to speak on race events from the eyes of an ignorant white man. The whole book is a collection of him trying to dismiss everything ever done in Ali’s life. It is pure comedy for you to say Ali never faced racism. Finding a black man living during those times who didn’t face racism would be like finding a needle in a haystack the size of a football field. So happy I didn’t pay for this garbage. Wish I could give negative stars but not possible.

[Lisa Smith · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very prescient

Very illuminating, especially considering the racial animus here in 2020. I hadn’t realized how much Ali and Elijah Muhammad had contributed to this. Honestly, it would be interesting to hear Jack Cashill’s thoughts on how this impacted Obama’s development.

[Douglas Graney · Rating 1 out of 5]

Worst boxing book i ever read. It’s all over the place. HORRID!

[Ice · Rating 5 out of 5]

"Everything that he has done was against this country."

Joe Frazier on Muhammad Ali


Part man, part myth, and all American, Muhammad Ali is history's most beloved, most revered athlete. But though he was "The Greatest" inside the ring, outside he was a hulking mass of contradictions.

This book is the first comprehensive, pull-no-punches account of America's least likely icon. Jack Cashill explores the changing mores and racial dynamics of the sixties alongside Ali's epic battles in the ring. "What Ali did, great or otherwise, was to channel the spirit of his age. . . . He captured the ethos of that decade all too well. It wasn't pretty. I was there, and I know what I saw."

Cashill reveals how Elijah Muhammad seduced Ali--and how that seduction spelled the betrayal of Dr. King's dream, the death of Malcolm X, the humiliation of Joe Frazier, the rise of Don King, and the tragic undoing of Mike Tyson--and proves that:

Ali was an unapologetic sexist and unabashed racist, calling for the lynching of interracial couples and an American apartheid as late as 1975.

Ali routinely denigrated black heroes who did not share his point of view, including Joe Louis, Jackie Robinson, Thurgood Marshall, and especially Joe Frazier.

Ali shamelessly courted some of the most brutal dictators on the planet: Qadaffi, Idi Amin, Papa Doc Duvalier, Nkrumah, Mobutu, and Ferdinand Marcos.

With unusual sympathy and unflinching insight, Cashill assesses Ali's boxing conquests and political influence. He shows how the very figure who could have brought America's diverse people together when it mattered, instead tore them apart.

Jack Cashill has written and directed The Holocaust through Our Own Eyes, The Soul of the West and the Emmy-Award winning The Royal Years among other documentaries for regional PBS and national cable channels. Cashill has a Ph.D. in American studies from Purdue and has been published in the Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, Fortune, Weekly Standard, WorldNetDaily, and Ingram's, where he serves as executive editor.

[Asif · Rating 3 out of 5]

A book which all Ali and boxing fans, in particular, should read as it provides some interesting insights into the less savoury aspects of Ali's young life but the bias and anti-Ali, anti-Islam invective is so open that it distracts from the many good aspects of the book too. The author seems keen to prove that Ali was really the devil incarnate--albeit he could box (thank God he gives Ali that much credit!)--and that he represented all that is wrong with the "Liberal Left". He tries to pin almost everything bad that happened in that time and later somehow to Ali including murders by other people and the Vietnam War. If Fox News had made a documentary about Ali and Islam it would be like this book! It is beautifully written though and does contain some good extra information about Ali. If only he had tried to be more objective this polemic could have been a great book. Most of the "revelations" are already in the other great Ali biographies especially Thomas Hauser's meisterwerk.

[GERALD GENTRY · Rating 4 out of 5]

The best book on Cassius Clay, I've read.