Ali fraud...

I disagree.
I dont think Ali beat three all-time top 10 heavies. I think Liston is overrated, and I'm not sure Foreman belongs in the top 10, even with his comeback. And Frazier, maybe, but he was destroyed by Foreman.
All three would make my top twenty, but Max Baer, Max Schmeling and Jersey Joe Walcott might all make my top 20 too.

And Joe Louis never lost to anyone who wouldn't make my top 20 or 25, even when he got old and was washed-up. But Ali lost to two or three who wouldn't make the cut.

Joe Louis dominated his era so thoroughly he didn't give anyone a chance to establish themselves as great rivals, so lots of those guys he beat naturally wouldn't be seen as anything approaching the all-time ratings.

 

And louis would do the same to Ali's competitors.

 

Of course. But he was badly faded himself, much older and coming from a long lay-off.

 

first of all : ali did indeed lose some fights (who didn't ? even joe louis did)
but beating : frazier (twice), foreman, norton (twice), patterson (twice), liston (twice), bonavena, chuvalo, ellis, archie moore, shavers, spinks, folley, terrell, bob foster, jerry quarry (twice), williams, lyle.
just to name the top guys of his opponents.
name me 1 HW who beat such a list of opponents.

second : i have ken norton in my top 20 and probably some more people
.
third : allthough i do respect almost everyones opinion.. but comparing ali to micheal spinks and saying he isn't even top 10 ??
if you really believe/think that ??
then adolf hitler made more sence and is more sane then you

 

Was Thyrolar illegal at the time, though? And did Ali know about it being given to him?

And calling Ali "a dirty, cheating *****" is kind of extreme I'd say. Yes, he did hold an awful lot at times, but that was hardly concealed. And while holding is technically illegal in the ring I dont tink it's as dirty as butting, thumbing or hitting low, hitting in the kidneys or in the back of the head.

 

would it really be crazy if someone placed louis, jhonson, dempsey, jeffries,or maciano ahead of ali as a top ten heavy?

I would place ali as #2 all time heavy. how come the top 10 list has changed so much in the last 50 years where the top reads according to many: ali, holmes, foreman, liston, and frazier. all the greats before this era are pushed down the list or completely out of it.

I definitely don't feel ali was a fraud but a lot of boxing fans act as if he could not be beaten, when he did lose they make excuses. if you could remove all the hype, showboating, flashy moves and controversy, would it be conceivable to place this man lower than #2 in the rankings?

also I have read some placing ali as the #1 p4p ever, because of his opposition. it seems many attend the church of mohammad ali, and praise him 7 days a week.

with that stated you can expect some backlash which this thread clearly is.

 

Liston? Frazier? Foreman? Holmes? Really? :huh

 

Ali lost 5 times in his 21yr career. 3 of which came in his last 4 fights. He was only beaten as champion once (spinks) after 18yrs as a pro. He faced, and beat, some of the most feared punchers in the history of heavyweight boxing in the cases of Liston,Foreman and Shavers. In the mid-late 60s it was near impossible to lay a glove on him. I would be interested to know how many rounds he actually lost in his entire 60s championship reigh. Not many, i would think. He came back from a long lay off and didnt go in with the peter mc neeleys of this world, but a bonafide challenger, who didnt make it past the 3rd (ok,it was a cut eye but they all count). He knocked out guys who were never knocked out before (bonavena) and in some cases, fought til their late 40s and still were never ever knocked out (foreman). Not bad for someone who supposedley couldnt punch. And this is without even mentioning the fraziers and nortons of this world. As for his knockdowns, getting up straight away after each of his 4 knockdowns (in 21yrs of boxing remember), 2 of which were absolute cracking punches, shows he had a good set of whiskers. So how, in the name of god, can anyone make a statement like this about Ali and keep a straight face. A fraud????? If Ali is a fraud then there is no hope for anyone else

 

I apologise for going through the Ali resume that you all know already but i was just typing as i was thinking and had to get it out of my system. I wasnt trying to tell you guys anything that you arent already well aware of. Its not that im a nuthugger, its just the audacity of the claim is unbeleivable to me although we all have our own opinions

 

those 3 1/2 years take a lot away from a fighter regardless of age. a fighters age is based on number of fights and keeping your conditioning and reflexes at peak - only done by constantly fighting the best. ali peaked in the 60s (undefeated) - to do what he did in the 70s when everyone thought he was washed up compared to the 60s version (slower/more flat footed/taking more hits) was some feat. i think peak frazier or peak norton (when past-peak ali faced them) wouldn't like to face a PEAK ali on the night he fought cleveland williams or terrell and i know who my money would be on to win

 

you dont think joe louis would be the heavy favorite in those fights?

I think he beats them all.

 

Yup.

 

Oh, the Thyrolar was legally prescribed all right, and may even be legal today for all I know. What happened though is a matter of deceptive intent on Muhammad's part, and that intent was rotten to the core.

Ali discovered when taking Thyrolar as prescribed that it actually improved his speed, reflexes and reaction time slightly. So, on the presumption that if a little is good, twice as much doubles the benefit, he decided to deliberately double up his dose without telling anyone. During the fight, he discovered the hard way that twice as much magnifies the symptoms Thyrolar is meant to treat. (Kiddies, this is why you don't screw around with your prescriptions, but work with a physician who is hopefully not a quack.)

It was only in the aftermath of the Holmes debacle that Ali admitted his foolish abuse of Thyrolar, citing it as the sole excuse for his defeat in all his interviews. (To his credit, he did shake Larry's hand on camera, and admit that Holmes was much better than he expected, but stopped short of saying Holmes was then a superior boxer to himself.) This is somewhat akin to Holyfield claiming that his loss to Moorer was due to his heart malfunction being induced by steroid use, and that he deserved another chance by virtue of his own bad choice to demonstrate how much better he could perform without cheating.

Does anybody else who also remembers this truly believe we would ever have heard about his deliberate misuse of Thyrolar if Ali had beaten Holmes, or at least performed credibly? I posit that this would have been one "magic" trick where he'd have never revealed how he did it.

You mean like the way he thumbed Terrell? It does anger me considerably that he resorted to that in a situation where he found himself faced with an opponent who was neither aging or otherwise physically compromised. Ali had already proved with Chuvalo that there was no need for him to sink to that. (Ernie still gives him the benefit of a doubt, but I don't. After his career, Ali should have been reminded of his own Muslim credo, then asked point blank if he stabbed Terrell's eye with his thumb on purpose, especially since his conversion and name chance fueled so much of the acrimony.)

After Cooper knocked him down, he also poked and prodded away at 'Enery's eye with the torn part of his glove that Dundee purposely ripped open even more in showing it to the referee between rounds, buying some additional precious seconds. (That glove was not replaced between rounds, but it might have been better for Cooper if it was. Their rematch did demonstrate though that he didn't need a torn glove to spill Sir Henry's blood.)

Granted, few choir boys ever get to become champion. However, there are plenty of ways to cheat without holding, butting or hitting low. (Wepner subjected Ali to plenty of the alternatives, and Muhammad himself backhanded on the second of countless double jabs. Pedroza and Serrano were late 1970s contemporaries who also had countless ways to play dirty, and look pretty doing it.)

What he intentionally tried to do with the Thyrolar really crosses the line though. There are many Muslims who have taken him to task for his underhanded attempt to secretly use it as a performance enhancer, and this is somebody who is supposed to have been a minister of the faith! (I reject his conscientious objecter claim against the draft. My issue is with how he was reclassified from 4F to 1A on the basis of a lowered intelligence test standard. He never should have been eligible for the draft, and I've always believed he flunked that test legitimately.)

Could Ali have used steriods without telling anyone, if he realized it could provide a competitive advantage? The episode with Thyrolar seems to make the answer pretty clear.

Now, don't get me wrong, in my opinion, he may very well have been the greatest of all heavyweights. But neither does he deserve to be canonized as an icon of boxing virtue.

 

I don't think he beats them all decisively, and I wouldn't be surprised to see Foreman put Louis' lights out.

 

If it was legal it was hardly cheating. Probably he wouldn't make any noise about it if it didn't backfire, but that doesn't make him a cheat.

Have to read up on this incident. I know that Hauser devotes quite a lot of space to it.

You make a lot of assumptions here. Terrell made several accusations, but there is nothing to prove any of them. I certainly haven't seen any photo suggesting deliberate thumbing,

What we have is basically a fighter that was outclassed and publically humiliated saying that there was cheating behind his loss. A man whom himself was a known dirty fighter. If we were to take all such statements at face value...

Again you make assumptions that there is no proof of. I've seen that fight many times, but seen nothing that suggests that he tried to reopen the cut with anything but blows. I've never heard Henry accusing him of it either.

The glove was torn, that's true. And Dundee have admitted to prodding it a bit more open, but that should be laid at his feet not Ali's. Ali was busy regaining his wits at the time.

Has anyone said that he does?