Anthony Joshua vs The Muhammad Ali that fought Foreman

Ali wins this by decision. One of the main takeaways I get from watching Joshua fight is that he isn't very intelligent boxing-wise. I think he would be one dimensional and Ali probably would have had a winning game plan figured out before the fight even started.

 

imagine that foreman vs joshua...poor joshua

 

Ali for his boxing iq, speed and durability. I'm a Joshua fan but he needs to prove himself against Usyk, Wilder and Fury to be in these kind of conversations

 

Foreman Ali was an early ass stoppage.

 

I guess I'm just not that high on 70s Ali. He wasn't that fast, couldn't punch that hard, and got beat technically by the best technical boxers he faced. At this point I just think Joshua would have been too powerful and conditioned. Without Ali's speed I don't think he could have gotten out of the way of Joshua's blows, and by 74 his speed was lacking.

 

Another low iq post. Joshua is not a pressure fighter and even if he was his chin is suspect considering Usyk made him fold with some lefts. Ali stops a gassed Joshua late.

 

He doesn't need to be a pressure fighter, he has tons of reach and size on Ali. He can hit him with huge punches from far away. This is how he has achieved an 84% KO rate. Joshua stops a past prime Ali mid rounds

 

Ok…So prime 6ft4, hard hitting murderer’s row Foreman gets stopped by 1974 Ali, but the basic AJ…a man who got schooled by a pumped up Cruiser, and stopped by a decent but limited Ruiz, would stop an ATG boxer with an extremely high boxing IQ, a durability that meant none of the monstrous punchers he faced in the 70s had ever stopped him and a winning mentality that meant he beat every fighter he ever met up to 1978??
The only version of Ali that AJ would beat would be the 1980 version, the one that it is widely believed was in the early stages of Parkinson’s Disease.

Btw…who are these “Technical” fighters that beat Ali technically that you mentioned in an earlier post?

 

A 1974 Ali has the head movement and speed to slip and pull from Joshuas shots. Joshua is not fast, nor does he have a good jab. He is just a good combination puncher at mid range. Ali outmanuvres and outboxes him.

Joshua jabbing a morbidly obese Andy Ruiz after getting knocked out is not impressive and he literally gassed against old Pulev.

Also pretty sure Foreman had a higher KO ratio going into the Ali fight

 

OP is British.

 

Ali would have pissed his pants once he felt AJ's power.

 

5'11 200 pound half blind Frazier beat him and knocked him down
Ken Norton arguably beat him 3x
17-4-2 Jimmy Young arguably beat him

In the 70s he was not near GOAT status, and with his limited power, speed and size it's hard to see 70s Ali beating a much much bigger, more powerful, skilled fighter. Joshua has good accuracy with both hands and can fight on both front foot and back foot. He can go forward and hit Ali far before Ali can hit him (as this Ali had mediocre speed) and he can go backwards and use his jab, Ali never fought an elite fighter Joshua's size with his jab. I believe in the 60s he had the speed to do so, but by this time he had no physical attributes on Joshua whatsoever.

The "pumped up cruiserweight" Joshua lost to is the exact same size as Foreman (6'3 and 220 pounds) except he is in far better shape and is better than Foreman in every way besides power.

 

Foreman did have a great KO rate, no doubt he had a lot of power. But his conditioning was absolutely horrible and he wasn't conditioned to the terrain. I mean, watch how slow and inaccurate he was right before the KO, he was completely gassed after throwing only like 200 punches. Consider that Joshua threw 700 punches vs Usyk:

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