Jack Johnson vs Muhammad Ali, 1910

:tired The Ali hype is unreal sometimes. atsch

 

That's the point of this thread, a 45 round fight requires a different approach. Ali can dance, jab, throw combos, etc at a furious pace, no doubt. He can gamble on knocking out an all time great defensive fighter early, that's his prerogative. Two things though. One, its a tall order to take out Johnson early. It took the giant Jess Willard 26 rounds to KO a 37 year old Johnson. Two, if Ali is unsuccessful in knocking out Johnson, Ali will have done the equivalent of rope-a-doping himself. Exhausted, he'll be at Johnson's mercy for this is where Johnson becomes deadly.

 

Muhammad Ali was oft accused of taking Thyroid hormones to speed up his metabolism, giving himself an edge in speed and endurance by taking performance enhancing drugs. In a New York Times interview( https://www.nytimes.com/books/98/10/25/specials/ali-39.htmlin ) in 1981 Ali says "I took too many thyroid pills. Always used to double up on my vitamins. Bad idea with thyroid pills. Started training at 253, went down to 217 for the fight. Too much. People saying, 'Oooh, isn't he pretty?' " Ali admits to this even though he had not been clinically diagnosed with hypothyroidism. Angelo Dundee admits to this in his book as well, as I recall. Quoting the 1981 Times story, "In a rare move for any boxing match, the promoters of the Ali-Berbick fight released a medical report issued Dec. 1, 1980, by Dr. Dennis W. Cope, Division of Endocrinology, U.C.L.A. Medical Center. Ali had gone to the center after claiming he had become dehydrated from taking too many thyroid pills for the Holmes fight. Some people had suggested Ali had been taking pills to cut down on his weight"
There is little doubt that Ali took performance enhancing drugs, it's just a matter of when he began taking them. If he faces Johnson while on Thyular for a marathon fight, the crash alone would be catastrophic. Ali was good, but he wasn't super human. At times, he apparently wasn't even legit.

 

Personally, I think Ali attempted to extend his reign by taking thyroid pills. Point is, he wasn't the superman some make him out to be. Some posters seem to believe he could dance circles around an ATG for 45 rounds if need be and that's ridiculous. And please don't act like performance enhancing drug use doesn't matter. It always matters to those who believe in integrity in sports.

 

I agree with that. I think early in his career he was probably legit, but we can never know for sure. That's the shame of it.

We also will never know how great Jack Johnson really was because of the times he lived in. He literally carried fighters into later rounds and clowned in the ring so as not to badly embarrass white fighters. Joe Choynski said to JJ after private sparring, "A man who can move like you should never have to take a punch."I think Johnson was better than he was allowed to demonstrate to the general public.