Ali improved as a boxer after FOTC

After the first fight with Frazier Ali IMO improved on his worst deficiency: the tendency to keep his right hand low while punching with his left, and therefore leaving himself open to an opponent's left hook. In the first part of his career he got away with it due to his fantastic movement, with some exceptions. Chuvalo for example quite frequently landed his left hook in their first meeting while Ali was punching.

In the first fight against Frazier Ali hadn't remedied this flaw despite not having the same movement anymore, and paid dearly for it. After that fight there was a noticeable improvement, though. Just compare his first fight against Chuvalo with his second, and the FOTC with the subsequent fights against Frazier. In the third fight, where he is even more flat-footed than in the first, it's easy to see that his defense is improved in this sense. He still gets tagged now and then by Fraziers left hook, but only later on and not as frequently.

Do you agree/disagree?

 

Watch the Thrilla in Manilla again and compare it with FOTC. I think it's clear that he was more mindful of not letting the right hand drop. In many fights after FOTC you can see that he uses a gard when not moving.

As much as I admire Ali I think he looks very careless against Chuvalo in 1966 for example. If slow Chuvalo can get to him like he does in that fight it makes you wonder what a much more dynamic fighter like Tyson could do.

 

I'm not disputing that Ali was in his prime in the 60's and also, as you say, faster and in better conidtion in the rematches against Frazier and Norton. That's all true. But it seems to me that it was first after the FOTC that he felt he had to improve his gard to defend primarily against left hooks, since his feet no longer did the job quite as they used to do (even if they still did it very well).

In the second fight against Quarry it's also evident that he kept his gard high when standing flat-footed before his opponent. I think he adapted quite well in this sense. Up to and including FOTC he had been knocked-down three times by left hooks, but that never happened again.

He was always vulnerable to a good counter jab, though.

 

In a nutshell, yes. Vi svenskar förstår varandra uppenbarligen.

So, the most usual complaint against Ali - that his technique was lacking because he didn't have fundamentals - is therefore faulty in my opinion. When he needed the fundamentals he used them. Too bad it took him the brutal fight against Frazier to realize he couldn't afford to be as nonchalant anymore.

With that said his footwork continued to be amazing until the latter part of the 70's, just not quite as amazing as in the 60's. Primarily he didn't have the stamina to dance for a full fight anymore as he did against Terrell for example.

 

Tack.

 

It's so funny that Tyson fan comes with thi criticism. When way past his prime Ali managed to get away from Shavers after being badly hurt. Who did Tyson ever get away from when he was hurt?

Ali's technique was unorthodox, but one of the best a boxer ever has had. Tyson on the other had severly limited technique, because he could only fight in one fashion. When Ali no longer could rely on his footwork he developed a nigh impregnable gard. In Manilla, as earlier stated, he fought on the inside for the most part of the fight against one of the mos feroucious in-fighters ever (much better than Tyson for example) and succeeded, even if he paid a very high prize.

His punches was very precise and he threw them from all angles, both in combinations and flurries. He's not known as a puncher, but he was the first to KO/TKO Liston, Bonavena, Foreman, Wepner and Lyle, and the only one to ever KO Bonavena, Foreman and Wepner. He was able to succesfully defend himself while scoring with effective counterpunches on the ropes for seven rounds against Foreman, one of the most feared punchers of all time. He outjabbed Liston, considered by many to have the greatest jab in HW-boxing (obviously they're wrong, but he still had a very good jab) etc, etc.

He had som flaws (which I've high-lighted earlier in this thread) but all in all his technique was great, and he was one of the most inventive boxers to ever step into a ring. Just look at how he tries out a new way of blocking a punch against Ellis, or a new defensive posture in his second fight against Patterson. Only the narrow-minded fail to see how great Ali's technique was IMO.