I'm not saying that we must pretend these fights never happened. I'm asking who do you think the toughest opponents of Muhammad Ali were if we don't count these two? Also I'm excluding Spinks, Holmes, and Berbick too. Ali was too far gone by that point for those to be considered viable responses.
Wepner for the damage, not for the competition. It was so sad to see all those rabbit punches allowed by incompetent Perez .. Ali said he had huge knots on the back of his head well after the fight.
I guess it depends on how close to his prime you're talking about. Pre-prime, Doug Jones would obviously be his toughest pro fight. Post-prime, it depends on how far you want to go before you say it doesn't really count. (Does anyone really count the Holmes or Berbick fights?) Spinks I suppose... If you just mean who are the best fighters he faced that's not even a question as far as I'm concerned: Holmes and Foreman. (I have Holmes at number three behind Ali and Louis.)
#1 WBA ranked Oscar Bonavena was hanging in tough with Ali in a 15 round fight (Dec 1970). Ali got "lucky" with his seldom used 'left hook', and put Bonavena on "Q-Street" in the 15th round. Bonavena was knocked down three times in the 15th round, forcing an automatic stoppage under the three-knockdown rule. It was the only time Bonavena was stopped in his 68-fight pro career. Ali hovered over Bonavena "illegally" to put Bonavena down the second time.
Ali was well ahead on the cards vs Bonevena. He did not need the KO. Wepner did not give Ali a tough fight. Another one sided affair. Wepner never came close to hurting Ali. Ali's toughest bouts would have been against Jones, Young. Mildenburger gave Ali a decent fight.
A tougher bout for Muhammad seldom mentioned is that Mac Foster fight. He landed a pretty fair amount of punches in a bout considered to be a mismatch. And nobody was siding with Mac's chances before the fight.
Yep. It was the best punch Chuck threw & he always did the same thing on the inside and would throw a ton of those things. I always wanted to see the bout Wepner had with Schutte----that thing must have been like a hockey fight and I'd like to know just how many jabs were thrown? 20? But what a tough tough physical kind of fight it must have been.
Did Ali lose a round vs Mac Foster? Well maybe A round. Bob Foster cut and staggered Ali. Overall the bout was one sided but Foster had his moments. Shavers was a very tough fight but this was Ali on his last legs.
Big Mac landed a lot of shots to the kidneys. Both hands. A lot of bodywork was done by Foster & he did much better than expected. And like Earnie later on, nobody thought Mac was going 15 with an Ali.
Going into the 15th round, Referee Mark Cohen had Ali ahead 12-2, Judge Joe Eppey had him in front 10-3-1, and Judge Jack Bloom had him leading 8-5-1. The Associated Press had Ali ahead 7-6-1. Many people at ringside saw the fight along the lines of the Judge Bloom and AP's scores.
Doug Jones and much later Ron Lyle gave a good fight. I would say Bonevena made Ali look bad. I don't know what the score cards were. He hurt Ali at least once.
