The most underrated thing about Ali

I would rephrase that.

I feel that his most underrated attribute was his finishing ability.

A fighters KO% usually falls off dramatically, when a high percentage of their fights are against elite opposition.

The exceptions generally prove the rule.

Given that Ali fought more ranked contenders than any other champion in history, we would certainly expect his KO% to have suffered as a result.

 

Mental toughness, ability to take a body shot and ring smarts. He could also throw punches on balance and land going backward. Well that's 4, not one thing.

 

Will to win. Ali had The Uncanny ability to know what had to be done,and to push through seemingly beyond what was possible to win.

 

His power was certainly underrated. I think it might have been Ken Norton who said that hitting Ali was like punching cement. Sugar Ray Leonard will similar and that you thought of them as being these flashy boxer butterfly types when at the heart they are just bad dudes.

 

Ali suffered from painful hands a lot of the time after his comeback so wouldnt look to 'Trade' like most fighters Evade and counter was more his game

However it is a treasured memory how for one of the few times in Ali's career intead of leaning back from a shot, he stepped inside and landed a big left hook of course i am talking about the Bonavena Hook, Even the granite chined Oscar had everything taken out of him by that shot, Ali just had to do the Mop up after that , Many people left the Garden before the end thinking the fight would limp on to points, They missed one of the Classic Ali 'Rabbit out of the Hat' Rounds' !

One of Alis underappreciated skills was Space Perception he seemede to know what an opponent was capable of from a distance and Angle

 

Ali had 25 KOs in 31 fights the first time he fought Frazier. Consider 3 of the six that went the distance were Ernie Terell, stopped one other time in his last fight, Chuvalo, snm and Doug Jones who was only stopped by Chuvalo before his last 2 fights (one of these being Frazier) and he faced handful of solid opponents throughout his career.

 

Saw the tread title and though the same thing.

Hi power was incredible, just far from his best asset.

 

Don't disagree with the premise, but the thing that gets overlooked in a lot of mythical matchups is his mind games and ability to get inside an opponent's head.

Unless they possessed a great deal of mental toughness, Ali opponents were overmatched before the first bell. They got caught up in his spotlight, in the bigger-than-life aura that his fights took on.

That doesn't show up on YouTube. Watching some fights on film and making mythical matchups doesn't factor in the psy ops Ali would run on someone.

 

Agree. His toughness (mental and physical) and ring smarts were the first things that I thought about.

 

His selfish, megalomaniacal personality.

 

His strength is also very very under rated. What a strong guy and he could tie up anybody when he choose to. Going into bouts, the other guy would be deemed the stronger guy and it was really way off base.

 

Pretty much nailed it there Janitor, Ali's finishing ability sometimes gets overlooked.
In a way that can also bolster Joe Fraziers ability to absorb punishment as those last 2 rounds in Manilla testify.
I doubt many could have taken those shots and remained upright as when Ali tagged you like that late in a fight, you were normally gone.

 

His humility

 

I agree.

I don't think Ali's power was all that, but his ATG precision and timing along with his supreme boxing brain made him a great finisher.