Ali beat the best opposition in title matches. Who's #2?

So, Duran isn't a great fighter then?

I think it's fair that Liston's quit job influences his overall ranking, but it doesn't diminish the fact that he was a formidable opponent on the night.

What matters here to me is that this Foreman was a better opponent for the title than most others have had. Better than anyone for example Johnson, Dempsey, Holmes and Tyson had. And arguably better than anyone that Louis, Marciano, Holyfield and Lewis had. The same goes for the versions of Frazier and Liston that Ali beat.

 

You're missing the point.
I wasn't saying the injury wasn't real. I don't care if he was injured or not.
The official excuse for quitting was that an injury prevented him from effectively using his left.
But the last punch of the fight he scores with a left jab.
You land enough of those you win fights.

 

Duran was a great fighter.
Did he fight or behave like one the time he quit to Leonard ? NO.

Formidable up to a point. The lack of determination, the readiness to quit when things got a little rough, belie the truth that his prowess lacked depth. On that night at least.

This could well be true.

 

Yet at the same time you "most certainly" consider a pre-arranged tank job plausible.
If Liston's performance was such that a fix cannot be ruled out, I fail to understand how you can, at the same time, hold such strong beliefs about Ali's sheer quality being the cause of Liston's surrender.

You seem to say, "if it were anyone else in the ring with Sonny that night, he wouldn't have quit"
AND .... "Liston might have gone in with the intention of losing".

 

I still can't get over lack of aggression by Clay in the 6th Round.
It wasn't like he was pummeling Sonny.
Even Referee Barney Felix said Cassius Clay's punches had no zip after the
3rd Round.
He thought Clay was arm-weary after his big flurry in the middle of the 3rd round, and so did TNT announcer Steve Ellis who was right there at ringside.

Something wasn't right with that fight.

 

Could it possibly be the 'perfect crime'.........
to set-up a second fight (guarantee)

Even of you lose, you win. That might be the motivation for many things,

 

Life is full of these little ironies.

One such fighter would be the uneoquivocal choice for much of the 20th century.

 

I agree, it makes sense to agree consider both possibilities.
But why limit yourself to those to polar positions, as definite one-or-the-other, and ignore the shades of possibilities in-between ?

If it wasn't a fix, why is the ONLY other explanation the one that rests on Ali's brilliance and absolves Liston of any undue and unusual indifference to the task at hand ?

If Liston's performance and actions that we can see on film COULD BE a fix, then they could be just a sub-par or crappy performance, the indifference of a champion who lost his hunger, or evidence that Liston was no longer a great fighter, or never really was.

I don't make any claims to know why Liston quit.
(The official story "can't use the left" is demonstrably untrue.)
I just know he quit. And he shouldn't have.

 

Fantastic posts,,,,, MR. UN,,,,,

If it was a quit,, it was an 'inside the game' quit.

Sonny's corner was concerned, that he wasn't fighting.
Lack of motivation, or what?

 

I have my suspicions on the fight. Big time.
But I don't think we need to know the ins-and-outs or what was going on in Sonny's head to make a judgment on his behaviour.

It wasn't behaviour befitting a champion or a great fighter - that much we should be able to say with complete confidence.

 

@#

 

Then we seem to be agreement more or less.

 

It seem this turned into another Ali discussion (not really surprising).

But to answer the question, I think I'll answer Lewis if we're looking at the best three or so opponents in title matches. Marciano is close behind.