What Fight Was Ali’s Peak

That fight was great, Ali dancing around him with his hands down and the shoulder rolls. He never looked more relaxed. Some of it could be because of all their rounds of sparring.

 

Quarry II, Bugner performances and Norton II was about as good as I've seen him be.

Still the speed and mobility of his younger self but with the added versatility, skill, experience and size / strength of his 70s self.

His athletic peak was Folley and Williams.

 

Hi Guys.
So his peak was sadly denied us, the pre exile would have been Williams ( no surprise ) post exile I go with above and pick Norton 2, and not far behind Foreman.
Mike.

 

He peaked right before the exile. He hadn't had had many fights, but had a stellar amateur background and had already fought about a dozen ranked fighters. Folley praised his fight iq, said he fought like he had had 100 fights.

At a trim 212 he was about the same size as he was for the first two Frazier fights and the Norton rematch. And had a better muscle tone at that weight. He had no problems controlling the physically strongest fighters around at the time.

This was the best Ali we ever got to see

 

Ernie Terrell fight probably.

Cleveland Williams fight possibly but after the shooting he wasn't anywhere near the same were as Terrell was actually in his prime.

 

there was obvious improvement in his 2nd fight with cooper when compared to the first, had grown into his adult body, i think he looked near peak or at it in that one

 

Definitely but it's actually forgotten sometimes Cooper was actually competitive in that 2nd fight as well.

 

Terrell probably

 

Yep,

In Liston I, he had already shown that he could box a more orthodox style, holding ring centre, boxing off the jab and pivot.

Come Terrell and Folley he is experimenting with things in the ring that demonstrate his athletic ability and his technical mastery of fundamental principles of style and balance and speed to disrupt.

So I did an extensive study of Ali footage around 20 years ago, and I find it crazy that he's lazily labelled as having no fundamentals, lacking technique or all speed and reflex. I find it more telling about the ability to spot skill and analyse correctly when someone just repeats such lazy dogma but it's understandable.

Most historians or boxing critics have never boxed, sparred or felt the pressure that comes from being in the ring with an elite operator. They measure defence in clean, countable actions such as a parry or a slip. They will praise Pep, praise Robbi, praise Napoles, praise Locche and then make themselves look disingenuous by just saying Ali fought with his arms by his side, he moved straight back, he was all reflex, no fundamentals.

In Canzoneri's era, due to glove size and mentality, high guard, not elite slipping and making them pay for mistakes was seen as lesser skilled than fighters who were able to keep hands low, draw punches that they slipped and then countered brutally.

Pep used his feet, pivots, dancing, throwing punches on the half beat, rhythm disruption, positional awareness and excellent radar. Yes, he raises his hands, but his defensive structure is primarily predicated on drawing reaction, preempting reaction and not being there when the punch is delivered but being able to counter immediately.

Ali does exactly that in prime when back touches the ropes, he either invites the shot, reads posture and rhythm to preempt the punch, duck weave and angles out in similar fashion to Pep, or he chooses when to engage the fighter up close, clinch and manoeuvre them to a position where he feels safe. Ali uses foot and head and eye fakes like a hybrid of what Robbi and Napoles used to do, but towards end of first career, he's slipping without moving his feet. He's throwing punches from below the eyeline, often using the retreat of a jab to hide his own right hand over the shoulder.

Much like Roy and Floyd, he reads the chest and shoulder twitch and throws his punch first - what is often a right hand lead is an actual preemptive right hand counter, catching his man stepping forward and off balace. Much like Pep and Napoles, Ali's distance negotiation gets fighters to commit and either overcommit or fall short and he punishes them. The more that this happens the more tentative fighters become - you can see Terrell hesitate to commit in there. Similarly, much like Robinson, he uses his circling footwork to establish jab patterns that he plays with and adjusts to lull his man into predictable responses/counters that he then takes advantage of.

What I find interesting is where Pep might get praised for making fighters miss and not always having hands by his ears, Robbi is praised for whipping in shots from unorthodox angles or foot positions, forcing momentum and power that stops fighters in their tracks, when Ali does it (not necessarily with the same effect, but the same intention and ring IQ), he is critiqued for not having technique. This is intellectually dishonest and I think in part it is borne out of the old belief that cos it's HW and the damage is brutal, you have to be safe so economy is celebrated whereas deviation is demonised.

I learned very early boxing my dad that a huge part of fighting is about psychology. Ali's defensive and offensive style showcased something that old time purists still don't understand. You can be different and effective - this doesn't mean you lack skill or technique, just means you don't stick to the textbook.

Ali was not a technician in the pure sense of the term, but he was an elitely skilled HW fighter who demonstrated skillset from earlier eras, in a frame that commentary suggests should stick to a purer more orthodox approach. What is often missed is that what many label reflex is actually highly developed, through hours of repetition, skill. It's just IMO that many critics cannot appreciate the skill in goading a fighter to attempt punches that you predict and have a framework for avoiding and punishing when it doesn't look like a Joe Louis boxing clean and textbook.

Terrell was psychological warfare, Folley was sophisticated and subtle defence and counters, using an opponent's offence against them.

You will struggle to find many ATG HWs who can change styles/how they engage according to the opponent like Ali did and still look like them as opposed to trying to fight like another fighter. Ali had a weird way of dictating how a fight might look, bending styles and patterns according to what he felt was necessary to win.

Would love to see what an uninterrupted 1968 - 1970 version of him would produce with his experimentation of footwork, angles and creation of counter opportunities.

 

Probably the Terrell and Folley fights of 1967. He was a fully matured 25 years of age with the experience of several title defenses under his belt minus the layoff

 

Great post. Very much agree.

 

When I watch cooper against Ali it’s somewhat amazing how Henry was able to keep up with young Ali in the beginning. Henry was fast

 

He made a good account of himself both times. Ali was doing to much damage to his face though.

 

Just one day I wish we didn't have posts glazing Ali for the thousandth time.........