Ali's power?

That's some great stuff.

 

I couldn't agree more

:yep

 

Glad you agree mate.

 

JT, If you actually read it again. Im not saying your more realistic than myself when it comes to weighing everything up. Im just saying all your factors put together. Humidity, exhaustion, tormented, etc, are taken much heavier into account than you than with me. I take them into account, but much lighter. Hence why I said "outweigh mines".

Just thought Id clear that up, because it looks like Im agreeing with you.

 

You keep stating the obvious dude, relax :good

 

No worries mate. We'll call it a day on that one, Im sure you couldn't agree more. I shouldn't have opened the door on it again.

I'll slam it shut now.

 

Many of the greats have indeed been prepared to do this. Barney Ross is a tremendous example of somebody who demonstrated the true nature of his heart and conviction after his retirement, with his death defying conduct at Guadalcanal. The peak Joe Louis himself might not have been able to take out the edition of Ross who retired Billy Petrolle, weight and power advantage be damned. If bullets and a subsequent morphine addiction couldn't stop Barney, how the hell could anybody's gloved fist manage to do it?

Or read Eric Hoffer's, "The True Believer," for an examination of this as a collective phenomenon.
("We'll win, because God's on our side."-By you-know-who.)

And adrenaline can play an additional role, as Pryor demonstrated against Arguello. LaMotta has described putting himself into a state of self-hypnosis, mentally convincing himself that he was genuinely impervious. Tex Cobb may also have done this.

Interestingly enough, in a brain scan study of numerous veteran boxers, Cobb was the only one whose brain proved to be completely undamaged among the competitors who were tested. They expected to be hit, and seemed to enjoy startling their attackers at their lack of a response to getting nailed. Duran also seemed to enjoy getting hit, and by never flinching from oncoming punches, he was able to identify when they were heading his way, which actually enhanced his ability to avoid them in order to deliver effective counters. The best motivation for slipping a punch is to be better able to deliver one of your own, rather than strictly to evade punishment yourself. (It's kind of hard to counter effectively with a glove in your face.)

My preference when wearing the gloves myself is to take on the hardest puncher available, and getting a kick out of having them freak out when their best shot doesn't affect me. (I've never seen stars when punched. It seems that blows just glance off me, although videotape viewed later makes them look like hellacious shots. Maybe the intense concentration of the moment makes me oblivious to them. I feel pressure sometimes, but no pain. Yet my sense of touch is very sensitive, and I can't tolerate things like itchy clothing.) Well-coordinated speedsters drive me nuts, until they've worn down a bit with their mounting exertion. I suppose many of us on ESB has been in a fight where somebody much bigger and stronger than we are was slamming our heads against a concrete wall without us reacting to that impact in any way. Once adrenaline, and the body's cortisone production kicks in, we'd pretty much have to be killed to be stopped. (And even then, a roused chicken can continue running around with it's head chopped off.)

Ali was not in his "right" mind against Foreman, as demonstrated by his megalomaniacal post fight interview behaviour. He had entered an intransient state of grandiose psychosis, detached from the reality of the punches he was getting hit with. (In lay terms, Muhammad had gone mental.)

 

--a work of art.

 

I've read Douglas Century's "Barney Ross" and went away with a whole new appreciation for the man. He's like the Anti-Lamotta. Arguello was also a pretty heroic character, fighting in the trenches with the Nicarguan contra's against the communist Sandinista's, after first waving the latter's flag. Perhaps it was the communists who was Panama Lewis's supplier in Pryor-Arguello's first war. Ha.

Lamotta: "I'm dah boss, I'm dah boss, I'm dah boss."
I don't trust Pryor's adrenaline, because I don't trust his corner. For me, that mixed bottle casts suspicion over his whole career. Come to think of it, I remember fighting guys all coked-up or whatever way back in my street fighting days. They fought.... just-like-Pryor.

In any event, force of will is a determining factor. If a man believes that he is destined by God to triumph, that is an awefully hard man to defeat.

Cobb and Duran are also two men who I believe science will someday (soon?) prove do not have the requisite gene that makes one more susceptible to pugilistica dementia. Cobb more so. Duran rolled with 98% of the shots, just enough to not get hurt very often. Although in his forties it really got scary. I have his winning effort against Castro and -oh my God- did he get nailed. Repeatedly. But he still talks a mile a minute. Maybe it's all gibberish and the Hispanics are engaged in a mass cover-up on behalf of their great hero!

You are correct, though, Duran was a defensive master in my opinion (because he was studious under Freddie Brown) but really didn't care about getting hit by fellow lighweights. He'd psyche them out by grinning at their best shot.

No stars? That is unusual. You may have the requisite jaw-bone structure, neck as shock absorber, or extra thick cranium that allows that. I saw stars alright... and that is exactly why I mastered the jab and became a defensive technician (in close, no running here).

If you find that your sense of touch is hyper-sensitive, that may well mean that you're mind's eye is indiscernably causing your head to move just enough. I have the same thing there. I am also acutely aware in the ring. I can slip and roll with ease and can predict what's coming. Even now, I can hold a bean bag in the palm of my hand and no 18 year old athlete can take it out -even when it is 6 inches in front of their hand. And I never miss taking it out of there hand -at arm's length.

I would guess that you are built differently than me. My body is build for speed, then power. Similar to McCallum's frame. You are thicker (?) I'm guessing this because if you are not moving reflexively enough to evade a shot, but are still not seeing stars, it may mean that although you are taking the shot, you are reacting with imperceptive rolls that prevent any damage.

Haha! In fact, when both Foreman and Ali were in center ring for the instructions, Ali's lips can be seen moving on film and his eyes are all ablaze. Do you know what he was saying? It was something like "you idolized me as a child and now you must fight me..." all kinds of inflated verbolisms like that.

Frazier swore that in Madison Square Garden, Ali was throwing shots while saying: "don't ...you...know...I'm... God!" Ali denied it completely, but perhaps it was because he was having a temporary bout with insanity.

Joe reports that when Ali said this, Joe replied "Well, God, you gonna lose TONIGHT!" --and kept on hooking at those ribs

 

I gave Ali two power ratings. First, what raw power is he CAPABLE of generating? Probably a 6.5. Second, typically, what power does he ACTUALLY generate or USE? Probably a 5 due to his style where he never plants his feet and is always moving around. I'm sure you're aware of the difference of what I'm saying. So in actual potential, I rate his power higher than you.

A note on numbers like 9.5, 6.5, etc. None of us have a truly, uniform, precise scale of 1-10. Numbers provided are typically hunches or just something to give an idea of what we're subjectively thinking. For example, even if I think Shavers hits harder than Mike Tyson (never mind this debate), I still give them both 10s. The 10 is just to give an idea as we don't have a precise scale. Ali is a 6.5. Someone like Chris Byrd is a 3. It's tough to put a heavyweight with a score of 1 or 2 (who normalizes this stuff - too much of a task). These numbers are VERY SLOPPY!

I know Holmes says some ridiculous stuff. Maybe he's crazy. But just the fact that he didn't say Ali hit much harder than Holy makes me think he was being honest. He'd could have been dishonest to downgrade his conqueror but he didn't. Btw prime for prime Holy vs Holmes, I'd pick Holmes by a hair.

 

I gave Ali a 7.5 i thought :huh

Know what ya mean about the numbers being difficult, and i think i agree with Holmes over Holy by a hair too

:good

 

Sure, perhaps Panama Lewis had mixed something like PCP in that bottle, but perhaps Pryor also had a freakishly low heart rate and larger heart than normal, like his idol and friend Armstrong (who was present at the weigh-in for Pryor/Arguello I).

And in cases where both competitors have that conviction, then it's often the one who applies more of such force of will in training who prevails, rather than simply during competition.

And of course this is the well-known theory which James Quarry subscribes to. There may be some merit to the notion, but it also remains a fact that the Quarry boys began taking countless punches to the head as pubescent boys (as did Benitez and Ali), both in sparring and competition. Duran made his professional debut against Carlos Mendoza when he was nearly seventeen, and he was originally a super aggressive offensive dynamo, thus avoiding significant punishment through his formative years in boxing.

I have been whacked on the head by harder objects than a human fist, so I have had the experience of phosphenes flaring up and obscuring my vision when I've been robbed of my senses.

Marvin Hagler had a skull of normal thickness, but the musculature protecting his cranium was revealed by a medical scan to be a full inch thick, where the average depth of this sheath of muscle is reported to be a mere quarter inch.

However, I was rear-ended by a tractor-trailer, in my tiny Mazda pickup truck made of sheet metal with no headrests, over ten years ago, and suffered no kind of injury, including whiplash. So that could lend some credence to the neck as shock absorber theory.

From what my dentist has observed, the requisite jaw-bone structure may also indeed be in place.

Hagler wore a rubberized version of a mouthpiece which some sports researchers developed, that was puported to align the jaw properly. Supposedly, a marathon runner who wore one for the first time shaved a half hour off his previous best time. (The mouthpiece that the runner used was a hinged model covering both the upper and lower teeth, while Hagler's simply fit over his uppers.)

Which is precisely what Jake LaMotta described himself as doing when recounting the Valentine's Day Massacre with Curt Gowdy, Don Dunphy and SRR in, "The Way it Was" back in March, 1976. (Available on youtube.)

I have been long-since been diagnosed with what is currently termed Attention-Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (originally labeled hyperkinesia when I was first evaluated), and hypervigilance is a hallmark of this particular state. So there is some cause for supposing this.

In condition, I'm around 135 to 140 pounds at a little under 5'10, with a waist that can be as small as 27 inches. (Thanks to some medical problems I'm just now starting to recover from, my weight has recently ballooned up by around 125 pounds plus. So at this instant, I am indeed much thicker than normal, sort of like Jerry Lewis during his Muscular Dystrophy Telethon a couple of years ago.) Although slow, I'm also much stronger than I look, and others have told people I know that I don't look like somebody they'd want to mess with. But while slow, I can also see things unfolding in slow motion sometimes, and the more I am able to slow this perception of time, the better able I am to respond as needed.

In his ghostwritten 1975 autobiography, he was quoted as saying, "You've been hearing about me since you were a little kid with mess in your pants!" (Unfortunately, this hastily thrown together tabloid also identified Zack Clayton as the same referee who officiated at his rematch with Liston, making one wonder what other misinformation it contains.)

Yeah, in "Beyond the Glory, Joe does say that he replied back to Ali, "Lord, you're in the wrong place tonight!" I believe Joe, based on Ali's behaviour during his interview with David Frost after knocking Foreman out. The maniacal nature of his euphoric rant after ordering everybody in the room to "Stop talking now!" seems consistent with the grandiose claim Frazier says he made. (As for Ali denying it, he also tried using Thyrolar as a performance enhancing substance for his challenge of Holmes without telling anybody, so I don't exactly consider him a model of honesty.)

 

I realize I'll probably get some flak for this, but I would not place money on the outcome of any of those matches. Tyson did not have the height and reach which Cooney's other conquerers enjoyed, and I don't believe Tyson's power was on a par with Shavers, Cooney or Foreman. Norton's reach and skill might have been sufficient to thwart Tyson's power, especially if Kenny got Mike into the championship rounds. Gerry couldn't take it on the temple, but would Tyson be able to reach that high without getting nailed himself? As chinny as Shavers is supposed to have been, only Lyle and the powerful Ron Stander were able to drop him for the count when Earnie was around his prime, and both had to wear Earnie down to do it.

After Tyson decisioned Mitch Green, many boxing analysts deemed his power to be more comparable to Frazier's than Foreman's, although Tyson carried that power in both hands. Those three matchups could have gone either way in my estimation, although I'd expect Tyson would probably be favored.

 

I agree with most. But watch Holmes's rematch with Weaver. He took him out with a hell of a right hand. 1 straight right and Weaver was on ***** street and on the floor. Also Larry's single right cross on Curtis Shepard was another great 1 punch KO. But all in all, I'd say Holmes was the more clubbing puncher aside from his jab, and Ali was the more sharp puncher. IMO Larry's uppercut is hard to rate as in if it was a clubbing or jolting. It seemed to do both. It snapped their heads back and jolted them, but it also clubbed them. His right uppercut on Weaver in their first fight was a bute though. Nice post.:good

Here's the link to the Holmes-Weaver rematch, couldn't get the embedded clip to work right.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sStsvlVF5bk

 

Touche.