How would you rate Ali's punching power?

6.5 out of 10. Better than average. I think Holyfield hit a little harder.

 

I think Holyfield hit considerably harder.

Ali could not punch.

 

About a 7/10.

When he sat down on his punches he could hurt you, but he wasn't going to take you out with one shot (the Liston "knock out" being an exception). His straight right stunned a lot of people and took Foreman out.

 

He may not have been a one punch ko artist,but he hit solidly enough.

 

Holyfield's power was under-rated because of the shadow of Tyson. He wasn't a massive puncher, but he hit hard enough to hurt durable giants like Bowe and Foreman, layed out Douglas with a single shot, put many down with simple combinations and knocked Tyson into the middle of next week (more so than Lewis). Definitely above average, 7/10.

Ali stopped many because of his skills and because of the class gulf. His power was average at best, due to a sloppy punching style and technical ignorance. 4-5/10

 

About sums it up for me.

 

Yeah, so sloppy and technically deficient that Archie Moore says that he shows "fantastic skill and great punching power" in the live commentary between round 2 and 2 in FOTC.

For me it's clear to see that Ali delivered punches with leverage and good power once he sat down on them. It's there on film and it's there on the record. Not complicated at all.

 

And Tarver said in the live commentary to Ward vs. Green that Ward was better than a prime Roy Jones. Is that one true as well?

I hate it when people say stuff like that. So one fighter happened to make an off-hand comment about something once. Why should that make it true? We all know the amount of bull**** and myths that float around the sport.

This is a discussion board. If you don't have more to justify your posts than "X once said so", then you shouldn't be on here.

No, he didn't. Ali threw mostly arm punches, did not transfer his weight and did not use his legs to push through the punch to generate momentum (the rudiments of punching). In fact, he regularly leant in before throwing a shot to actually minimise the amount of weight behind it, sacrificing power for speed (esp. with the right hand). That's the very opposite of getting leverage.

Anybody can get knockouts. It doesn't mean you have power. Ali was great for other reasons.

 

Well, there's others like Marciano and Folley testifying to Ali's skill. But more importantly anyone watching FOTC can see that Archie is simply stating the truth. Also the comment wasn't more "off-hand" than that he repeated it in a later showing of the fight.

The big mistake the ones critizing Ali's technique does is to forget that he did both. Calzaghe is in that way a later, even more extreme, example. In many fights they use slapping punches because it gives the advantages of speed and great output without being very tiring.

One of Ali's ugliest perfomances, the one against Jones, is a good case in point here. Once Ali got countered repeatedly by the slick and clever Jones he reverted to using his physical superiorty and burying Jones in an avalanche of light punchers. It wasn't pretty, but it worked - no too dissimilar to Clazaghe-Hopkins in that way.

But that doesn't mean that the other option isn't there. Look at the fight against Banks to see Ali/Clay shift gears in the opposite direction after he gets floored. And almost always when he was up against a really tough opponent he was very focused in his punching. That's why you don't see him throwing many sloppy punches against Liston, Foreman or in the first and third fight against Frazier.

So then it would be little trouble to name a couple of other fighters without any power or technique that has the kind of KO's and stoppages Ali has, I guess?

 

[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9TZyfT_zU7A[/ame]

If there were plenty of fighters of Ali's class who had fought his opposition, most of them would have more stoppages than him.

Like I said, his KO record is a reflection of his ability on the whole, not his ability as a puncher. He was so good that he could hit a guy with what he wanted when he wanted, or outclass a guy into exhaustion. Hence stoppages. That doesn't mean he had power.

 

Never said he showed great punching against Jones, just that high volume of slapping punches did its job in that fight.

As I said, if you look at his big fights (Liston, Frazier, Foreman) you won't see slapping punches. Likewise when he started out with intent against an opponent like Cleveland Williams, who he knew didn't belong in the same ring with him.

That's funny. That must mean that Ali was in a class of his own at HW. Because his stoppage percentage is very good and he is widely considered to have faced the best opposition of any HW.

Why then does a guy like Calzaghe not even as remotely as good a KO record, against inferior opposition?

 

Prime, 60's Ali had the most lethal punch, the one his opponent didn't see coming.

 

You said that Ali started off punching with the right technique but had to shift to slapping for strategic reasons.

Williams was the exception rather than the rule, though even then he wasn't punching particularly hard. Compare how Liston dealt with a much less damaged version of Williams.

He was. Frazier wasn't too far off, but in a class of his own still. For me:

Ali






Louis




The rest.

Calzaghe has a higher KO% than Ali.

That came against lesser opposition obviously, but then Calzaghe was a lesser fighter, so it's unsurprising.

 

Obviously hadn't watched the fight for a while. Ali was staggered without hardly having a thrown a punch previously.

I think those were very hard punches. As did those who watched it at the time.

But he didn't punch as hard as Liston. No one has claimed that.

Very slightly higher KO% against much worse opposition. Crucially he has no stoppages against "un-stoppable" opposition. Ali had two and several against other very, very hardstopped opposition. Other great fighters with little power like Whitaker and Pep doesn't have as far as I know. In fact, no other fighter without power or technique has.

I think Ali was special, but not that unique. Guys like Bonavena, Foreman and Lyle was stopped by hard accurate punches. Not a mystery.

[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=96MYTogoXLc[/ame]

[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SKlxiNol-9M[/ame]

[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UgmaMkSvQf4&feature=related[/ame]

 

Put it this way: Holyfield would have needed fewer to get the job done.

It's nearly 10% higher.

And he was a much worse fighter.

Ali's stoppages of those men have little to do with his punching though.

Foreman and Bonavena were just exhausted. Lyle was a good display though.