How High Do You Rate Ali's Challengers, After Foreman?

Pretty good Bugner, Frazier, Norton, Young, Shavers, Lyle, isn't a bad list of fighters is it ?

 

Good post,Fergy.

Joe Frazier - a great fighter only a little past his prime.
Ken Norton - a fighter who was only a couple of bob short of greatness.
Ron Lyle - Very good fighter.
Earnie Shavers - as above.
Jimmy Young - as above.
Joe Bugner - Very good fighter on his day.
Jean-Pierre Coopman - standard soft defence that every champion has.
Chuck Wepner - as above.
Alfredo Evangelista - as above.
Richard Dunn - as above.
Leon Spinks - as above (but went pear shaped)

All in all,measures up pretty favourably to most champions' defensive resume.

 

I’d say better then Holmes not as good as Louis.

 

Ali also fought a better version of Ken Norton, I agree with @Gazelle Punch those list of opponents trump Holmes's reign IMO.

 

I was going to post something on this thread with a bunch of letters and words and it was going to be brilliant but Stevie G said it better. Good post.

 

Certainly better than Fury

 

I won't count Leon Spinks because he would be first (because he beat Muhammad Ali).
So between the fights with Foreman and Spinks:
1.Joe Frazier
2. Ken Norton
3. Jimmy Young
4. Ron Lyle
5. Earnie Shavers
6. Joe Bugner
7. Alfredo Evangelista
8. Chuck Wepner
9. Richard Dunn
10. Jean-Pierre Coopman

 

They reflected the rankings of the day, and the fights that needed to be made, but the era was slowly sliding into weakness.

 

He fought very good guys ... Bugner, Frazier, Norton, Shavers, Lyle , Young ... what always bothered me was the subpar effort Ali gave going into almost all of these bouts .. you woulds think after regaining the title after so long he'd go balls to the wall and defend it with all he had but time and again he seemed content to joke ands jive his way through bouts, often not in very good shape .. you'd be hard pressed to see a champion that seemed to take his title less serious ..

 

Dangerous imo

 

Any era where Jimmy Young could be considered one of the best HWs around would have to be.

 

I think Ali’s name is what elevated some of those names, otherwise we may never have heard of them or remembered them. Foreman himself wasn’t really a great boxer, he was big and strong and had Frazier’s number. Norton got off to a late start as a pro, and though he was a great athlete and in top condition, he wasn’t the greatest boxer. Futch deserves a lot of credit for being able to coach him to victory over Ali who was a very technically flawed fighter. Shavers, Lyle and Young were very inconsistent. Bugner and Coopman? Meh.