Patterson, Frazier and Foreman were Olympic gold medalists and Liston was one of the most feared heavyweight champions in history. They all would have had strong legacies without Ali in the picture.
I disagree, based on what he's actually accomplished and just not opinion, he's no where NEAR being an all time great.
I rate him high because you can only beat what is put in front of you, but not one fighter he has beaten could beat Evander Holyfield or Mike Tyson. I wonder could any of them even beat Frank Bruno or a Razor Ruddock and I am deadly serious Breidis and Chisora certainly don't and imo Dubouis and Aj would also lose to Bruno and Ruddock, maybe Fury too, but I would give him a shot Usyk has done great, but the era is awful. Cruiser is decent, because historically it has been a donkey division with guys a little small, or not good enough to make waves at Heavyweight
Patterson and frazier were 5'10 - 5'11 and would be LHW at best today, "big george" was the same size as usyk and fought like a zombie. You are either living in the past or you have an ethnic bias against eastern european boxers.
Ridiculous. Forza, given your posting history I could very easily accuse you of having a very strong bias against American fighters or having recency bias. But let’s stay on subject. Your comment was that the majority of Ali’s opponents were no names. I mentioned several that are still considered ATG’s. What makes Ali the GOAT in so many fans point of view is that outstanding resume. Poking holes in it won’t work because we really don’t know how many fighters would last against a gauntlet of fighters like those.
12 title victories, 10 of them against other titllists, undisputed in two weight classes, first in the four belt era at both. He is a elite-level ATG. You can say a guy like Holmes is not really ATG since he did not unify or fight #1 contenders, or Dempsey for not fighting black fighters. Usyk is not debatable.
Wlad in that fight looked a shadow of himself as well. That's when it became clear age was catching him and that he was there for the taking.