Ghosts of Manila: The Fateful Blood Feud Between Muhammad Ali and Joe Frazier

Like another, I was enthusiastic with regard to this work about an exciting figure, his tragic foil , and the classic battle which raised them both to epic status. What a disappointment! As another reviewer noted, author Mark Kram in this work seems intent on undoing the media “romance history” of Ali as civil rights “leader” (more on that later). To me, it goes much afrther than that. It is as if Kram wants to denigrate everything Ali stood for, every good he ever did or even sought to accomplish. In the process, he also seems to also somehow suggest that what most boxing cognoscenti acknowledge as one of the greatest fights of all time was just another fight.

Nonsense abounds. The notion that in 1966 Ali was “more a celebrity and a polemicist than a fighter” tells me all I need to know about the judgment of this guy. Kram is particularly critical of Ali (and suggests he is cowardly) for not yielding to the draft and going into the Army, particularly since he suggests that Ali would not have had to fight VietCong, but only exhibition bouts. (Of course, since the consensus was that he would (like Joe Louis before him) not go into combat, what was there to be afraid of?) Nonetheless, to me it is hard to label anyone who fought the two “indestructible” opponents of his time (Sonny Liston early on and George Foreman at the end of his great days) as cowardly. As an aside, Kram neglects to tell us where he was during Vietnam, an unpardonable sin for one who then goes to great lengths to criticize someone else’s position.

Either he cannot or he adamantly refuses to appreciate the contribution of a young Ali to the African-American community. Kram refuses to acknowledge that the position take by Ali in the
mid to late sixties resonated among a huge segment of the African-American community well before he became popular on the college lecture circuit. Perhaps Kram does indeed believe that
were he an African-American of that time, he would not have held Ali and his beliefs in high esteem. Neither he nor we will ever know. The fact remains that he makes the fatal mistake of
many critics, to damn that which he could not understand.

Kram characterizes Bryant Gumbel as a mediocre thinker. His thinking (as reflected by this book) is far worse.

Instead of wasting an evening with this book, I suggest everyone acquire a video of the Thrilla in Manilla, or even better, watch “When We Were Kings”. It provides a far superior insight into one of the greatest figures of the twentieth century.
Rating: 1 / 5

The reader will get the sense that the author Mark Kram is bitter and filled with contempt. He shrewdly attempts to downgrade Ali’s essence simply because of his hidden racist ideologies. Don’t buy it, there are many amazing books on Muhammad Ali, written by people who can absorb what Ali emanates and can put that into writing. But this one should be forgotten. He claims that Ali is NOT a hero because he hasn’t done anything worthy of that title. So to read an entire book from an author who has no understanding of what makes a human being larger than life is a waste of money and time.
Rating: 1 / 5

Being a big Ali fan, and the owner of many of his greatest fights on DVD, I too was anxiously awaiting the release of this much talked about book about the “Trilla in Manila” – Ali vs. Frazier (The greatest rivalry in the history of sports). I’m of the belief that the glossing over of true historical facts during the reenactment of one’s life doesn’t give someone who wasn’t there, like me, a true grasp of how that figure lived both in his public and private life. Don’t get me wrong, I knew going in that this wasn’t an autobiography. I was simply looking for a book with some behind the scenes info on the most brutal championship fight in the history of the heavyweight division. I had even greater interest than your average fan, because I own the DVD to this fight and watch it every few months just to see to true hatred and contempt these two warriors had for one another. However, not nearly halfway through this diatribe, did I realize that the Kram’s in-depth analysis of the “true” Ali was simply personal attacks on what simply was a flawed human being. Does the author truly believe that the public could be so easily fooled with the type of person that Kram tries to convince the reader that ALI is or was? For example, the author implies, rather emphatically, that ALI’s ONLY reason for taking a stand against being drafted was because the NOI (Nation of Islam) and in particular Elijah Muhammad (Leader of the Sect) directed him to, and he simply didn’t have any backbone to speak up. Hard for me to imagine any man risking 5 years in prison for taking a stand he didn’t believe in. It this and a few other “revelations” that made it quite hard to take this book very seriously. Keep your money, unless your a ALI-hater…
Rating: 1 / 5

as a very occasional boxing fan, i found this book to be very iconoclastic. i really enjoyed reading these seldom disclosed aspects of muhammad ali and his disgraceful superciliousness toward Joe Frazier. what this book discloses is enough to make a bigot cringe, and it shows ali as a boy who never grew up. with this book in mind, i do not see how he could ever be taken seriously, except that he was told to say what certain people wanted to hear. i had no idea that he was such a puppet. many other interesting items were pointed out. Sonny Liston might have taken a dive in both fights. so why three stars? several aspects that the author displays i find disturbing. one is professional jealousy. his derogatory remarks about Howard Cosell (p 159) are unseemly. Howard may have been slightly obnoxious, but he was the best tv sports announcer ever. after all, up to 30 million people a week listened to him. starting on page 165, there is much political comment about the Philippines. I really suspect this is out of the author’s area of expertise, and he should stick to the sports. lastly, he becomes grandiloquent, especially in the final section, nocturnes. there are many silly metaphors and similes where, in an effort to be erudite, he makes allusions that are definitely beyond his expertise. a simpler style would have helped. in summary, despite the flaws mentioned, this is a fascinating book that is a start toward revision of a myth.
Rating: 3 / 5

This is my first book review ever for Amazon. I felt that I had to say something about this horrible book.

For one thing, there is the relentless, mean-spirited deconstruction of Ali’s character and intelligence. His main aim seems to show that Ali is treated with too much respect these days, and that he, Mark Kram, will treat him with NO respect so that everyone can see that it’s doable. His words are clearly calculated to paint a picture of Ali as an idiot with no mental capabilities whatsoever. Ali’s initial tests for the US military, for example, placed him at the “near moronic” level. “Near moronic?” This is a writer on a mission to cut the mighty down.

Such examples abound in the book. He seems to want nothing more than to expose Ali as the exact OPPOSITE of what he believes Ali’s public perception is.

But the worst part about the book is this: as a writer, Mark Kram is absolutely unreadable. In a pompous, pretentious manner, he seems to want to use as many “hard” words as he possibly can, showing off incessantly with obscure vocabulary and stunted grammar, with cringe-worthy figures of speech thrown in for good measure. I have never, ever read a writer who uses words like “adumbrate” and “caterwaul” for NO GOOD REASON. He uses the words “ineluctable” and “mythopoeic” in the SAME SENTENCE. What is this, the S.A.T.’s? There are hundreds of examples of words like these. Words that would get a person’s a** kicked if he were ever to actually SAY them in public.

But the book wasn’t written for the general public; that’s for sure. He’s not writing for the reader’s benefit, he’s writing for his OWN benefit, to get his deep-seated resentment of Muhammad Ali off his chest, and to amuse himself with his awesome command of the English thesaurus.

Look, I’m not saying there isn’t some truth in there. There is. The real Ali is somewhere in between the legend and the retard Kram portrays in this book. There are some decent descriptions of a couple of fights (using lots of “unabridged dictionary” words). But the bottom line is, if you like reading thoroughly biased tracts written with stunted language by pretentious authors, “Ghosts of Manila” is for you.
Rating: 1 / 5