When commenting on how looked against Quarry in 1970, one shouldn't forget that he was badly tired after three rounds. His conditioning was still way off.
I'm not dismissing your arguement Son of Gaul. It's just that the'67 Ali would have done more effective speed work than he did in '71. Which what picked up points for him against Frazier. Even in 1971 Ali still pushed Joe to the very limits of his being.
The first thing you lose as a boxer is your stamina, your ability to keep the same level or movement and same level of workrate into the later rounds. This was a key problem against Frazier, he didnt have the same engine to keep his pace going for the full 15, because he was kicking the **** out of Frazier early. I also think he may have fought the wrong fight by trying to KO Frazier and running out of steam, maybe he didnt know he just didnt have the same gas in the tank Ali also seems to have visably lost footspeed/reactions
All those left hooks he was taking, esp. in the body, didn't help. I thought Frazier was doing pretty good in the early rounds. You can hear his punches land.
Yea Ali never fought anyone with the intensity of Frazier in his first career and his body took a beating, still would have done better as a younger man
Louis was probably closer to his prime (at his peak in fact) in the rematch, but Max was some way past his by then. If you also weigh in the extremely hostile enviroment he faced it could easily be argued that the first fight was the most evenly matched concerning how near their respective best version both were. In the case of Ali-Frazier it's very hard to make a really convincing argument that Frazier was further removed from his prime in any of the fights, since he was younger and Ali had lost a bit to the exile. Sure, we can go all the way about Frazier's medical condition and Foreman bouncing him around, but also about how FOTC was only some 90 days after Ali's bruising fight with Bonavena and only six months after his comeback - and yada yada. Or we can just state the plainly obvious: that the older man won two out of three and recorded the only stoppage between them.