How the hell did Henry Cooper nearly stop Ali?

Good post just interject after Ali rose to his feet, received illegal smelling salts, destroyed Cooper and did it again in a rematch.
Not trying to Hate on Ali but his corner clearly violated the rules to assist their fighter during a very calamitous moment.

 

I didn't realize that. But regardless this fight shouldn't be used as any sort of measuring to evaluate Ali's flaws or abilities. He was a developing fighter still a few years away from his peak and bested cooper convincingly on two occasions. Sometimes guys get decked or look lack luster for a brief moment when they are green and facing a cagey veteran. Larry Holmes was floored by Kevin Isaac in his prospect days.

 

No doubt. I don't think the thread was intended to put Ali down though, pardon the expression. I got the impression it was more about Cooper than Ali.

 

Precisely. And Henry's left hook was quite formidable.

 

Well like many I think you're underestimating Ali's performance against Liston.
An even fight? It looked to me that Ali was schooling him Liston hardly laid a glove on him even when Ali was blinded in the 5th.
I think that win was legitimate,the 2nd fight for whatever reason Sonny lay down.

 

Looking at some of alis fights closer is always a hard time...just like his mildenberger fight,despite the scorecards,Mildenberger won the first 4 rounds and about 2 more before getting TKo'd..it was fairly even before the stoppage.Watching many fights of his without the volume oin,it becomes a total different perspective of what punches are actually landing and missing.

 

Punch lands perfectly on chin, punch scrambles mans senses....

 

True.

 

he wasn't badly hurt, if he can walk normally back.

 

This thread is silly

How did Rahman and Mccall knock out/stop Lewis?

Just because another boxer is superior to another it does not mean that a well timed punch cant knock down the superior boxer especially at heavyweight level.

 

That's how much you know about boxing, bet closest you've come to having a fight is with your mother whilst snatching the TV remote off each other...

You can certainly be badly shaken and appear to walk normal, I can recall Ali stating he can't remember anything after the 2nd round against Shavers, the punch he took rattled his senses that bad.

 

Rhaman is 240 pounds of muscle..McCall has seen hundreds of rounds as a prime Tyson sparring partner...cooper is 180 pounds of bone with average skills but a left hook.

Boxing 101

 

Yet some behemoths couldn't punch there way out of a wet paper bag....

 

Rhaman and McCall were k.o punchers.

 

Yeah, it's what's called fighting on instinct.
When George Groves put Froch down in the first round in their first fight, Froch fought back and for several rounds was fighting on instinct. In the interview afterwards he said that he wasn't knocked down...he didn't even know that he had been.
For several round he fought in basically a semi-conscious state; aware but not fully with it.
That's what I mean with Ali. He was down, hurt, but somewhere deep inside the recesses of his mind an instinct told him to get up and he did.
I don't doubt that he was only half-conscious at that point.
You can also see between rounds where he sat there almost motionlesss and then springs up for no apparent reason.
He was okay by the time the bell went but he was hurt badly by that left, no doubt in my mind about it.