What are Ali's top ten wins vs opponents who weighed less than 200 lbs?

Good list. Would have Jones higher, and probably Mildenberger as well.

 

A lot of people thought Jones was robbed. Thirteen ringside reporters had Jones winning, ten had it for Ali, and two had it even.

 

Hmmm, there is some truth to this but it's not the complete picture.

Clay/Ali predicted a 4th round KO, was rocked in the first and Jones survived the fourth.

What you've presented is the UPI ringside scoring but you've omitted the AP ringside reporters polling, which had 7 for Ali, 5 for Jones and 3 draws. Basically, it was a really close fight, not the robbery people make it out to be these days.

Furthermore, UPI’s own official card scored the fight 6–3–1 for Ali, AP's official card scored it 5-4-1 for Jones, Long Beach Press-Telegram had it 7-2-1 for Ali, and the official MSG judges ruled it a Unanimous Decision (8–1, 5–4, 5–4).

Much of the robbery narrative is borne out of some sort of hostile reaction to Ali failing to hit his predicted 4th round KO, which riled up the MSG crowd, but Ali clearly swept the late rounds with volume punching and work rate to close out a legitimate win.

 

Exactly. I haven't heard anyone wathcing it nowadays feeling that Jones got robbed.

 

Ali was a victim of his own braggadociousness and people love an underdog story.

Here's a young Black kid, boasting about and predicting KOs (not humble like a Joe Louis - probably too close to Jack Johnson for comfort for many a boxing writer), hands down, not fighting the way that we think a HW should fight and Jones fighting better than expected so he gets subconscious points for doing better than expected and to detract from Ali who was marmite at that time to a lot of mainstream.