Were Ali's health problems a direct result of boxing?

Toney got hit loads. If you take his career as a whole and not just a few highlight videos where he did something flashy it becomes clear he was no defensive wizard.
Bowe got hit loads .
Holyfield was perhaps luckly, but people probably overestimate how much he got hit. I doubt he was hit more than Toney, or Ali, or even Bowe.

 

I'm sure getting punched in the head hundreds of times by people like Sonny Liston, Joe Frazier, Ken Norton, George Foreman, Ron Lyle, Ernie Shavers, and Larry Holmes is perfectly harmless.

 

Oh yeah, I absolutely believe boxing was the reason. He fought for years and took enough punches to qualify for damage.

I’m just trying to explore why it happened to him so early in light of having less beatings and why it may have developed into Parkinson’s rather than regular pugilistic dementia.

 

Ye I know what you meant, I just wanted to say that if Holyfield's there then so should Lewis. Holyfield (being a brawler) definitely took more punches that Ali, Louis or Lewis

 

I heard a doctor say that Ali had boxing-induced Parkinson's Disease. Ali daughter also attributed his condition to boxing.

 

Might be loads of ex fighters with the same symptoms as Ali but they are just not famous or well known enough for us to hear about it.

 

I promise you that if you hang around fighters more often and see them at the end of their career you’d see there were plenty of fighters and still are with similar symptoms to Ali, but even worse off. Heck fighter that fought before Ali was even born had similar symptoms. The media only made a big deal about Ali because he was Muhammad Ali. You’d be surprised how common it is for fighters to deteriorate like Ali did, but you can believe whatever you want to believers.

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One fight that is very likely to have contributed is the third fight with Frazer:
1. Observe Ali's tendency to square up and clipped in the upper neck and behind the ear by Frazier's left hook. It happens endlessly and is the specific type of insult that would cause damage to the cerebellum
2. Consider that fight took place in ridiculously hot weather over 14 rounds. Dehydration would worsen the damage.

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Also, consider that sloppy kind of defense was a pattern for Ali in the 70s and not isolated to the Frazier fight. He was doing the same thing in sparring.

Then there's Michael J Fox who got Parkinson's at a young age despite no trauma....