Ali's "Gift Decisions" Revisited

I had a contemporary mag that covered the Ali - Shavers fight in 77. In contrast to the struggle the older Ali endured, it stated that the prime Ali would’ve used Earnie’s head like a speed bag. Simple, accurate and to the point.

 

Brilliant post.

 

@cross_trainer

How do you explain away Ali beating Frazier in their next two fights?

Frazier was 2 years younger than Ali.
Frazier had around half a dozen less fights.
Frazier had been fighting professionally for about 5 years less.
Frazier didn't have to come back from an enforced layoff or years at his peak.

Given you aren't accepting the ring rust excuse for Ali i think it's fair that the commonly held excuse for Frazier i.e. that he took so much punishment in FOTC that he was never the same again can be cast aside given that Frazier actually won i.e. Ali took even more punishment.

Just to pre-empt some people will claim fighters aren't built the same and Ali could take that sort of punishment better than Joe and Joe pushed himself to superhuman limits blah blah blah but i think that's an unfair stance personally. If we accept this then Ali was always going to pump him in a series of fights even past prime. I do agree tho with your comment Ali was a different proposition in the 60's - that much is obvious IMO.

I'm also not overly partial to the Foreman loss wear and tear excuse given Joe kept getting up and finished on his feet. The excuse for that one is that Futch said he laxed off in training as he'd become content. Well we see in here time and time again that Joe had an intense hated of Ali so it wouldn't be feasible to say he was in anything but pinnacle shape for any and all Ali battles.

 

I don't see it as a question of fairness, so much as just trying to figure out what happened.

The usual answers for why Frazier performed so much worse in fight #2 don't really invoke ring rust. They're more about wear and tear + getting older with a very aggressive style + a referee who allowed Ali to clinch a lot more.

It's partly a similar story to why Ali wasn't the dynamo in '71 that he'd been in '67. Reduced athleticism relative to his prime. Except Frazier went further downhill faster -- or, if you prefer, Ali aged better. As far as fight 3 goes, even Ali allegedly thought that Frazier was past it at that point. (Not that Ali was in great form either.)

Anyway, that's a common response, and it doesn't seem unreasonable to me.

 

This "oh, he was so past it, so it doesn't count talk" gets pulled waaaaaayy too much on this forum. In the other thread it was Gomez who was some washed up shell for Sanchez.

Truth is that there wasn't very much difference in Joe after FOTC in the fights where he was in top shape: the Ali fights and the Quarry rematch. He had slowed a bit, yes, but that was true of Ali for all the fights. In terms of conditioning Joe was the same fo all their three fights imo, while Ali's legs never regained their endurance after the exile.

I think all this is pretty clear form the film of the fights. Still he is 2-1 in their trilogy.

 

Ali also had a different game plan in the second, moved much more. This game plan was of course helped by the fact that it was 12 and not 15 and that Perez was lenient toward the holding. Also by that Joe had slowed down. But that was true for Ali already in FOTC, so this brought them on a more level playing field in terms of loss of speed. Joe's stamin was the same , though, which isn't true for Ali.

They were more equal in how removed from their prime they were, but Joe was still closer to his.

 

I agree.

 

Just to add Ali also had more rounds under his belt by this point after the enforced layoff.

 

I agree with most of this. But I'm skeptical that a fight between two guys past their primes tells us more than a fight between one guy in his prime, and the other out of it, but still less removed than he was a couple years later. I'd expect that as they get further and further past their bests, the character of the fight would start to look different.

It can certainly be considered as evidence for what a prime vs prime fight would look like, though.

 

I still find it bewildering that Joe is excused for suddenly being past prime less than 8 rounds removed from FOTC and thereafter.

 

You don't think Joe was past his prime by the second Ali fight?

 

Not one bit. Prime does not equal "peak" which is a mistake a great many make.

Even taking into account the accepted theory that swarmers age faster Ali was 11 years into his career when he entered FOTC. Frazier was 9 years in going into Ali II.

Ali was 14 years and 46 fights in when he stepped into the ring with Foreman and beat an ATG at his absolute peak. Was Ali in his prime? If he wasn't he beat a guy many have top #4 - #8 on their ATG list outside his prime. Obviously it's a given he beat him "past peak".

 

I think two fights where both are more equally removed from their primes but far from shot by any means, tell us more than only one where one fighter is in his prime and the other not quite. Especially if the winner of the two fights where they are more equally removed still is the one most removed from his prime.

As an aside, i might mention that I think it's a plus to win follow ups since it measures ability to adapt when knowing each other better. And it might just tell us that the game plan the losing fighter had in the first wasn't very good, but that he has the ability to fight in other ways, more suited to the particular opponent. I think this applies in this case, even though it should be said that Ali's game plan in the rematch was helped by the 12 round format and being allowed to hold a lot.

 

But Ali had the layoff. It's one of those things that can't count both ways. If Ali wasn't doing much training during his layoff, then he also wasn't accumulating neurological damage from fights + hundreds of rounds of sparring before those fights.

To use a more extreme example as an analogy, Foreman would have been a shot basket case during his comeback if he'd been fighting professionally for all 10 of his layoff years.

We use "prime" pretty loosely here to mean being pretty close to the best. And past prime to denote occasions where there's a sizable gap between the fighter's current ability to perform and how he'd done at his best. By that loose definition, Ali was definitely no longer in his prime by the Foreman fight, IMO.

I extend the same privilege to Ali that I do to Frazier when it comes to counting prime results. FOTC, like Tyson's fights with Holyfield, is just close enough that I think it's somewhat suggestive of what a prime vs prime matchup would look like. But the further you go beyond that, the more I feel comfortable in saying, "Nah, that's not the real Ali/Tyson." At least for fantasy matchup purposes.

 

Yeha, I think one could say that Ali was past his peak after '67 but still in his prime in Zaire, or at least thereabouts. His hand speed was still excellent, his reflexes still sharp and he had of course also gained in experience, even though he had lost some speed, stamina and general athleticism.

I'd accept it if this decline was visible on film, but apart from slowing a bit it isn't. He looks great against Quarry in '74 and in all the Ali fights. Still that endless stamina and a whipping left hook, but an improved right.

He was a bit more inconsistent, though. Didn't have that desire for the more run of the mill fights. This was of course also true for Ali during this time.