Most unbeatable nights for fighters

My Pleasure buddy.

 

Good post.

 

How about the performance of Lewis of Lennox in the rematch against Rahman of Hasbeen?

 

Ali admitted Foreman had him out on his feet at times, and he was pissing blood a month afterwards. I think the damage he took in that fight played a lot more of a role in his decline than people realize.

 

He also said right after the bout that Foreman never hurt him and this… 'The psychology is not really taking punches. Making myself what you might call a 'mirage.' Making the fella see something he think he don't see. Make him punch, looking for openings. The object of the fight is to chase a man, or to corner him, and they all think I'm gonna dance and run - Foreman thought that.
What happens was I led them into the ropes, and they punched away, looking for openings, and they're whamming the jaws and the sides and the arms... If you're in top-notch shape and experienced, you know how to stand there for a while. All these fellas threw shots all day, didn’t one come through. What's gonna happen is, this man's gonna charge me. This is why I use this psychological thing, just to blast away, and after three rounds, it's all easy going for me because he's tired.'
- Muhammad AIi

 

My grandpa told me this when reports first came about Ali's Parkinson's : "Ali used to lay on the ropes and let people hit him to tire them so he could win that way. That is why he is sick now"....

And , just like people don;t realize that hector Camacho got his defensive style on from the Jose Luis Ramirez but and not the the Edwin Rosario one, in the Ali case it's the other way around: many people, like you, recognize this as the fight where Muhammad started getting extenuating punishment. it worked...for the moment at least, ..but not on the long run, it definitely did not As a boxer , it is a strategy I would consider too . if I thought the person in front of me hit hard anyways. But also, nowadays, boxers know how to counter that strategy too. Some dont fall for it, others attack the arms without going all broke, others attack the arms mixed with the body...

 

Nunn vs Tate
Hearns vs Duran
Montreal Duran
Toney vs Barkley
Lewis vs Golotta
Floyd vs Gatti
Finito Lopez vs Alex Sanchez
Bowe vs Ferguson
GGG vs Lemiuex
Arguello vs Rey Tam/Rooney

 

Taking that kind of damage and still completely dominating Foreman attests to his unbeatable-ness

And really being out on your feet and pissing blood is par for the course in boxing, he wasn't in the hospital for days afterwards like post thrilla, I think Frazier's body shots hurt him worse because Frazier actually got them dug in

Frazier was just tougher and a better fighter than Foreman, Ali has been quoted as saying he was rocking Foreman with punches that wouldn't have bothered Frazier or something to that effect

 

Hi Buddy.
Not sure I am entirely on board with what Ali is espousing, I have read quite a few articles in various publications over the decades since the Foreman win, and he always claims the " rope a dope " was a planned strategy, he went into the fight with that as his MO, I don't believe that was the case, because if it was, why was the trusted confidant Dundee shouting and screaming for him to get of the ropes, having a ego as big as his, he wanted the boxing world to applaud and be in awe of his nuance and genius, in your post he says " because he is tired " assuming he is talking about his opponents, and not just Foreman, that's simply just not the case, as George as said many times " what options did he have " after the long lay off, he was not the same fighter, never would be, gone was the taken for granted speed, the agility, the dancing, they were no more, the supplement was a bigger, stronger, harder hitting fighter, and a cast iron chin, and a will to win seldom surpassed in the annual's of boxing, for my mind, he knew he couldn't dance for 15, so he gambled that big George would run out of gas and the gamble paid off, kudos and props to withstand the early body assault, very few could, but was that a ingoing plan..... don't think so.
Just my opinion.
stay safe Journeyman92, chat soon buddy.
Mike.

 

Foreman - Norton

 

No offense but I'm not debating with someone who thinks Ali was training throughout the entirety of his exile, despite it being well-publicized that he had a belly and he ballooned up to 230 pounds.

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Would also like to point out, literally nowhere in that transcript you provided, did Ali say Foreman couldn't hit hard. Here's something Ali did say however.
I taunt George. I goad him.

"You ain't got no punch, you phony!"..."Show me something, sucker!"

George roars in like a mob. He's throwing punches with tonnage I never thought a fist could carry. A crowbar in George's right hand crashes through my guard into my head, knocks me into the room of half-dream. My head vibrates like a tuning fork. Neon lights flash on and off.

 

"And really being out on your feet and pissing blood is par for the course in boxing,"
No, it's not. And it certainly wasn't in Ali's case, or his career would've been over a lot earlier than it was.

"Frazier was just tougher and a better fighter than Foreman"
Yup and he definitely proved that in their fights.

"Ali has been quoted as saying he was rocking Foreman with punches that wouldn't have bothered Frazier or something to that effect."
You mean the same Frazier who got rocked by Ali in the second round of their rematch and was only saved by a premature bell? Foreman was never in that kind of trouble early in their fight. The only time he was really getting hurt was after he started to tire.

 

Mayweather from Hatton to JMM looked unstoppable.

 

Mayweather's most complete and rounded performance was probably the destruction of Corrales and then likely his best punching performance where he looked razor sharp was the Gatti performance.

These are just IMO - I thought he looked noticeably slower and less fluid by the time he was beating the likes of Hatton and the JMM fight is marked with cloud.

 

I love Gatti but he just wasn’t on that level. Hatton and JMM were and he made them look amateurish. But yeah def could have said Corrales too.