Charley Burley v Roy Jones jr at middle weight

I'll retract the original statement.

Ali and Hamed fought very differently but shared flaws in fundamentals. I think that you overstate Ali's range of mastery of the fundamentals. He was basic at best. Futch saw this early and that's what he built the strategy of Norton and to a degree, Frazier on. Ali threw jabs and right hands, his left hooks were more often slaps than not, he didn't go to the body, and he was no kind of infighter. How many times did you ever see him weave under a left hook and come back with a counter-right?

That's hard to watch. Ali looked terrible. Are you impressed with his technique? I'm not. Here is what he is doing -jab, right hand, clinch and hold. How about his defensive prowess -is he getting under shots? No, not once that I could see. He is taking shots -prompting the commentators to say again and again that "Ali could always take a shot." Ali gives you the body and accepts hooks to the head unless he can block them. What's the difference between '81 and '66'? Legs.

He isn't relying on anything more than a couple of basic fundamentals, Bokaj. He's holding and leaning, and at times blocking and not much else. And he's getting an assist from from Berbick -who's fighting like a lazy (or awe-struck or merceiful) heavyweight.

Barrera wasn't exactly physically inferior, and I think that the clips prove more than disprove my points. Neither were technicians. Here's how I see it...

Ali was never a technician. He got old, his speed and legs went and he was forced to rely on his lion's will, clutching tactics, and great chin. And again, his level of competition pales in comparison to another Clutch named Sammy Angott. There are scant technicians in Heavyweight history. That helped Ali. Be sure of it.

Hamed was never a technician. He had the misfortune of running into one fairly early in Barrera, and was exposed forevermore.

Jones was never a technician. Like Ali, it showed at 35, unlike Ali, he didn't have the chin. And if you consider that parade of off-duty municipal workers he chose to fight in his prime, he didn't have the will of Ali either.

All three are great athletes. None of them are good or great technicians. It showed.

This video will save my fingertips some work....

[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=81non05aKX4[/ame]

Okay, that's fair.

That last sentence is our connecting point.



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A pleasure, Bokaj.

 

Man, Trevor Berbick was ****.

 

This is really another discussion, so I'll keep it short: Ali had flaws in his fundamentals, Hamed had none at all. That's the big difference. Jones is somewhere in between.

 

No, I preferred to watch it without being disturbed by someone else's notions (I've seen that version before as well, though) about it. I was a bit surprised, when I watched with full attention, how flawed Burley's technique was. But he did have skills. Absolutely.