40 year old Ali (No parkinsons) vs 41 year old Wlad

You're introducing an interesting counterfactual (no Parkinson's) but I still think, alas, Vlad takes this fairly easily. The type of fighter Ali was just has a much shorter shelf life, and I don't see even Ali's greatness countervailing that.

He loses to 40 year old Foreman too.

 

I'll add though, without Parkinson's 40 year old Ali very likely beats 38 year old Tyson.

 

Wlad beats him, but lets not forget that 40 today with all the "sports medicine" is not the same as 40yrs old in the 70s and 80s.

Ali wasnt too bad at that age considering everything. He still had the size, reach, chin and strength even though his movement, defense and activity had diminished. Physical advantages like Power, chin and physical size are more "age resistant" than speed and reflexes for obvious reasons

 

There really is no "sports medicine" that has any solid basis in rigorous science, unless this is a euphemism for PED's.

 

Wlad would win.

Ali, even w/out Parkinson's had taken a lot of punishment by age 40. He would have had vastly slowed reflexed even without Parkinson's.

 

Yup.

 

Yeah. He also had other serious health problems like severe hypertension and some kind of kidney damage (though the former can cause the latter). I think it was in 1975, before the shavers fight, when Ferdie Pacheco walked out of his camp in disgust that Ali was still being medically cleared to fight.

 

There's a good chance Wlad's reflexes and conditioning would be much worse without the highly probable useof performance enhancing drugs.

 

Which, it's worth noting, were widely available in the 70's and 80's & legal in the sport of boxing. Here's an article from 1989 where Hearns accuses Leonard of being roided up, and it's mentioned that both the Nevada State Athletic Commission & the WBC don't include steroids on the banned list at that point.

https://www.upi.com/Archives/1989/0...-Leonards-newly-bulging-biceps/2795613281600/

Yet many don't like hearing it when you suggest that athletes in a sport as ruthless and corrupt as this would forego LEGAL means of maximizing their abilities, but would gladly do it illegally 20-40 years later. Those older guys didn't have a clue of the witch hunt that would eventually hit sports when it came to steroids. They certainly wouldn't have avoided legal means of performance enhancement because some schlub on a medium that didn't exist at the time would judge him harshly for it a few decades later.

 

Yep and this was very likely caused by taking brutal shots to the kidneys over the years.

 

wlad would win. the size and weight advantage over ali would be very hard to overcome at that age. plus, modern training regimens would come into play as well.

 

Wlad stops him faster than Holmes did.

 

There are no "modern" training regimens.

 

I'll go against the grain and pick Ali.

For the Holmes fight, Ali was stumbling around the ring before the fight had even started.
Don't think I ever seen anyone, no matter how damaged, as unhealthy looking as Ali for that match.

The mad man still managed to land a hard right that slowed Holmes down for a round.
Do you believe in magic?