How Would Wladimir Have Handled Ali’s Trash Talking?

By William Mackay: Seeing how easily Wladimir Klitschko has been reduced to almost jelly by David Haye in the past couple of weeks during press conferences, I wonder how Wladimir would have handled it if he were facing Muhammed Ali rather Haye on June 20th, in Germany. Remembering how Ali was able to make fun of heavyweights like Sonny Liston, Joe Frazier and George Foreman, I suspect that Wladimir would been possibly reduced to tears by the quick witted Ali and in no condition to fight him by the time they did eventually enter the ring.

Wladimir has looked way out of his element since signing the fight with Haye not long, and hasn’t been able to adjust to Haye’s many insults. The t-shirt incident should have been an easy thing for Wladimir to cope with and come back with a good insult of his own, but he’s gone nearly apoplectic over it.

Knowing Wladimir, he would probably spit out some canned responses to Ali, something along the lines of ‘I’ll let my fists do the talking for me on June 20th,’ or some other weak response. However, Ali would see right through that phony excuse and point out that Wladimir can’t think of anything to say.

More than likely Ali would question Wladimir’s intelligence, make fun of his PhD degree, and center many of his insults towards that area. Ali wouldn’t ignore making jokes about Wladimir’s chin problems and would predict which round he was going to knock Wladimir out.

I think it would be hilarious to see Wladimir trying to deal with Ali’s insults and I can’t him handling them any better than Frazier did. The difference here is that I think Wladimir would have much more problems dealing with Ali’s insults than Frazier. In Frazier’s case, he was outgoing enough to throw back some insults and brave enough to try and get close to Ali to try intimidate him.

All Wladimir has been doing is taking the insults from Haye like a punching bag and complaining about him to the media. It looks as if Wladimir’s reaching out for a lifeline or a referee to protect him from Haye’s teasing of him. Needless to say, it hasn’t made Wladimir look good.

There’s no comparison really between the trash talking of Ali and Haye. Ali would be not only insulting Wladimir, but due to Ali’s incredible charisma and sense of humor, he’d have members of the media laughing at a lot of the things that he’s saying about Wladimir. This would make it even harder for Wladimir to handle the humiliation of the countless media events he would be forced to attend with Ali leading up to the fight.

In contrast, Haye isn’t nearly as charismatic as Ali and not as bright either in my view. Haye’s sense of humor comes across as mean spirited, whereas with Ali, he still seemed likeable even when he was making fun of his opponent. You could tell that it was an act, and that he was trying to have a good time promoting the fight.

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