Intresting point about ALI

Pacheco seems to state that the Thrilla fight was a fool around fight (That Ali didn't train that hard). He could be doing this to bolster Ali's legacy even more (He didn't train hard enough and still won type thinking). Maybe Pacheco wasn't around for these training sessions. It's hard to imagine Ali outlasting Frazier in such a grueling contest (With the heat they had too) without having had at least sufficient training.

 

Ali trained hard, to think anything else is ludicrous. He put on a show for the fans though and often pretended being KO'd in sparring. Before the third fight Ali's camp were saying that he was in great shape and that he would get Frazier out of there early.

 

Never read it / heard of it b4 , good 2 know , but not a surprise 2 me at all , typical ali : a fraud , considered a natural talent while in fact a hard worker and a cheater who failed 2 impress any1 but his sexually insecure cheerleaders .

ali busted his azz out 2 beat little frazier , didn't he ?
he just wanted his cheerleaders 2 think he does it easy , but in fact he knew he can't beat a man without being 100% fit & then still needing 2 flee for his life and then 2 cheat and then get rescued by the judges when all previous stages still failed . vs frazier in manila , he was spared from the referees , and we will never know what was d spell that Angel Dungee put in his divine gloves , that spell that bust & cut so many , not just chronic bleeders ordered for him by his management such as cooper , wepner , quarry and a few others , but also less cut prone men such as frazier & liston .

 

Quote from Ali before Foreman fight:

"Fighters know when fighters are in shape."

There were some of the lesser rope-a-dope defenses where Ali wasn't in prime condition, but the results of Ali's big fights speak for themselves. You don't get up in the 15th round in the FOTC if your legs aren't in fantastic shape. You don't go through the closest thing to death in Manilla on will-power if the body is not in top shape.

 

kotv?

 

Pachecho is one of the biggest pieces of **** to rear their ugly head in this industry.

 

I agree 100%. I cannot imagine Ali going against his top rival in anything less than top shape. This was the rubber match and it was for the title. Even if he believed that Frazier was washed up, I think he would be all the more inspired to win in spectacular fashion. Even so, it is interesting that both fighters were about 10 pounds heavier than they were in the FOTC.

 

Right, the weight is an indication of something (Especially for Ali I think). I think Ali wasn't training for speed and honestly thought that he could sit down on his punches and take Frazier out early. That didn't happen though but I imagine the weight had more to do with strategy than a lack of training/conditioning.

 

If you read The Fight by Norman Mailer ( the book about the rumble in the jungle) Mailer spends a chapter talking about how Ali trained for the fight.

He said Ali would spend full rounds without throwing a punch. He would dance away and then spend most of the time deflecting his opponents punches from his gloves and learning what angles he should turn at to reduce the power and what angle to hold his gloves at to deflect the punches the furthest.

The more i read about Alis training the more i think it is him learning about the science of boxing rather than him doing a generic session.

 

That's very harsh. Whatever you may think of him, at least he was the only one to tell Ali the truth. One of the very few in the Ali camp who wasn't a 'yes' man.

 

Nobody said he wasn't honest about his opinions. But sometimes he should have thought over what he was going to say. He has come up with some fairly outrageous stuff.

 

Well you don't get to have great stamina without training with great dedication...

 

The 1 big point the Mailer book did not go into too much was how they were trying to save Muhammad's hands for the fight. He'd been doing that for years prior to the Foreman fight. Smart.

 

You do if your name is Monzon:hey