Is there anyone who could school 67 Ali?

"Don't know what people you're talking about"

It's a common critique that Wilder is bailed out by his KD/KO power after getting schooled in the pointfighting. I'm sure you've heard it once or twice.

I see Mildenberger ranked as the 5th best HW in 1965 and the 6th best in 1966, though perhaps he was higher ranked than that when they fought.

Bellew was draining himself to make LHW, you see some UFC fighters cutting as much as 35 lbs to gain an advantage. Bellew was 210-214 lbs up at heavyweight against Haye in the two fights prior, so post-rehydration he would have been approaching those figures. Mildenberger was about 15 lbs lighter, 1.5 inches shorter, with an inch less reach than the Bellew Usyk fought.

Usyk was making Bellew work hard for very little success, before turning up the heat from round 4 on and sparking Bellew in 8. The fight was shorter because Usyk was more tactically dominant, while getting hit less.

Getting hit a lot is evidence that you're not in control of the fight, that you don't have the skill, the size or the athleticism to avoid the punches. Ali was huge and very fast for the 60's, so he must have been (relatively) unskilled. Taking more punches (Ali took 236% more vs Mildenberger) risks getting knocked down or KO'd (Banks, Cooper) and adds to wear. Ali wasn't a face-first slugger, so if he was all he's cracked up to be ability-wise he shouldn't have been getting hit so much against a southpaw Euro champ with Mildenberger's pedigree and attributes.

 

Haha
Not a chance. He’d be missing all night while Ali lands at will with whipping shots. Could even stop Joyce on bad cuts.

 

Bellew was bigger, yes, but say he had ca 5 per cent more body fat, which seems reasonable to me. That's 10 lbs, which make the difference in lean weight slim. Mildenberger was 205 lbs in his very next fight after Ali. It's unlikely that's because he put on lean mass, just a bit of fat.

Usyk was being hit by clean right hands and losing rounds. Ali was perhaps getting hit more, but not as clean. In the end he lost fewer rounds. That's because your compubox doesn't decide fights. Clean punching usually does.

 

I've always felt Jacobs, not Rooney was the most instrumental to Mike's success.

 

"Ali was perhaps getting hit more"

Usyk absorbed 61 punches over 8 (7 per round), Ali absorbed 144 over 12 (12.5 per round)

"perhaps"...

I like Compubox numbers because (I assume) they are fairly impartial. I doubt an American organisation is going to go out of its way to make Ali look bad in any case. To my eye Ali got hit with far more flush shots than Usyk and exhibited a very poor defence for a man with such large height, reach, weight and speed advantages over a light punching, suspect-chinned, moderately credentialled Euro champ from 50-60 years ago, with all of the disadvantages which athletes from that time period had.

I'm not an expert on the relative body fat % of 6'1.5 195 lbs Mildenberger and 6'3 rehydrated modern cruiser Bellew, or if it even matters. Mildenberger was fighting in the 190's in the prior 19 fights where his weight was listed and he very probably let himself go after being stopped in his first and only world title fight. And Bellew believed that his ideal weight was 210-214 lbs vs explosive puncher Haye, not 195 lbs as Mildenberger did vs Ali.

Taking Usyk and Ali out of it, Usyk-Bellew and Ali-Mildenberger can be compared to Wilder-Ortiz 2 and Parker-Chisora 2:

In Wilder-Ortiz 2 Wilder lost most of the rounds (more than Usyk) but barely got hit and KO'd Ortiz in 7. Ortiz was having to work harder than Wilder, who was minimising risk and damage taken, while encouraging Ortiz to persist with the pointfighting strategy. This led to Ortiz getting KO'd in the mid rounds, as Bellew was vs Usyk.

In Parker-Chisora 2 Chisora's chin failed him (unlike fight 1), getting dropped x3. So on most scorecards he lost wide. But this obscures the fact that the boxing itself was competitive: he won 4 rounds and perhaps he would have won more if he'd not been knocked down in those 3 other rounds. So a hypothetical Chisora with a stronger chin (Chisora from fight 1 for example) may well have won the fight. Parker also got hit by Chisora about 4x as much as Wilder did from Ortiz, which means more risk and more wear, which ended up costing Ali badly as he got older.

So who was more dominant, Wilder or Parker? In my opinion it was Wilder, easily. And the same goes for Usyk vis a vis Ali. I also wouldn't be surprised if Usyk didn't want to look too good against Bellew and deliberately started slowly so as not to scare Hearn/Joshua. This isn't to say that Usyk wasn't trying his best to win but he probably reasoned that he could beat Bellew easily with either a fast or slow start, so why not choose the less threatening option? That which makes you easier to underestimate and harder to plan for? In any case Usyk ended up stopping Bellew faster than any of his other notable cruiser opponents and got the Joshua fight.

 

I don't know about school but Tyson Fury is all wrong for him. Especially the one that fought Klitschko with the legs

 

Bellew had nothing to do with Usyk getting any Joshua fight. Usyk actually fought Joshua 3 years later after not one but two Heavyweight tune up fights. Your timeline is years out.

Maybe Ali took it easy against Mildenberger, maybe he didn't overly care about Mildenbergers punches, so many maybe's but they only seem to be going one way.

 

Bellew was Usyk's first pro fight in Britain, Usyk was moving up to heavyweight next and was going to be Joshua's mandatory via the WBO. Usyk was calling out Joshua, Bellew was talking about a potential Usyk-Joshua fight, everyone knew the score. So Usyk "not looking too great" against Bellew in front of Bellew's promoter Hearn by starting slowly would have been a great way of increasing his chances of getting the Joshua fight. It's not like it stopped Usyk from getting Bellew out of there faster than any of his other notable cruiser opponents and even two of the non-notable ones, while getting hit very little.

https://www.skysports.com/boxing/ne...st-go-through-him-to-get-anthony-joshua-fight

I believe that Ali cared and he should have cared. He paid for his sloppy defence with KD's suffered (Banks, Cooper, Frazier), steep decline later in his career and much worse health.

 

The fact is they didn't fight for 3 years. I think it's drawing an incredibly low bow to claim Usyk may have started slow so as not to scare off the 6′ 6″ 240+ pound Anthony Joshua. As a matter of fact the better Usyk performs the more the public would clamor the match as Usyk had to prove he could cut it with the big boys and dogging the early rounds against a cruiserweight sure wasn't going to light that fire.

Mildenberger won 2, 1 and 3 rounds on the cards which were scored on a "round" basis. He was up and down like a yoyo. Ali was a whopping favorite and was hardly a guy to get inspire when massively favored.

 

Usyk was going to get the fight anyway sooner or later as he was mandatory, provided Joshua didn't vacate. The more dominant Usyk looked in front of Bellew's promoter the more likely it was that he would be avoided. Joshua's size is irrelevant here, look at how protected he was by that bodyguard referee against a relatively unthreatening Parker. They clearly lacked confidence in his chin, stamina and defensive skills even at that point. If Usyk was having problems with Bellew then why did Bellew land so few punches and why was he sparked in 8 rounds, while early nondescript Usyk opponents went deeper into the fight? Bellew was under control all of the way but the reactive British commentators (such as Haye) were fooled and wanted to hype Bellew's performance up for their own reasons.

It wasn't just to avoid scaring Joshua off: starting slow can give you a tactical advantage if you start fast in another fight due to the element of surprise. Look at Joshua's facial expressions getting off his stool going into the 5th round, he was frazzled. He never expected Usyk to race out of the blocks, no doubt his trainers didn't either going by the Bellew and Chisora fights. Based on those, Joshua was a dead cert to sweep 2, 3 or 4 of the first 4 rounds (setting up the hometown decision if need be), not lose all of them. Usyk is a very cerebral man (especially for a boxer), no doubt with a smart team behind him.

Ali was a big favourite against many opponents he dominated during the same period. He struggled with Mildenberger (who many recognised as giving him his toughest fight prior to Frazier 1) primarily because of Mildenberger's southpaw stance. Two of the judges had Milde winning 3 rounds with 1 even of the rounds where no KD's were scored to Ali's 4 (you can be winning a round with a second to go, get knocked down and then be at a 3 point deficit relative to where you were in an instant due to punch resistance deficiencies, which doesn't represent the competitiveness of the boxing; Ortiz fell victim to this against Wilder 1 and Ruiz, who he generally outboxed but was down on the cards against). A hypothetical H2H matchup against an iron-chinned Mildenberger is a much more difficult fight for 25-0 66' Ali, let alone a southpaw levels above like Usyk.

 

You are picking out what you see as a sub par performance, putting all your eggs in one basket (that it was the southpaw stance) and running with it. You are then juxtaposing Usyk into Mildenberger's shoes (on that night) and running with that as well.

We can do it to boxers throughout history. Holmes had to struggle with Mike Weaver and went thru hell to turn back his challenge. We can throw someone better than Weaver (with stylistic similarities) in there but it doesn't guarantee their success. Louis' first fight with Conn has been built into legend by his detractors as they pick every slick boxer and their pet cat against him based on this one night. Tyson turns up in bad shape and gets hammered by Buster Douglas so to some this makes certain guys no brainers over him. The examples are endless.

Mildenberger, sure we can take some hope from that fight for Usyk but for me nowhere near as much as you are. To each their own but you will be in the minority. To openly claim Usyk would school ali and win every minute of every round and possibly stop him will see you as a laughing stock in here for the massive majority. That's not an attack it's an observation. You will make a mighty friend in White Bomber however.

 

Ali fought one quality southpaw in his career in Mildenberger and had one of the toughest fights of his career. This is a consistent pattern, even for modern fighters who are relatively experienced against southpaws:

https://www.boxingforum24.com/threa...gainst-top-heavyweights.700438/#post-22204672

I don't regard it as a coincidence and neither did Ali:

"I know the name Karl Mildenberger might not strike fear in to many men’s hearts but he was a rough one for me to figure.

I fought him in Germany in 1966. He was a southpaw and I had a lot of trouble getting untracked against his style. He could box pretty well and whacked me with a few good punches. I didn’t get him until the 12th round in what everyone figured would be an easy fight."

"Questioned in 1973, Ali said that Mildenberger, not Joe Frazier, was his most difficult opponent to date."

https://boxrec.com/wiki/index.php/Muhammad_Ali_vs._Karl_Mildenberger

https://www.boxingforum24.com/threa...uld-school-67-ali.700841/page-2#post-22226974

Provided people are made aware of the facts I don't think anyone would take Ali over Usyk if there was a literal gun to their head. It's easy to say "They couldn't land a punch on prime Ali!", vote for him in a poll and argue with me. But realistically we all know there's a very good chance that he wouldn't win a round against Usyk, who in every measurable respect is levels above Mildenberger, with absurd modern advantages like having already studied Ali extensively, having fought and sparred many imitators of his style, having an obscure modern style of his own and access to far more advanced PED's. And that's ok, it doesn't diminish Ali's greatness because no athlete from 50-60 years ago can be expected to even be competitive with the best today.

 

Do you really truly believe Ali saying he was more difficult than Joe Frazier? He had Mildenberger up and down like a yoyo and lost bugger all rounds so i don't think many are going to accept this, if any besides yourself.

At any rate a great many believe the best ever version of Ali was right as he went into exile and at this stage he would have experienced Mildenberger and his southpaw style.

I really don't think you are remotely in touch with what people would do with a gun to their head over these two H2H. Also your so called "facts" are probably, make that definitely not what you think they are.

Again claiming Ali wouldn't win a round vs Usyk is just crazy talk and you also believe he wouldn't win a single minute of any round.

I'll leave things at this point.

 

"Do you really truly believe Ali saying he was more difficult than Joe Frazier?"

I don't but it's interesting that he mentioned Mildenberger and not someone else, there were plenty of candidates. It shows that he truly regarded it as one of his very hardest and most competitive fights.

"up and down like a yoyo and lost bugger all rounds"

Ali lost 3 rounds with 1 even and only won 4 non-KD rounds himself according to two of the judges, taking 12 to stop Milde. And aside from that he only outlanded Milde 154-144 according to Compubox, so I'm not surprised he regarded it as being so tough. Had Mildenber had a solid chin (let alone being levels above as Usyk is) then it stands to reason that Ali would have had a considerably tougher fight still.

Obviously this is purely hypothetical but if Ken Norton had been a southpaw and started boxing at 10 or 15 rather than 20+, he would have also been favoured to school any version of Ali.

"At this stage he would have experienced the southpaw stance"

One fight yes, it's better than nothing. But modern fighters have often fought half a dozen or so southpaws as pros and sparred many more and still have huge problems, as the stats show. So I don't think it would make much difference.

"Again claiming Ali wouldn't win a round vs Usyk is just crazy talk"

I'll put it like this: he'd win as many rounds as Usyk allowed him to.

 

Are you suggesting the judges should have awarded the rounds where Ali knocked down Mildenberger to Mildenberger?

What part of your hypothetical that if Ken Norton fought southpaw instead of out an orthodox stance he's no longer Ken Norton?