If Holmes beat Ali in 1978

nah....ali was still shot to **** in 78

 

exactly - any win after manila v ali wouldn't mean too much as many think he lost norton 3 and Young. he was finished as a great after manila. he woulda got ko'd by shavers if it wasn't for his chin and toughness. he lost 3 times in his last 4 fights.

 

I very much doubt whether it would have made any difference to either man's legacies. Obviously it would have still been too late in Muhammad's career for him to have beaten Larry,but it would n't have been quite so sad to watch as their 1980 bout. Ali would still have had enough left to have made it competitive for a few rounds.
As I've always said,to find an Ali that I would have bet on,with confidence to beat a prime 1978-82 Holmes,we'd have had to go back to 1974.

 

Ali was faded big time against Spinks in both fights of '78 no matter if Ali trained or not..... However, Holmes would get much more credit from the fans had he whipped Ali's ass in 1978..... The TKO of '80 didn't prove or mean jack**** other than that Ali was a ghost by then....

MR.BILL

NOTE:

I contend that Ali was in the early stages of Park's Syndrome by the time he was fighting Leon Stinks in 1978...

 

Many different moments people bring up as to the earliest signs of Muhammad's Parkinson's. Some have said that they noticed it as early as 1977......! I first picked up on something being wrong in 1979 when Ali was on a 'Farewell tour'

 

Yeah, but Ali wasn't properly diagnosed until 1984..... But he was becoming ill with Park's a good 4 to 6 yrs before 1984....

MR.BILL

 

I agree MRBILL. Did you notice anything wrong with Muhammad's speech in '78 ? As I said,1979 was when it first became apparent to me. Not disbelieving you though. Definitely a possibility.

 

I agree, Ali was just a shadow of a shell in '78.

 

Ali wasn't really slurring bad until 1980, but his voice and tone had dropped early as '78... By the late 70s, I sensed Ali couldn't recite his poetry as freely like in the 60s and early 70s...

MR.BILL

 

after shavers fight you notice a big change in his speech. he took big shots in that fight.

 

I cant remember which DVD it was, or whether it was the Thomas Hauser book. But somewhere someone stated that even if Ali hadnt laced gloves, he still would have got Parkinsons Syndrome, apparently he had it from a young age, but obviously it only became noticeable later on.

Im sure its from the Life and Times by Thomas Hauser

 

I've never heard THAT before ! Only some surmising that he may have been one of the unlucky ones to have caught it eventually anyway.

 

Still, by early 1978 and with all them big fights behind him, Ali was gonna pay the piper some way later in life..... Ali had a great will and chin, but his balance, coordination and speech is not just diminished through Parks Syndrome, them wicked-ass punches he took also play a part too, regardless of what certain fans or even doctors might think.... You don't walk way from dude's like "Liston, Patty, Chuvalo, Folley, Quarry, Frazier, Norton, Foreman, Wepner, Lyle & Shavers" without leaving some pieces behind in the ring....

MR.BILL

 

Ali himself has been fond of pointing out in the past that Janet Reno and Michael J. Fox didn't get punched in the head for a living, and one of his last speaking roles in a television commercial was a public service appearance with Fox about Parkinson's. Dementia does not appear to be an issue with Muhammad, at least not to this point, and a case might be made that's he's reached an age where he can get a free pass. (He's three years older than Louis was when the Bomber passed, and has now passed Jimmy Braddock in longevity.)

Both Ali's parents died when they were 77, and he may simply be genetically hard wired for a similar life span. I'm not aware that either Cassius, Sr. or Odessa suffered from Parkinson's before they died, or that he otherwise has any family history of it.

I've long expressed the view that Shavers pushed him over the edge. He took tremendous body punishment from Frazier, Chuvalo, Foreman and Norton, but nobody before or since subjected him to the repeated brain trauma Earnie did, and he never looked quite right after that in competition, even in defeating Leon Spinks. It's fashionable to pinpoint Manila as the tipping point, but Inoki screwed up his legs in Tokyo, then Shavers screwed up his motor and speech neurology in Muhammad's MSG curtain call.