Ali's Prime Opposition

I feel Ali always had Liston's number, whether or not they were fixes, the Liston that we saw would have never troubled Ali in a 100 rounds let alone 15. So credit to Clay for that.

Older Ali beat everyone who was their. In his younger years, he had faster feet and faster hands, so it's fair to assume he'd do even better against them pre-exile. Just my opinion.

 

No question.

To assume Pre-exile Ali would have blown away guys like Frazier and even Norton would be stupid. They were great fighters in their own right.

 

While Ali's 60s opposition was not spectacular he did redeem himself by beating the monsters of the 70s while arguably paast his best.

 

Let's take this one opponent at a time.

* Personally, I don't think the first fight was fixed; Liston took quite a beating during those six rounds, and wasn't going to win that fight that evening. There's been a lot of speculation about the rematch being a dive, but I, personally, thought that Ali looked pretty good that evening, and that the punch he landed was good enough to drop (though certainly not stop Liston). Liston was considered all but unbeatable going into the first fight, so that makes Ali's victory pretty impressive.

*Patterson may have been past his peak, but he was hardly shot. He was coming off of good wins over Chuvalo, Machen, and Tod Herring. He would, of course, go on to give Quarry two extremely tough fights (draw in the first), and to lose a very disputed decision to Jimmy Ellis. He was still legit, and this makes the win a good result for Ali.

* Folley may have been past his best, but, he was on a pretty good run, and was still considered a credible contender going into the fight.

*Williams may have been shot, but he was still considered a legitimate puncher, and was still rated in the Top 10 at the time.

*Terrell may not have been special, but he was still, again, a credible contender, who happened to be at his peak going into the fight with Ali.

*Chuvalo: Credible contender.

*Mildenberger: Credible contender, who was on a very good run, against some good fighters.

*Cooper: Tough fringe contender, who happened to knock Ali down in a previous fight- making the rematch a natural.

So, really, you only have one defence that could be considered truly "soft" (two if you count Williams), but the rest were against fighters who were pretty solid, for the most part. That's not a bad ratio, at all.

 

Williams had a bullet in him when he enter his bout with Ali. Williams WAS shot lol.

 

Ali always redeemed himself, and that's why he is so highly regarded.

 

Bleh, his reaction to losing to Frazier was to hold him in ways that'd make Ruiz blush in their second fight.

Third fight he got around to redeeming himself, but then that was tainted by Joe's corner quitting for him.

Bleh!

 

His reaction to losing to Frazier was having the guts to fight a rematch and beat him.

His reaction to beating him was giving him another rematch and beating him again.

 

Yep, he sure showed Holmes and Berbick in their rematches...

Dundee said Foley was Ali's peak and that he was getting better. He also said his best public performance of boixing was the exibitions against Lewis and Qualls in Detriot in June 67.

Foley had seen better days but he was good form coming into the Ali fight.

 

An awful lot of Ali's stock is probably invested in what might and should have been, if he'd continued to compete through the late 1960s. Much overlooked when discussing this subject is Muhammad's performances against a peak Jerry Quarry, who NOBODY else had a picnic with in the nine years he was a prominent contender (except perhaps Frazier in their rematch).

Much of his first title reign was devoted to restoring the credibilty of the HW championship, by granting shots to contenders who were long overdue for one, through D'Amato's and Patterson's breaking of Jim Norris's IBC stranglehold on HW boxing.

Ali's time in the wilderness of the early 1970s wasn't exactly littered with tomato can opposition. Even Jurgen Blin put up a spirited resistance in Zurich.

 

Overall, Ali has one of the very best resumes in boxing history. Yes, the fighters he faced during the 70's were more dangerous and probably better overall. However, even during the 60's he faced some very decent fighters. I mean who, during the 60's did he fail to fight? He fought the very best available to him.

 

Solid points. But in the end, Ali beat the best competition, which makes him #1. The man had TKO wins over Liston, Frazier, and Foreman. These three are almost always viewed as top 15 heavies. They are often viewed as top ten. In some cases Foreman, Liston and Frazier are seen as the top 5 ( 4 or 5 ) heavies.

I beleive three key fights, one gift decision, and two fights that did not happen make Ali #1. The 3rd Frazier fight, the Foreman fight, and a gift decision in the 3rd Norton fight. I will elaborate a bit.

1 ) The rubber match between Ali and Frazier gave the winner an edge over the other. It was a great fight!

2 ) Ali's key win is over Foreman. Foreman blew out Frazier and Norton, and was a feared man in his prime. Ali took the title from him.

3 ) The third factor is Norton. If Norton had an official 2-1 edge over Ali, Ali could not be viewed as the greatest. Sorry, it’s true.

Now for the two fights that did not happen. Ali is lucky Foreman did not lose to Lyle via TKO/KO ( and it was close to happening ), or fight Holmes and lose, because if he did, Foreman's value isn't the same. However Holmes value goes through the roof.

Ali is also lucky Holmes did not fight a post Manila Frazier, because Holmes would have knocked a past his prime Frazier out.

If you give Holmes a win over Foreman or Frazier, and give Norton the 3rd fight vs Ali ( 2-1 in the series ) plus Holmes pasting of Ali, I honestly believe we have a new #1 heavyweight.

-Summary Holmes beat Norton. Ali loses the series to Norton 1-2.

-Holmes beats Foreman by doing a Jimmy Young take two, or beats a past his prime Frazier. Same as Ali. Pick one.

-Holmes pounds a past his prime Ali in 1980...just like it happened.

- Holmes makes it to 48-0 with a loaded “ name resume “ only losing to age to Spinks, then gets robbed in the re-match.

Of course this is a what if speculation, but after studying the time lines and style match ups things could have broke Holmes way.

 

Everything here is speculation. :nono