Muhammad Ali all time P4P ranking?

Well you can't really use that logic for heavyweights. P4P is really how much you accomplished for your weight class. If using your logic on size, then Frazier and Tyson could be the GOAT. A 6ft 3 220lb Frazier would kill Ali and Foreman. And 6ft 3 240lb Tyson would kill Lewis, Bowe and Holyfield.

 

In my defense I said 6 ft+. Small guys winning at HW deserve P4P credit. I have Langford as my P4P GOAT. But at some point that P4P rating becomes "HW P4P" rating. Like you're saying Frazier and Tyson would destroy Lennox, Bowe and Holyfield but in P4P ratings thats not who they are being compared to. Its hard to seperate the best HWs H2H superiority from comparisons with champs from the smaller divisions. So the HWs like Louis and Ali are just awkwardly there. Its not really a list for them but you've got to put them somewhere.

 

P4P he doesn't make my top 50. Ali was a technically flawed fighter. Fought with hands at his sides, leaned back from punches, moved straight back with back to the ropes, rarely ever went to the body, got hit often. He leaned on smaller fighters and pushed their heads down to tire their legs. He could get away with these flaws against slow, lumbering HWs. Carrying his skills to 160 and below he's not getting away with these flaws and can't just rely on reflexes and a solid chin.

 

Out of interest, what does your top 50 look like?

P4p traditionally hasn't just been about skill -; it's a pound of Sugar Ray Robinson is worth a heck of a lot more than a pound of y or z fighter. Skills, résumé, intangibles and domination without loaded dice as well as other factors all arguably go into making p4p weighting.

Langford and Charles for instance are much greater than JCC, Duran is greater than Calzaghe, Fitz is greater than Ward etc.

 

6-10

 

But that’s like saying if Duran was a heavyweight he won’t be able to shift his weight as quickly, throw as many as punches, have as much stamina, get as low without tiring, be slower, and a thousand other things

 

I will say this, if you have Ali outside of your top ten, you are a boxing hipster, a fashionista, a bum, a pig, a clown, or all of those things

 

Some interesting points here. I'm interested in the 50 fighters you would have ahead of him in P4P. For me, he's in the top 10. I'd struggle immensely to name 10 better P4P fighters. Ali has an Olympic gold, multiple prime HOF names on his resume, and avenged all of his losses pretty emphatically, apart from his final 2 when he was completely shot to pieces. I have multiple fighters on my P4P list who fought with their hands by their sides, Whitaker, SRR, Roy Jones Jr., to name a few. I wouldn't say that's necessarily a flaw, unless they had multiple knockout losses due to their poor defense, which Ali didn't.

I'm not sure which slow, lumbering HW you're referring to, but he beat Patterson, Frazier, and Norton, three HOF fighters with a variety of difficult styles. I wouldn't put any of them in this lumbering category. Wepner and Foreman were also a lot bigger than him, as was Liston. I wouldn't put Liston in this category of lumbering, either. George was fairly one-dimensional, but that's because his power was so effective and his chin was so reliable. Foreman is a top-10 HW of all time, especially for the way he came back and won the title in the '90s, even then, his only KO loss was to Ali in 74.

P4P I'd have Ali on par with Hagler, and I think Hagler is the greatest middleweight of all time, with Monzon a close second. I'd have him above McCallum, Napoles, and Monzon. I don't think any of these guys have the range or the manner of victories over HOF fighters that Ali does, so smaller doesn't necessarily equate to better, for me, anyway. I'd have Duran, Leonard, and maybe Louis above him by a whisker, just for context, but we're looking at the highest echelons of the sport here.

 

I think he would have got better and been able to maintain his speed for longer. But the different versions of him are what made him Ali so who knows

 

Doesn't make sense to shrink them down.

It's an impossible mental gymnastics exercise that doesn't factor why HWs actually fight the way that they do for the most part.

HW is an open weight division. A champion could very well give up 20 - 50 lbs on the scales, no other weight class offers this possibility. It is also a weight class where I have long held a belief that any man that weighs in the 190 lbs range and upwards is capable of KO'ing ANYBODY if they catch them right.

When you have the option of genuine one punch KO power and the body mass is bigger, you expect and often see diminished returns. A man weighing 220 lbs is struggling to move around the ring like Pep and whist Louis displays punching mechanics that wouldn't look lost on the likes of Arguello or Ike Williams, this is the exception and not the norm.

Combine the ability to totally clean any man's clock with the clash of styles, for the loss of relative skill, you get the excitement that comes with the threat of someone being rendered unconscious at any second.

Add in the HW division being the biggest draw traditionally and the reality that the absolute best HW beats any sonovabritch that walks in a room, it's not a surprise that HWs get attention that their skills, comparative to lesser weight greats, likely don't deserve.

It is what it is.

 

Ali is greater than Hearns - résumé has to play a part when distinguishing the very best.

Ali never lost in his prime in Leonard or Hagler fashion like Tommy did.

Hagler doesn't have the résumé either but has the skill and here is why résumé needs to be considered: there are numerous world level fighters from 1930s - 1970s who are extremely skilled on film, some heavily avoided so whilst supremely skilled, can we rank them above other elite skilled who also don't have the what ifs?