Richard Sherman’s controversial interview with Erin Andrews after Seattle’s NFL playoff victory over San Francisco is being interpreted and analyzed more often than the Gettysburg Address. Much of the ongoing discussion leads to Muhammad Ali.
Please, can everybody just leave the Ali comparison in the spit bucket.
I suspect Sherman would if he could and that’s a compelling reason to like the Seahawks cornerback. He admires Ali. In Ali’s time, there was a personal price for what he said. In Sherman’s time, there might be an endorsement.
A few days after the heated comments about 49ers receiver Michael Crabtree, Sherman told reporters that Ali was confronted by circumstances “100 times crazier” than anything surrounding today’s generation of athletes.
The big difference – one forgotten amid today’s attention on mere words and only words – is that the true measure of Ali was in what he did. Yeah, he said a lot, a hell of a lot. But it was always what he did, whether it was his opposition to Viet Nam or his rematch victory over Joe Frazier. There are as many Ali imitators today as there are Elvis impersonators. But they’re cheap knock-offs, more outrage than substance.
Over the years, Ali has become the father of trash talk. I’m not sure it’s a title he ever sought. But it’s his and it always will be. Nevertheless, words were just part of the game for Ali. He used them like an artful feint and mostly before a fight in an attempt to rattle, unsettle and even intimidate an opponent before stepping into harm’s way.
His words were often cruel, especially when directed at Frazier. Ali portrayed him as an Uncle Tom. There was a racial edge and Frazier never forgave him for it. But much of what Ali said was tempered by how he said it. Look at the video. Look at his playful eyes. Listen to his sing-song tone. He was having fun with the pre-fight byplay that has been heard in boxing for as long as there’s been an opening bell.
Compare those moments to what we saw from Sherman. There was a scowl on his face, anger in his eyes and a threat in his tone. It was like watching road rage.
As it unfolded, I didn’t think of Ali. I thought of Floyd Mayweather Jr. and his infamous outburst at Larry Merchant after his controversial stoppage of Victor Ortiz in September 2011. Merchant, now retired from his HBO role as a ringside analyst, asked about the timing of Mayweather’s punches, which landed when Ortiz was looking at referee Joe Cortez. Merchant called the punches a legal cheap shot. Mayweather erupted, telling Merchant he didn’t know bleep about boxing and that HBO should fire him.
Merchant’s response was classic old-school.
“I wish I was 50 years younger and I would kick your ass,’’ Merchant told Mayweather.
If only Merchant had been there instead of Andrews. Sherman’s rant might have ended then and there, saving us all from an Ali comparison that just doesn’t work.
