The Graffe's Celebrity Death Pool

[Delores Mulva]

Very soon. Muhammad Ali, dead at 74.

http://www.cnn.com/2016/06/03/us/muh...ali/index.html

[Grindel]

The greatest of all time

Edit: My dad knew Ali in his younger days, in the mid-70s when the Champ was looking to get into other ventures. Literally four days ago he was just telling my son about playing pickup basketball with Ali's bodyguard, who was slightly smaller than a Mack truck. The other thing he remembers vividly is the size of Ali's hands. Dad's got some mitts himself, but the way he put it Ali basically engulfed his hand when they shook hands. The earliest fight I can remember was back when Norton broke his jaw and I must have been like three at the time; he's been ingrained in my head one way or another ever since then.

[PPatty]

The greatest of all time

Greatest boxer? Not many boxing purists would say so. But greatest, most iconic figure to emerge from any sport ever? Yeah, probably.

[Dawlin]

Greatest boxer? Not many boxing purists would say so. But greatest, most iconic figure to emerge from any sport ever? Yeah, probably.

This. You can't ignore his cultural impact.

[Aennyil]

If there is an afterlife, he and Howard Cosell are having a wonderful reunion.

[PPatty]

A moment of silence for the man who gave us Equus and Amadeus:

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/07/ar...d-amadeus.html

And, of course, a requiem:



And while we're at it:



The movies don't reach the level of the plays on which they were based, but still.

[Aennyil]

That final paragraph and what he said about himself ... powerful and evocative! I saw Anthony Perkins performance of Equus and the movie. You're right Ppatty ...

[Delores Mulva]

Another combat sports legend has died. Well, "legend". Kimbo Slice, dead at 42:

http://www.mmafighting.com/2016/6/6/...dead-at-age-42

His fight against Dada 5000 will likely go down as one of the worst matches in MMA history:

[PPatty]

So Dada 5000 suffered cardiac arrest in that fight and Kimbo apparently was not only in bad shape, but also not that far from death himself. Nice vetting of fighters, Bellator. Unfortunate to see him go, though, he did bring a lot of attention to the sport (for the wrong reasons, but still) and he didn't seem like a bad guy overall.

[Daxil Solshok]

Couple things. Ali almost finished dead last in his class in high school. Shows you how razer thin the difference between world renowned iconic figure and a likely difficult life can be.

Second, man the black community has taken some hits in the last 6 years or so. Michael Jackson, Whitney Houston, Prince, Ali. Those are people that transcend their profession for sure.

[Merrick ap'Milandra]

Couple things. Ali almost finished dead last in his class in high school. Shows you how razer thin the difference between world renowned iconic figure and a likely difficult life can be.

I know plenty of people on both ends of the "IQ Spectrum" who nearly failed out of school. I myself was taken to a child psychologist because I was so utterly and completely BORED with what they were teaching me that I was building log cabins with my crayons instead of paying attention because figuring out how to construct a roof that would stay put was more fun in first grade than "see spot run".

It's not hard to suck out loud at school.
What takes strength of character is succeeding in spite of that, and Ali certainly had it.

[Daxil Solshok]

I know plenty of people on both ends of the "IQ Spectrum" who nearly failed out of school. I myself was taken to a child psychologist because I was so utterly and completely BORED with what they were teaching me that I was building log cabins with my crayons instead of paying attention because figuring out how to construct a roof that would stay put was more fun in first grade than "see spot run".

It's not hard to suck out loud at school.
What takes strength of character is succeeding in spite of that, and Ali certainly had it.

Ok, so try throwing on some dark skin, and growing up in segregated Kentucky without an outlet like boxing. Your life would be difficult. You would not be an iconic figure. I didn't throw those points in because I assumed most people knew them.

[Delores Mulva]

So Dada 5000 suffered cardiac arrest in that fight and Kimbo apparently was not only in bad shape, but also not that far from death himself. Nice vetting of fighters, Bellator.

He had a liver mass and was being put on the list for a heart transplant.

http://www.mmafighting.com/2016/6/7/...t-before-death

Speaking of MMA (and derailing a bit from Death Parade 2016): PPatty, what do you think of the whole UFC - Ariel Helwani credential lifting thing? Just the usual "UFC wants to control everything, even things they shouldn't control" thing, or more?

[PPatty]

Speaking of MMA (and derailing a bit from Death Parade 2016): PPatty, what do you think of the whole UFC - Ariel Helwani credential lifting thing? Just the usual "UFC wants to control everything, even things they shouldn't control" thing?

Pretty much.

UFC's brass believe the media should be "partners" with them; their feeling is that if you want to go their own way, then don't expect us to help you out by credentialing you or working with you in any way whatsoever. There's a history of it going back several years -- Sherdog, Josh Gross and Loretta Hunt can tell you all about it.

Ariel happens to be the one reporter seen as a rock star among MMA fans, at least partly because Dana White himself used to single out Ariel as his favorite MMA journalist at one time. (Dana also has called Megan Olivi the best MMA journalist around, but I refuse to use the term on her; she's just a UFC mouthpiece, in more ways than one, if you know what I mean). Ariel's popularity caused a backlash that probably played a big role in convincing UFC to back down the other day. And certainly Esther Lin and Casey Leydon, who are top-notch pros, were just collateral damage; it's good to see that they can continue, as well.

The only organization whose reporters don't tiptoe around UFC is ESPN, which just shows that if someone tries to bully you, it helps to have a bigger bully on your side. That said, even ESPN's main MMA reporter, Brett Okamoto, doesn't do anything that might piss off UFC; when ESPN does a story that it knows will annoy Dana White and/or the Fertittas (such as the piece on salaries from a few years back) it assigns someone else to do it so that Okamoto can keep covering the fights themselves.

[FilanFyretracker]

how much control do the major sports leagues have over media? NFL, MLB, NBA, NHL? Just wondering if the UFC is thinking they can have NFL like control.

[Delores Mulva]

The NHL has squat in the way of leverage over the media - or, rather, if they do have it, they never use it. Reporters enjoy very good access to players, the players get dumped on if they don't fulfill media obligations, and even reporters that are despised by a team (Tony Gallagher until recently here in Vancouver, that guy who had the running feud with Tortorella in New York) are never threatened with removal of credentials. League officials even do interviews that you can tell they hate doing (I love watching Bettman's facial expressions when Ron MacLean starts grilling him). The only restriction the league has is "no interviews with referees", and I'm fairly sure there's no league that allows refs to be interviewed, at least not while active. Does baseball allow it? When Jim Joyce cost Armando Galarraga a perfect game his comments were publicized, including things that happened in the umpire locker room:

http://espn.go.com/mlb/recap?gameId=300602106

Or did he just tell reporters what happened when he went to apologize?

[Daxil Solshok]

Pretty much.

UFC's brass believe the media should be "partners" with them; their feeling is that if you want to go their own way, then don't expect us to help you out by credentialing you or working with you in any way whatsoever. There's a history of it going back several years -- Sherdog, Josh Gross and Loretta Hunt can tell you all about it.

Ariel happens to be the one reporter seen as a rock star among MMA fans, at least partly because Dana White himself used to single out Ariel as his favorite MMA journalist at one time. (Dana also has called Megan Olivi the best MMA journalist around, but I refuse to use the term on her; she's just a UFC mouthpiece, in more ways than one, if you know what I mean). Ariel's popularity caused a backlash that probably played a big role in convincing UFC to back down the other day. And certainly Esther Lin and Casey Leydon, who are top-notch pros, were just collateral damage; it's good to see that they can continue, as well.

The only organization whose reporters don't tiptoe around UFC is ESPN, which just shows that if someone tries to bully you, it helps to have a bigger bully on your side. That said, even ESPN's main MMA reporter, Brett Okamoto, doesn't do anything that might piss off UFC; when ESPN does a story that it knows will annoy Dana White and/or the Fertittas (such as the piece on salaries from a few years back) it assigns someone else to do it so that Okamoto can keep covering the fights themselves.

Dana White sounds like Trump. Little thin skinned.

[PPatty]

how much control do the major sports leagues have over media?

As much as they want. However, U.S. professional sports leagues generally don't de-credential people just because they don't like what they write.

Major colleges sometimes are a little more thin-skinned. Steve Spurrier once refused to hold a news conference because a columnist he didn't like was sitting among the reporters. British football clubs apparently get irritable, as well.

Dana White sounds like Trump. Little thin skinned.

Calling Dana White "thin skinned" is like calling Salma Hayek "hot" when she was in her prime. But Dana, say what you will about him, has established himself in a position where he can be thin skinned and it doesn't matter; the only ones who can overrule him are government regulators and the Fertittas. The fighters have no ability to challenge him. The journalists are all too nervous about getting de-credentialed and losing their dream jobs; Ariel certainly wasn't a saint of journalism, he stayed quiet along with everyone else with a press pass when Dana shit all over Gross and Hunt. But Ariel has benefited from a double standard because people like him more than they liked Josh and Loretta.

[Dawlin]

Tough week for sports: Gordie Howe has died.
I have a feeling that this is going to be a personal one for our Hockey-crazed poster(s).

[PPatty]

For some reason, I thought Gordie Howe would live forever. Still the toughest mofo that team sports has ever seen, though.