Ali's Power ..

This has nothing to do with what I wrote.
I said if Ali had kept his mouth shut he would not have been inducted.
His NOI lawyers told him to keep quiet. If he had followed their advice, he would not have had any legal problems and he would not have been inducted.

As far as his "people" having their skulls cracked, Ali promoted that. He was a race separatist who advocated lynching and beating for Black race mixers.
He was friendly with the Ku Klux Klan and appeared at Klan rallies.

You need to read up on Ali before you start defending him. People might think you share his views.

 

Did Ali always close his fist on his punches? It often looks like he's slapping with his glove partially open. I particularly notice this in the later fights. He also didn't much weight behind his punches. I think he threw arm punches in an effort to be quicker.

I'd agree that he's slightly behind or maybe tied with Holmes. Solid power in the 60's, decent in the early 70's, & poor after 1975.

 

He had trouble with his hands throughout the 70's. That effected his punching.

But he was always of the style that he'd prefer the accuracy of throwing looser shots instead of loading up on them. The William's fight was one of the few exceptions.

 

I remember reading about him having his hands numbed at times. That would definitely affect his power. I mention him not closing his fist because at times he's flicking with his hand rather that jabbing from the shoulder.

I also get the impression that in the 70's, he wasn't always motivated to get fighters out of there. He looked bored at times. He had much better focus in the 60's. You can see when Wepner ticked him off, his punches were sharper.

 

Ali had decent pop in his punches and when you combine that with his accuracy and speed of hand it makes for an effective ****nal. Look what he did to Lyle. For 10 rounds Ali basically did nothing but cover up and let Lyle pile up points. In the 11th Ali threw a sharp right hand out of nowhere and caught Ron right on the chin and for all intents and purposes ended the fight. Lyle was done after that right. Accuracy, speed, timing and enough power can do the job as well as brute power alone. A counter left hook by Ali against Frazier in the 1st round in Manila had Joe in serious trouble and the bell ending the round might have saved Frazier from a knockdown or worse. While I'm not trying to say Ali had good power, I think he had more pop to his shots than many think.

 

One of the things Ali lost during his layoff was his punching power. The myth that he hit harder in the early 70s is just a myth, he just sat down on every punch more often, but in the late 60s, he did have a KO punch.

 

If Ali had good or excellent power, then Joe Frazier has a much better chin than he's given credit for.

 

Respectable is indeed the best way to describe Muhammad's power. Not a one punch ko artist by any means but hardly feather fisted either.

 

This is the part that gets overlooked the most IMO. Good point.

 

Agreed.

I view him in a similar light, power wise, as I do Holyfield.

They hit hard enough that, when combined with the rest of the package, it had to be accounted for.

However, once the supporting skills and physical ability eroded, so too did the power. True punchers never really lose their power. Ali and Holyfield hit hard enough, but it was the "sum of the parts" that led to them stopping people better pure punchers couldn't.

 

if he'd claimed conscientious objector, and then was found out, what would have happened.

he'd have to live a lie for the rest of his career in order to maintain the façade the OP is suggesting.

 

Norton and Frazier's chins only faulted to the bombers though, which Ali wasn't.

IMO his power was decent at it's best. That's about all you can say though.

Good enough power to stun good fighters with a single shot, not good enough to get the 1 punch KO though.

 

He did claim to be a Conscientious Objector. That's what his whole case centered around.

 

The NOI was muslim in name only. It had nothing to do with Islam.
It was founded and operated by ex-convict thugs who ran a criminal enterprise.
One of its teachings was not to fight in wars.
That would have been enough to get Ali a draft exemption if he had simply kept his mouth shut around the press as his NOI attorneys told him to do.
Instead he showboated with statements like "I would fight in a war if Elijah Muhammad told me to".
That blew his case. It was understood that he meant he would fight in some wars and not in others.
Ali wasn't a martyr, he was a fool.