what would be Alis standing today if he hadnt come back fron exile?

Ali unfortunaly is feeling the effects of the many shots he took after the rope-a-dope

 

As I said, Marciano didnt struggle with Cockell.

 

No, Nat felt Ali's style was ful of flaws and could not have beaten Johnson or Dempsey, he loved Jeffries, too, but everyone except his son in law Loubet and John Ort was over 80 and Loubet was about 69, still he did not have Ali in his top 10

 

I got this feeling if we had a time machine, and Nat got to see Ali beat Johnson, Louis, Dempsey, Marciano ete. He STILL would not rate Ali in the top ten lol.

 

That's a fair call too. I don't neccessarily agree it (60's) to be much weaker than other times, but the fact is the 70's were red hot by comparison and Ali was already past his absolute peak. He beat one great in Liston in the 60's, other greats he fought (Patterson, Moore, yada, yada) were well past their best obviously. He got his chance vs Frazier and Foreman in the 70's like you say. Ali did at least have Liston tho, Larry for instance never had a single chance to fight a great at his best whilst they were near their's. Marciano too, Louis etc. Tyson, Holyfield and Lewis were lucky in that they had each other. I do munderstand it would have been good for someone beyond the norm to have been around to push Ali to his limits of greatness while he was still 100% fresh.

 

Agreed

 

But Ort and, especially, Dan Daniel, did rate current fighters alongside old timers. Daniel was at ringside for most of Dempsey's title fights and he knew (ok thought) that Clay would have toyed with him. Fleischer became deluded in his old age, he was holding that magazine back towards the end of his life. Loubet took over but he was wrong for it too. Thankfully, it picked up again in the late 70s/early 80s. Boxing News was far far better then. Fight reports of the likes of Hagler-Monroe I, while this just featured in the results section of The Ring (probably didn't have room because there was 'another' Dempsey-Firpo feature. This time 'What you didn't know about that night'*).







* Which usually ended up being another old man not quite remembering his version of a story he'd heard, which was made up anyway by a Jimmy The Greek type character.

 

Talking of Boxing News, and changing the subject slightly, I was reading its Olympics 1984 reviews and reports last night again. Great stuff. "One for the future" a guy called Lennox Lewis who could even win gold here now....One of many South Korean protests concenred when their man was robbed against Jerry Page (hence the revenge on Roy Jones) after he'd been given the nod 3-2 but the 'jury' decided otherwise. The worst decision of the games was Henry Tillman's 'win' in the semi. Georgia light-heavyweight Evan Fields is called a 'gold medal hope' but very predictable, does the same moves all the time. Most exciting fighter: Meldrick Taylor.

 

What were their comments on Whitaker?

 

They made him, along with Breland and Gonzales, one of three gold certs. Very impreesive array of talents, only weeakness is that he sometimes seems to lose concentration when winning easily.

 

Well where did he rank Liston? I would love to see his list.

 

In '71:

1. Johnson
2. Jeffries
3. Fitzsimmons
4. Dempsey
5. Corbett
6. Louis
7. Langford
8. Tunney
9. Schmeling
10. Marciano

Fleischer did not think high at all of Liston. He hated Marciano too. Actually, he didn't like any fighter post-30's. Look how ridiculously low Louis ranks.

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Thanks very much for the article. That is shocking. How did he rate Sugar Ray Robinson?

 

Probably be in the top 5 definitely, at worst, top 10.