Yes or No - Would Prime Muhammad Ali beat every other ATG in their primes?

Hard to say, he may do it, fights with Lennox, Holmes, Tyson are tough stylistic fights although he may beat all 3, 1 maybe a stylistic nemesis too. Louis, Dempsey, Holyfield, Tunney are stylistically made for him. Marciano would be a tough fight but he can beat Rocky to a UD

 

Who?

 

No matter how good a fighter is,and I reckon that Muhammad was the greatest heavy of all,he would n't be invincible. Any all time great is capable of beating another on a given night. I do think that if,you put the elite heavyweights into a football league type situation,Ali would be champion at the end of the 'season'. He would have lost less fights than the others,but would n't be totally unbeaten himself. The ones that would have the best chance,imo,would be Joe Louis,Larry Holmes and Joe Frazier. Of course,Muhammad would stand an excellent chance of beating them,also.

 

I agree. If Muhammad would lose to anyone,it would n't be by stoppage.

 

Fighters I'd give the best shot: Louis, Johnson, Holmes. They'd all be ever so slight underrdogs, though the more I think about it the more I feel Louis could perhaps pull a ref stoppage out of the bag down the stretch.

 

I have Rocky Marciano 1954, Jack Dempsey 1919, Joe Louis (Max Baer version), beating him and potentially Jack Johnson giving him some very sticky moments - I switch between these two a lot

 

Starting with examples that we can constrain with data from the real world:

I dont think that he would ever have been much better than even money against either Joe Frazier or Ken Norton. These guys were always going to be truly terrible stylistic matches for him.

While Joe Frazier is an all time great in his own right, Ken Norton is not. The chances are that there are one or more fighters from a different era, who did not atain the level of greatness of a Joe Frazier, but who had the style to beat Ali. It would not have to be sombody obvious either. It might turn out that Fred Fulton or Greg Page just had his number!

Having made Joe Frzier 50/50 or 40/60 against him I would probably do the same for Rocky Marciano. In a series of three I would expect him to win at least one.

Outside of the above three fighters, we are dealing with guys who have no real stylistic parallel among his opponents. With guys like Dempsey and Louis there are no real stylistic models to work with. Given the atributes that the two aforementioned fighters posessed I am again thinking 50/50.

If we can tinker with the ruleset then the list of possible conquerors extends further. How would he fare against Jim Jeffries in a 25 rounder, or John L Sullivan in a bareknuckle finish fight?

 

Dempsey and Johnson especially, are lambs to the slaughter vs Ali

 

Yes.

They were used to viewing the world in black and white, so when presented with a target in colour, their depth perception would be thrown off.

 

Nah, Dempsey was just too **** and crude, and Johnson was too inactive.

 

No way. No boxer who fought all the other top 10 ATGs in their weight class would go undefeated, and Ali isn't even P4P #1 of all-time.

 

No one is immune to being stopped. TKO, clash of heads, nasty cut, a well-timed punch on the button, injury, getting outboxed for 12-15 rounds vs someone who is a bad style matchup for you and has power, a liver shot, there are many ways to be stopped unexpectedly even if you have a granite chin.

Even someone with an great beard can be taken out with one punch e.g. Fullmer vs Robinson II.

 

+1

Out of curiosity who do you have beating Ali?

 

:good