Which fight damaged Ali's health the most?

Again you show your immaturity. No historian or very knowledgable boxing fan would ever claim any fighter is an ATG based on one bout that occurred at a relatively early stage in their career. If Ali had lost to Foreman in 74 and did not have a second reign he would have been rated in the lower top 10 at best all time. In fact if you think about is his losses to Frazier. Norton and then Foreman followed by retirement he would have been lucky to crack a major historians top ten. This comes from a guy who rates Ali no 1 all time.

 

Who cares who was winning the rounds. Meldrick Taylor was winning the rounds against Chavez in their first fight, and he was never the same again.

If you read interviews from Ali's doctor, Ali's internal organs were never the same after the Foreman fight. His liver, his kidneys, his "bowels" were wrecked. Watch Ali's back-to-back rematches with Norton and Frazier ... then watch him in 1975 against Wepner and Lyle and on down the line.

And it shows in his in-the-ring performances after. He wasn't the same fighter after the Foreman bout. That was the tipping point.

Everyone's looking for when his speech slurred. What damaged his health the most was the damage to his internal organs, which prevented him from moving and boxing like he'd done earlier.

When your organs are messed up, it affects everything.

He didn't lay on the ropes and take head shots all night long until his body get wrecked. And it got wrecked against Foreman.

The "moment" -- if you had to point to one -- was the Foreman fight.

And, YES, I've seen it about a 100 times.

 

Up until Manilla,inclusive,he was still avoiding a lot of punches albeit not quite as many prior to the lay between 1967-70.

 

^ It's probably hard to pin the loss of his health on just one fight, but it is safe to say the more punishment he took, the more it affected his health. Certainly the Foreman and the Frazier III fights took a lot out of him, regardless of whether or not he won them. Look at Foreman today, compared to Ali.

 

This thing about Ali being a punch bag during the Foreman fight is sheer revisionism. He was clearly ahead on points by the time of the stoppage. And why ? Because he was blocking or dodging most of George's punches and scoring more clean shots than he was taking. Sure,some were getting through but not that many.

 

That's true, but I just watched the fight yesterday and he took at least 15 clean hard shots to the body. In the 3rd round he was hit with a 4 punch combination to the body at the beginning of the round and a 3-4 punch combination with about 30 seconds left in the round. That said, he did finish this round with a flurry, and did win most of the rounds. But it was a hard fight to score because it's hard to say with any degree of certainly, (accept for the one's I mentioned) as to which of Foreman's punches were landing and which were being blocked.

Considering the damage Foreman was doing to Frazier and Norton with just landing about a 1/4 of that, suggests that even though he won the fight, he paid a price.

 

Ali was ahead at the fights conclusion.

Ali Laid on the ropes vs Frazier in 71 and took a beating. In other words Ali languished on the ropes way prior to his bout with Foreman.

Can't really look at one bout as any tipping point. If you pick Foreman then what about his great all time performance vs Frazier in Manilla?

Ali became sick over time by taking too many head shots from too many hwts. No one bout was a tipping point.

 

Of course he took too many head shots from too many heavyweights.

The guy who started this thread asked a specific question. Which fight damaged Ali's health THE MOST?

I answered his question: the Foreman fight damaged his health the most. Ali's doctor said so.

Nobody was concerned about Ali's body before that. Ali was fine before that. After that fight, his doctor became concerned by the damage done to Ali's organs and Ali's performances weren't the same.

If someone is looking for ONE fight, that's the fight. Foreman tried to break him in half with those body shots. And he ended up doing irreparable harm to Ali's organs.

Whether Ali was ahead or winning on points isn't relevant.

The Manila fight is a perfect example of how different Ali was from just a year earlier against Frazier. But there were other examples before that in 1975.

He wasn't the same after Foreman. He could still fight after Foreman. He could still get on his toes for brief periods. But the Ali before Foreman and the Ali after Foreman were different. And the damage to his body was the reason.

Pacheco was less worried about the head shots Ali was taking than he was about the body shots he was taking after Foreman. Because the body was what was damaged. And the problems he was having with his organs impacted how he trained and what he was able to do.

Organ damage can cause a ton of problems. Hell, Joe Frazier was in the hospital after the first Ali fight for weeks with kidney problems.

People always focus on head shots when discussing the downfall of a fighter. Organ damage is often the cause, too.

 

And if he could, he would do it all again without hesitation.

 

It's not revisionism at all. Foreman was pounding him like he was a heavy bag. Don't try to count what head shots Foreman landed. Watch the body shots he's hammering him with.

And Pacheco was talking about Ali's damaged organs in 1975 ... not 40 years later. There's nothing revisionist about it.

Less than a year after the Foreman fight, Pacheco wanted Ali to retire because of the damage already done to his internal organs. The third Frazier fight convinced him.

Everyone focuses on Ali's head. Ali's body was the problem. That's what his doctor was most concerned about. It affected what he could and couldn't do after that.

 

And I wish people wouldn't point to the scorecards as evidence a guy wasn't hurt.

Frazier clearly won the first fight with Ali, and Frazier was never the same after that, himself.

You can win a fight clearly, and it you can still suffer damage in that fight you never fully recover from.

I think we all should know that by now.

 

Ali blocked many of those body shots. You never see Ali wince. Not once. He did wince against Frazier in 71 however from a hook to the liver. If you count the number of clean body shot Ali took against Foreman their were not many.

 

Really? Do we need to do this? We can't take his doctor at his word?

Ali wincing from a Foreman body shot.

http://www.monoilustrado.com/mono/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/oie_21201114OX2yjTSb.jpg

 

Parkinson's SYNDROME not Parkinson's. Similar but different. Most everyone will tell you no one bout did this damage. It was the accumulation of head shots over many years especially during sparring. If Ali were that damaged after his bout in 74 vs Foreman he would not have put out the level of performance to beat Frazier in 75.

 

Shavers.The punches he took to the head in that fight were BRUTAL.