Did Ali downplay his power as a psychological ploy?

Ali obviously did not fully sit down that hard on his punches, his style didn't allow for such.

 

Possibly, though my guess is that if Ali couldn't be the greatest at something, he chose to portray that thing as being unimportant to him and instead extol those attributes he most excelled at.

Whilst he could hit, he knew others could hit harder, so he owned that narrative, which by association perpetuated a reasoning that he must excel at other facets of the game, such as speed, mobility and ring IQ, to an immense degree.

 

One thing i love about Ali is that his boasts are (almost) always about childish and inoccent things. While others say "i'm gonna knock this guy unconscious with your family looking" Ali would say some **** about putting water on his smokin'. That's the least threatening thing i've ever heard in a press conference

 

That’s always to me been a big reason why his bragging landed so well with people, it’s cartoonish and obviously a joke stuff like handcuffing lightening lol,

 

I think too that Ali often deferred more to the artistic presentation when he fought.

His hands had always given him problems and more so later in his career.

Notably, Ali made it clear he was free of hand problems for his upcoming fight vs Foreman in Zaire - and; imo, Ali put on a terrific power punching display in that fight -

Not to say he was a puncher per se but it does seem Ali might be underrated in that dept. - but then the rating might be fair but paradoxical at the same time -

Ali didn’t appear to ever really hurt a guy like Cooper but there he was, KO’ing guys like Bonavena and Foreman…and being the only man to ever do so.

Based on his own in ring experiences against Ali, Henry Cooper once said it amazed him how Ali rolled some of the big guys that he did.

Obviously, Henry (who was unequivocally flattened by Patterson, a man much smaller than Ali) couldn’t reconcile how he felt about Ali’s power first hand (= not impressed) vs the effects Ali’s power yielded against other opponents - though Ali was crazy light for their rematch in 1966 - opting for pure mobility.

 

Ali was a guy stylistically who just needed to hit you right, his power came from his accuracy as it should really - if he landed a good punch he’d put you out but he wasn’t looking for KO’s typically, if it came it came it is very professional.

 

IMO Henry's british efficient 'no bull**** about rythm' offense was really really dangerous to Ali so the latter was throwing really fast and tryna move before Enry's Ammer got him

 

He rhymes well and got annoying enough for his opponents head,his psych game is so crazy only a tough man like Frazier could reply to Ali

 

When he sat down on his punches he was lethal.

 

Mano a Mano Ali was very dangerous,look at what he did vs Bonavena, Lyle and that last round shot of Foreman.

 

No he didn’t when you actually look at what happened in the rumble in the jungle and honestly look at it foreman was completely gassed to where he stumbled over himself multiple times right after all that Ali hits him with a good shot foreman gets rocked but he’s off balanced from being gassed and then trips to the ground missing the count Ali didn’t land a shot that shut his lights off he landed a good shot on a rocked foreman Ali didn’t have crazy power but Ali doesn’t have a a high level ko where he just shuts someone’s lights out he just doesn’t have anything like that he has a few good kid but nothing that shows good power he had average power but ridiculous speed, I think a guy like Usyk who has really shut off high level fighters like Bellew with a single punch that’s good power for someone literally Ali’s size but Ali never did that to any high level fighter

 

Henry always appeared that bit awkward for Ali - even during the 1966 rematch when Ali was Champ.