Ali vs skilled super heavyweights

Lewis is not the only guy McCall or Rahman stopped who has worn a heavyweight title belt.

 

A couple quick points in defense of the modernists this time:

1) The Holyfield who fought Lewis to a standstill was a textbook example of a fighter with modern training, so he's not a good example of Lewis struggling against smaller, old school heavyweights. Holyfield's training also arguably prolonged his career; his second fight with Lewis came at the same age when Ali was losing to Leon Spinks.

2) Ike Ibeabuchi vs David Tua was fought at an even higher pace than FOTC, between much heavier punchers. It meets your criteria for a high pace fight between modern big fighters: 226 pounds for Tua, 235 for Ibeabuchi, with very little fat on either. Both fighters relied a lot on inside fighting, and both had great chins, which probably contributed to the high stats. Exchanges between modern heavyweights at that pace would more often either end in a knockout before it could rack up quadruple digit stats, or exhaust both guys in a mauling clinch fight against their equally large opponent.

 

Lyle was well ahead on points on a fair scorecard. Some think the fight was stopped a bit too soon as Lyle was on his feet. Ali could have been close to punching himself out.

Simply stated Lyle jab was better than Ali's, and Lyle wasn't going to fall for the rope-a-dope tactics.

Too many people here don't watch the fights.

 

I agree modern training and diets possibly prolonged Holyfield's career, but did it create a better fighter, The bigger he got, his hand speed was noticeably slower, and he was a lot less flexible. His endurance also took at hit. Ike Iabuchi vs Tua fight was over twenty yrs ago, and neither man I would consider A super heavy, but big heavys, at 5'10 226 for Tua and 6'2" 235 for Ike. Obviously neither is over 6'5" or 250lbs and over. Which is what quite a few of the heavyweights are today.

 

This is a good reply, but I see some apples and oranges. Foreman in the 1970's was not a smart fighter. Lewis and the Klitschko's were. They were taller, longer, faster handed, had MUCH better stamina for the later rounds, and all very hard jabs. None were close to out boxed in their primes, or even the mid 30's.

Can Ali slip and counter them? In a few cases during the fight, okay, but in general, no. Not buying it, for openers he's facing taller guys with longer arms, none of which were really outboxed by anyone, unless they fought each other.

Ali is a guy who out jabbed by quite a few opponents as I chronicled, and dropped rounds to lesser talents which I did not talk about so far. Terrell would not last 8 rounds vs any of these super heavyweights, they would not respect this power and would take him out.

Ali if he stayed on the ropes is a sure loser here. Lewis, Wlad or Vitali were seldom countered and seldom punched themselves out, which is when Ali liked to counter.

Since Ali was essentially a jab and cross fighter only, I don't see how you can say he won't have to jab with them. He sure as heck would not trade right hands. Clinching for Ali would not work well either, he's giving up 30 pounds give or take a few, and these guys are smart enough to put their weight down on him to tire out his legs.

I don't think you can say because Ali did this to slower, and smaller men, he could do the same to larger men who were, in fact, better boxers than Foreman or Terrell. Combined with Lewis, Wlad and Vitali had a lot of fights, which fighter if any was able to counter them and use angles to win rounds based on that alone?

In addition, Ali's low guard which worked for him at times but would be a handicap here.

 

its irrelevant. Like i said the guys who either beat Lewis or Wlad, or who gave them a hard time, were not overly large heavyweights. They were actually a similar size to Ali, Foreman or Holmes, dispelling the notion that those guys were too small to compete against modern "super heavies"

 

He will dance circles around them, they would be lucky to land much on a 1967 Ali. The fact that you repeatedly have to use the older slower Ali as an example disproves your point.

If an old slow past his prime Holyfield can give Lewis a tough fight, you can only imagine what Ali would do to him.

 

I've always felt a smaller man is usually more athletic than a bigger man anytime someone says a big man is athletic It usually comes with the caveat of for a big guy

 

Who is Ali's best win in the 1960's? The Liston dive? Or Terrell?

This is the same guy who had his hands full with Doug Jones, and was nearly Ko'd by Henry Cooper. Oh, I forgot he was also floored by Sonny Banks.

To suggest that Klitschko or Lewis would trouble with, Jones, Banks or Cooper is a joke.

No Ali would not dance circles around them. Just look at the problems he had with Jones, Banks and Cooper! Ali could run, but that doesn't get you points.

Ali in the 1970's beat better fighters. But you can't use him as an example, even if he was stronger, knew how to clinch and likely hit harder. if you use the 1960's version, he wasn't as good with counter punching, nor was he as good in a clinch.

 

Almost as ridiculously biased as thrusting forth a 62-63 (20 to 21yo) Ali who had less than 20 fights under his belt. A joke really. Wlad was still getting pole axed after the 40 fight mark and had been ko'd multiple times by then

 

yes, Sonny Liston.

I absolutely agree that Folley, Patterson etc wouldn't stand a chance vs Joshua or Vitali. However, lets not act as though Joshua has actually been tested by anyone good apart from a faded Wladamir.

Vitali's best wins came over guys who were either faded or simply not very good. Wins over the likes of Williams, Peter, Briggs, Adamek etc are not inspiring.

At least with Lewis, he had wins over some quality guys like Tua, Ruddock, Morrison, Mercer etc. Vitali's competition was rather poor.

 

Thanks - I'd like to think that I'm a decent poster as are you for the most part. You see some apples and oranges and I say it's perhaps the by-product of your biases versus my biases? I like Ali and you are an avid fan of the Klits and Lewis. I like Lennox and can see how he beats Ali and would write the exact gameplan to take advantage of Ali's flaws. I like Wlad but believe that he wasn't busy enough in workrate or quick enough to outpoint a primed and conditioned Ali. Vitali's akwardness is his biggest asset and Joshua isn't something that I am going to even discuss as he is levels below the elite and I can only give him a puncher's chance. All of them, including Ali, had flaws and if we are to debate this properly, we need to look at their prime performances and what the film tells us, extrapolate their physical abilities to replicate the conditions of the era that they are being asked to fight and take the intangiables of what they demonstrated throughout their careers in order to provide a reasoned argument about the likely outcomes of a theoretical head to head fight. I can't place Ali against a Lewis in Lewis' time without giving Ali the same advantages of sports science, nutrition and arguably PEDs, or move a Klit back to Ali's time, having one world champion, having to fight 15 round fights, maybe having to face his brother in order to assert his claim to fight for the crown etc., lowered understanding of sports science and nutrition and arguably lesser access to PEDs (I am not accusing any fighter of taking PEDs, I am simply raising the possibile variants relevant to the era). It's not as simple to me as fighter x beats fighter y because he was bigger and fighter x never faced fighters of fighter y's size and skill.

I have always found that yourself and others will point out Ali's flaws, in fights that he won or was highly competitive in, whilst ignoring a Lewis' flaws or the Klits' flaws in fights that they were knocked out whilst championship fighters and arguing their dominance over inferior elite competition, when compared to an Ali or a Tyson or a Louis. This is disingenuous and your raising the Holmes fight or fights when Ali is clearly out of shape, showing early signs of Parkinson's or is quite clearly playing around, unmotivated or unable to hit with force due to brittle hands shows agenda to me, but perhaps because, I, too, have an agenda caused by my stylistic biases.

You will find that I do not cosign hyperbole about Lewis' losses or the Klits' losses as a counterargument to protect the image of Ali as others do. Every fighter gets exposed for something or gets hits by punches. Even Floyd Mayweather Jnr, who for me has thus far, demonstrated the most complete defensive skillset that I have seen, gets hit by punches. This does not make him prone to punches - it just means that it is a fight and even the best fighters get caught. Ali gets caught, but arguably nothing in his career should lead you to think that Lewis, Klit or any HW fighters other than a Tyson or a Louis has more than a puncher's chance of stopping a prime Ali, unless you rate him outside of the most resilient HW fighters of all time and outside of the top 2 HW fighters of all time.

Foreman not being a smart fighter is not the debate - in the fight that they had, given the results of their careers to that point, why would Foreman be instructed to fight Ali any other way? Why would he fight Norton or Frazier in any other manner? As I asserted, we are all experts in hindsight but what we cannot deny are the results achieved in the context of their achievements. What we also cannot deny is that Lewis and the Klits didn't have Foreman's footspeed or ring cutting ability so the fight that played out was highly influenced by a skillset that George possessed that the others quite simply didn't have.

Of course he can slip and counter them - his headmovement, reflexes and range negotiation in his prime have only been rivalled by Mike Tyson for me at HW. Lewis oft pawed with the jab and again, it depends on how you perceive it. If they shot punches at each other at the same time, Ali's headmovement as he jabs in his prime, he jabs with an off-centre classical headplacement, as demonstrated by his jab to the body followed up with the hook upstairs, as well as him shooting faster straight punches than the men that he is being compared to suggests to me that he would find joy timing the speed of their jabs and reading their triggers and could fire off, land and pivot before getting hit. He could also use the pull counter in spots to good effect.

Toney beat Holyfield - Holyfield beat Tyson so Tyson should fear Toney? Terrell lasting 15 versus Ali and not being able to last with either Klit or Lewis has no bearing on an Ali match-up. I'm not sure what you're trying to insinuate by this - we know that Ali doesn't carry their power and often couldn't plant and deliver due to relatively brittle hands. We also know that Corrales and Canelo hit much harder than Floyd, but we also know that his ability left no questions about who the winner of their match ups was.

Fallacious argument here. Prime versus prime - Ali's rope a dope is a nonsense as he was outboxing Foreman fighting off the ropes as well as beating him to the punch in the centre of the ring. My contention is a combination of the heat, in-ring psychology, numerous right and left hand punches, wrestling with him and pulling on George's neck and blocking a lot of his shots, getting George to expend energy is what contributed to the victory. After the hype job post fight, Ali played up to the image. This was a full 7 years after his physical prime. I don't think you can extrapolate Rope-A-Dope strategy to his prime self - what you can extrapolate are intangiables.

A prime Ali came down off of his toes and jabbed, pivotted and angled off controlling ring centre - you can see it against Liston, Patterson, Terrell, Chuvalo and you can see it in spurts in his post-exile career. I believe that a primed Ali has enough speed, ring smarts and excellent cornerman gamesmanship to buy him a few seconds where needed to dance, box and counter his way to a hard earned points victory versus all of them.

He was a jab and cross fighter predominantly - a prime Ali jabbed to the body and hooked to the head. His speed is why I believe that he can be successful as well as his proven ability to take punishment to head and body. Clinching is merely to upset rhythm, buy a breath and allow Ali to reset and avoid punishment when too close to his opponent.

I agree - if he is overly reliant on the clinch then they can lean on him and wear down his legs. This, however, assumes that you take Ali of 1967 and push him into the 2000's without the advantages that this would give him in size and strength.

You are correct - we shouldn't assume that because he dealt with slower, smaller men that he could do the same with larger boxers in Lewis, Wlad and Vitali. Here, I take a leap of faith built on the styles that he overcame, the depth of quality on his record and his skills on film. I don't see on film anything from Lewis, Wlad and Vitali that would lead me to favour them over Ali in a one fight shootout or a best of seven series. I believe that you may assert that they were better fighters than Ali and thus should be favoured over Ali - that is fine and I accept your position even if I disagree with the reasoning. On this subject, I genuinely believe that your position won't be changed and neither will mine and thus, I simply disagree with you.