Ali and Parkinsons

It is not the same thing. They are clinically different. Just look at head injury patients who never had anything to do with boxing and never had Parkinson's Disease but suddenly become symptomatic of Parkinson's after a traumatic car accident or other severe brain damage.

There have been a lot of fighters who had what is now termed Parkinson's Syndrome they were just lumped together in the category of "punch drunk." Yet, fighters arent the only ones who experience these symptoms as a result of trauma.

I remember as far back as the early 1960s when Kingfish Levinsky got a lot of press for this. He had hand tremors as bad or worse than Ali, couldnt walk or talk right. He was funny as hell but incapable of doing anything other than selling cheap ties to tourists in Florida.

Maxie Rosenbloom was another who experienced physical symptoms long before he ever started to experience dementia.

Fighters have been experiencing brain damage in various forms since the beginning of the sport.

The brain is a complicated piece of machinery. Everyone will react differently to the trauma of boxing but to say that nobody had Parkinson's Syndrome before or after Ali, and that Ali's symptoms arent a result of his boxing is irresponsible.

 

I think that anyone who's jaw was swollen like ali's was would not speak as clearly as they normally would, so that's to be expected.

However, i would be more inclined to agree with you if the time frame that you mentioned would have been 1978.

 

More than likely from boxing long after he should have finished. I feel pretty strongly that circumstances would have been different had he retired after 1975.

Still,who REALLY knows ?

 

No way did he show any signs,publicly,until 1978. In my observation.