Of the fighters who came up during the post-Ali era, Graham and Nunn are among those who seemed to fashion their style after him the most. How do you think they compare to him in terms of abilities and style etc (in just about every way bar record - that's not a very interesting discussion).
Technically i think they put more emphasis on the improvised reflexive defensive side of Ali's style and the punching in bunches the jab and busy one-two's were de-emphasised.Basically the more traditional pointscoring outboxing stuff.These guys were loose, sloppy improvisers. The jab was both fighters worst punch(or maybe the slappy right hook up top for Nunn).Graham had a good upjab at times, but was never really consistently precise or committed with it.The sneak lead straight left and punch variety in combination were his best tools offensively. Nunn favoured a similar approach, albeit with more lazy infighting and his best punches were his uppercuts.Especially to the body because of the Hearns/Arguello like leverage he could generate, though like most of his other tools they were rarely used as well or often as they could have been. Neither were particularly great ring-generals within the style. Both often overconfident, with Nunn only dedicated and in-shape for the early part of his career and title reign.The only title fight he mustered up the effort to dictate the pace was Tate...other than that mostly fought in coasting mode, even if he was throwing a good amount of punches. Graham was far more disciplined in training and more willful/aggressive, but imo was wound up too tight.Too easy to take the play away from him and goad him into fighting your fight for whole rounds at a time, or for him to simply get frustrated and open.Fought as if he had a lot more power than he did. Guys like Tillis, larocca and to a lesser extent Page were the straight-up clones. Sot Chitalada also took the Ali approach in an interesting direction.
Good thread. About as similar as you could get to Ali,I suppose. Obvious differences being in Graham's southpaw stance. I think Nunn was a left hander too. None had the Greatest's chin and heart though.
