How did Ali defend himself from liver punches vs Foreman?

He didn't have to defend his liver.. Ali's liver was made of steel!!

 

Ali was very tough and his ability to take punches and recover quickly was unparalleled.
He was in great condition for the Foreman fight.
Seems like a body shot has to be near perfect to take out an elite fighter.

 

The only fight where Muhammad Ali did get caught with a good Liver shot was his fight against Karl Mildenberger on Sept 10 1966, but Ali stopped Karl in the 12th round.

 

A mixture of at least two things, I would guess. First, Ali was catching a lot on his arms. Second, Foreman was most likely throwing punches "to the body " instead of targeting vulnerable areas.

 

This.

I think Ali might have taken a page form the Frazier FOTC method. Ali let himself get COMPLETELY indignant and mean and vicious at the idea Foreman was anything but a white man's champ, an amateur who got super lucky twice due to his opponents underestimating him as a robot-clown, and was OUTRAGED at the idea Foreman was anywhere near the "new Liston". Watch the contempt he has in his eyes for Foreman pre-fight and during! No respect, no regard whatsoever.

Read his comments in the Mailer and Plimpton books for even more enlightenment as to the extent of his hateful lack of regard of George. This became a life or death struggle for him...no way was Foreman up to that. Nobody except that one night Frazier FOTC, Louis, Holy, or Holmes could have been imo.

No, he wasn't Superman, but in the world of sports he was. He took horrible shots to the head, it's indubitable he did to the liver as well. He wasn't going to stop. No.

 

Don't remember Foreman hitting Ali with shots that Ali didn't see coming. A lot of the time Ali was able to move enough to take some of the power off, or hit/touch Foreman's arm/body and take some power off the punch. Usually when a liver shot drops/stops a fighter it is part of a combination and the fighter doesn't have time to brace for it or to take some of the steam off. Foreman was throwing hard punches with his body tense, Ali had time to react to almost all of them.

 

Ali took a lot of punishment in that fight, I can’t even imagine what his head and body felt like days after

 

Even with all the head slipping, blocking, parrying, leaning into the ropes to minimize the force of the blows, and rolling with punches he took some insane punishment from possibly the most heavy handed man in boxing. It probably felt like he got jumped by a gang armed with rubber mallets and beaten all over. Most likely internal bleeding and severe head aches for days, barely able to raise his arms to eat. And that's only the immediate side effects, the long term result is probably that his condition rapidly accelerated for the worst.

 

Exactly why I think his ban from boxing was a blessing in disguise, most likely avoided a ton of head trauma

 

Pretty much this - Ali had reflex and skills to adjust and minimalize power just before a punch landing. You still need a lot of durablility to sustain that, but it's not the only reason why Ali did so well.

Another thing is that Foreman didn't vary his punches well in that fight - he went to the body blindly but he didn't attack vulnerable spots. I'm sure that Ali wouldn't do nearly as well if he exposed his body that much against someone like Joe Louis or Bob Fitzsimmons who knew how to attack the body (he probably wouldn't even try that strategy against them, but that's beyond my point). It's even visible in Norton fights when Ken went to the body a lot of times and he hurt Ali with some body punches, despite not having the same power as Big George.

 

No-one took it to the body like Ali.

 

This. Almost none of Foreman’s shots were landing clean and hitting a vulnerable part of the body when your opponent can see the punches coming is harder than it looks, which why guys usually sneak shots into the body.