Anyone in the top ten for 1981 Ali could have beat?

Mercado maybe? Not really though.. dont think he would take any of those guys at that point

 

Shot or not, he's the last one I'd pick.

Maybe Monroe, but I'm not sure he could have beaten any of them. His last creditable performance was Spinks 2, almost three years earlier. He had started to exhibit symptoms by then.

 

None.The embarrassment would've been huge.

 

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None. Not even Mercado and Monroe. The fact they let him fight in 81 boggles the mind. He showed absolutely nothing in the Holmes fight. His doctors gave some excuse that tyroid medication used to help him lose weight for the Holmes fight made him lethargic, but he was plain shot. We now know he was already suffering the early effects of Parkinsons by 80-81.

 

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His effort against Berbick is underrated. He did quite well. Not sure how his training camp went for that fight but his camp against Holmes was all smoke and mirrors.

 

Ali was at his best against big punchers. I wonder ****ey, who was offensively great, but i would have thought would have been standing in front of Ali trying to land the big shots, and also i would have thought that he had one of the weaker chins of those mentioned, might just be worth the punt by Ali. It wouldnt have hurt that it would have been a huge fight, also.

I pick ****ey at this stage, but i do think that ****ey represents the best Risk vs reward scenario. Like others, i think that the Berbick fight wasnt a bad effort, particularly considering how bad the holmes fight was. I think Ali might just find a way to win against at least one of the top 10.

 

He looked ****ing awful against Berbick.

 

Those problems were happening all the way back in 1977.

 

I agree with this. He might not have looked as bad as he did in the Holmes fight, but he was still awful - considerably removed from Spinks 2 and miles away from Frazier 2. I remember Hugh McIlvanney of The Observer (at the time - he later wrote for The Times) wrote an excellent article on this fight headlined "The King Who Went Out On A Dustcart".

It should also be remembered in context that at this point in time that Berbick wasn't as highly regarded in '81 as he was at around the time of the Thomas fight. He was largely considered as a strong, robust awkward guy, who had taken Holmes to an uncompetitive decision.

The win over Tate was viewed as showing the how far (literally!!) Tate had fallen, it was not viewed as a great performance by Berbick.

 

I've never seen Marty Monroe fight so I have no clue how Ali would do against him. As for the rest, it would be pretty tough to give Ali an edge at that point.

 

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