he was a real good and brave fighter. do you know if he always cut badly or if it was something that came about during his career due to accumulation of scar tissue?
Yes, I think Cooper showed in that one that he was a tricky-match-up for Ali with his speedy aggressivenes and left hook. Ali didn't take the kind of stupid punches he took in the first, though.
Terrific analysis, as previosuly said. Many seem to ignore that there was a method to Ali using a low guard to draw out punches he could counter. And also that he could be more responsible when called for. The 6th round in the first Liston fight is a good example of that. Ali meets Liston mid ring and has a much better guard because standing right in front of Liston, even a tiring one, was much different from moving away from him. But many still sound like Ali couldn't adapt to such realities.
66/67 were his peak years. Unfortunately there weren't any ATG fighters during that time. Euro-stiffs and washed up contenders which made him look all the more better.
Slightly against the grain here, but I think the 1st Patterson fight might have been his peak in '65. He toyed with Patterson like he was a child. And he looked so smooth in Liston 2 in '65 but it ended too early to say it was him at his best. And of course Williams in '66.
Mac Foster fight is an underrated performance and the Foreman to this day is woefully misinterpreted.
Being able to tighten up occasionally isn’t the same as having sound defensive fundamentals. Ali’s default style still had holes, and those holes showed up once his speed faded.
Shut up you clown. Nobody made you enter an Ali thread. And as if you could understand any of what Meta wrote. Get real. That’s way, way out of your league. Painfully so. Very ironic though, seeing as though you always ask people for a breakdown. Go and find yourself something less challenging. Go and have a look on BoxRec. Go and get those stats in.
As I said, doesn't have the ability to spot the skill and recognise that it's from the same wheelhouse as other greats. Different expression but the outcome and intentions are one and the same.
I don’t disagree that Ali’s skills come from the same technical lineage as other greats. Where our approaches are different is that I don’t think acknowledging that requires treating every weakness as intentional or inconsequential. Great fighters can share a wheelhouse and still have exploitable flaws.