Muhammad Ali said in his autobiography that Ezzard Charles would be a tough opponent

I think so too. Great battle of wits and skill.

 

If memory is correct he lived near Ali when he lived in Chicago and they were friends.

 

Thanks! Didn't know that.

 

After his title fights, Charles became very close with Rocky Marciano and later was a neighbor and friend of Muhammad Ali when they both lived on 85th Street in Chicago (later in life when Charles suffered from financial difficulties and illness, both men along with other boxing celebrities hosted a fundraiser on his behalf).[13][14]


Ezzard Charles - Wikipedia

 

Fully agree. Charles is probably a top 10 p4p boxer of all time. He would give Ali problems.

 

Ali said a lot of things.

 

Yes he would struggle, especially late 1975 onwards. No shame in that either.

When you look at Charles resume and who he fought throughout his career, its incredible.

 

Charles had the style, speed, and skill to give Ali trouble. He could potentially force Ali to fight on the front foot, making the matchup awkward and taking Ali out of his comfort zone. I think that Ali would need to be sharp and focused every round, otherwise Charles might steal some of them leading to a nail biting anticipation of the scorecards being read.

But if Ali brings his A game and is in shape, Charles might not even make the distance. At the end of the day, he was still a fairly small HW who is outmatched athletically and could have a very hard time landing more than 1 clean punch at a time against the elusive, fleet footed Ali.

 

That book was written by Richard Durham, the former editor of Muhammad Speaks, and every page was subject to the approval of Herbert Muhammad, and most people believe that Ali never saw a page of it until it was released. He may have thought that about Ezzard Charles, but I would never use this particular book for verification that water is wet.

 

Prime Ali would do a lot worse to post-prime Ezzard than vice-versa, I would think.

 

You won't find bigger charles guy than me but this seems like a bad matchup for him.

ali was a fair bit bigger and compared to hw charles a fair bit quicker too. that's a lot to overcome.

 

Stylewise, is Ellis perhaps the closest to Charles of Ali's opponent? Spontaneously, I'd say so.