Did Ali have the easiest Heavyweight reign 65'-67'

Did anyone catch the Holmes reference?

Yeah, Williams was a scary dude. Like Elmer Ray, he's a fighter who's reputation is built on not necessarily who he beat but who avoided him.

 

Duce, if Ali traveled to England and avoided the reiging Britsh Champion who put him on his ass and claimed he cheated to survive the fight....than you would say it was a black eye on his record. There is no winning with you.

If Ali did somehow face Spencer in the UK..you would say he avoided a rematch with Cooper. That Spencer lost to Amos Lincoln twice and there were more deserving fighters. Your arguments are predictable and growing tiresome.

 

He was still a rated contender who had given Ali some issues in their first meeting. A rematch was inevitable, and was going to be made at some point.

And it's not like other champions in history haven't done the same thing. Louis gave a rematch to Abe Simon, who was coming off a loss going into the second fight. Wlad recently gave a rematch to Sam Peter, who had suffered back to back losses against his brother and Chambers. And the only reason why those fights were made was that Peter and Simon had managed to extend their opponents to some extant or another in the initial fights.

Same thing applies with Ali.

 

The Associated Press scored it for Ali, actually. And the reason why Jones wasn't given a rematch immediately was because he was knocked out by Chuvalo (remember him?) and then, after working his way back into contention, to Terrell (who Ali also fought.)

 

Doug Jones was out of boxing for a year after Chuvalo stopped him. He attempted a comeback but lost to Terrell.

It is also doubtful Ali would even have defended against Cooper if he didn't have to leave the U.S. The Cooper fight was making the best of a bad situation. You aren't taking the political climate into consideration at all. He could have sat on his ass and been inactive, instead of running up defenses against the best World Ranked European fighters.

 

From his first title defense against Liston in May 1965, to his final fight of the decade against Folley in March of 1967, Muhammad Ali engaged in 9 championship bouts in less than two years, with a number of them taking place in his opponent's back yard. I would hardly call this an "easy" title reign, let alone, the "easiest" ever.. In addition, you can say what you want about Liston taking a dive, Patterson being injured, Chuvalo and Terrell being limited, but these were not bum opponents.

In all fairness, I think that if one was looking for a padded title reign, they'd have to look no further than Jack Dempsey, who fought less times in 7 years, than Ali did in 22 months, plus avoided the best challengers.

 

Are you saying that Liston didn't deserve an immediate rematch, either?

For, Jones got mauled by Chuvalo in the latter part of '64 and by that point, Ali had already signed to fight Liston in the rematch. Ali suffered a hernia, delaying the fight, and by the time Jones had returned to action, Muhammad had signed to face Patterson.

Jones then signed to face Terrell, and lost the decision. Had he won the decision, then he likely would have faced Ali later in the year. But he didn't, and Ali faced the guy who defeated him.

Let's see, Machen down, Jones down. Spencer next? Leotis Martin? Anyone else?

 

Ali did have an exhibition match with Doug Jones, and gave him a beating.

 

This thread is stirring up tons of great discussion! Great work, El Duce!

In a "fight" that Angelo Dundee did not want to happen, Ali and Jones "fought" a six round exhibition in October 66 in which Ali coasted to an easy "win". This "bout" pretty much proved that at this stage Doug Jones was no match for Ali. The time for a Clay-Jones rematch was in 1963 or 1964.

Speaking of 1964, no one ever seems to mention Ali's lack of activity that year. Sure, he was supposed to give Liston a rematch in November, but why didn't he, at the very least, take a summer bout with, say, Eddie Machen (instead of Machen facing Patterson), as apparently promised to Machen in February 1964. As active as Ali was in 1966 and was starting to be in 67, I can't help but question his mere one round of activity between February 1964 and November 1965.

 

Ali was injured while training for the Liston rematch, and it was post-poned.

 

This still doesn't bolster an especially strong argument for calling his reign the "easiest"..