Did Ali actually struggle with Mildenberger?

Not much. He had a less than stellar day against Mildenberger but he still stopped him and if they'd had a rematch Ali would've won easily. His timing was off for that fight, that's all.

 

I thought it was a good performance from Ali tbf.

He had some trouble but he adjusted.

 

I'll answer the question posed in the thread title rather than your OP, as cross-era fantasy fights aren't for me.

Personally, I don't consider that winning a fight ɓy 12th round stoppage, dropping a couple of rounds along the way, constitutes as struggling, no.

Mildenberger landed a few good body shots, a couple of which appeared to make Ali a little uncomfortable, which good body shots tend to do, but that doesn't meet my threshold for qualifying as "struggling".

Louis struggled against Conn. Chavez struggled against Taylor. Lewis struggled against Mercer. All solid wins for great fighters nonetheless. Ali didn't struggle against Mildenberger.

 

This board amazes me. I've seen it said here Frazier looked good in his rematch with Foreman. It was the most unnatural performance I have ever seen by a great athlete. Possibly the greatest pressure fighter to have ever lived he took awkward steps backwards whenever he got close to George.

 

He def struggled more then he should with a mediocre fighter like Mildenberger considering this was prime Ali supposedly the H2H GOAT. Tells me he would struggle a fair bit with any good southpaw tbh

 

Mildenberger was not a complete nonentity, he could fight.

 

To a lot of folks just getting past the second round was "looking good" for Frazier. He was nowhere close to being an elite fighter that night.

 

Ali needed a couple of rounds to adjust to Mildenberger. After he settled in, it wasn't anything like a struggle and actually quite one-sided in favor of Ali. Mildenberger remained game - until he was stopped.

Ali's schedule was fairly crammed during 1966. Mildenberger was his fourth defense that year. He'd defended less than two months earlier. All four bouts took place overseas, and I seem to recall him having to fly back and forth between Europe and the States during that period, as well.

A couple of months later, that same year, he paneled Williams, back in the US. An impressive schedule.

 

Karl Mildenberger was a crafty and tricky fighter at times. In addition to being one of the few good south paws around at the time he was very effective defensively. Not an easy guy to look impressive against. Difficult to judge too. Zora Folley got slapped with a draw against him even though many believed it to be a robbery. I’ll also give Muhammad Ali the benefit of the doubt that he wrote Mildenberger off as “ a walk in the park, “ and ultimately got surprised.

To answer the thread question, I’m not sure what it says for how Ali would do against other southpaws. Throughout history southpaws have been dreaded by orthodox fighters and even more so by their trainers. And let’s face it, Muhammad Ali didn’t fight many of them. But on a positive note, Ali was a master adaptor and overcame great fighters of many different styles and abilities. He has my confidence to do well against pretty much anybody.

 

Ebenezer Rockwood Hoar, a judge out of Massachusetts, had been speaking in his chambers to a gentleman one day who referred to a funeral for infamously agitating abolitionist Wendell P. Phillips. The gentleman asked Ebenezer "Do you intend to go to the funeral?"

"No, but I approve of it!" the judge chirped. For judges and agitators are rarely fans of one another. Later, this would be attributed, wrongly, as in, I say, as in misattributed, to the great Marcus P. Twain, of the great state of Georgiana Floridium TexaMissiouria. And now this false Twain quote is more well known than all other persons henceforth mentioned and hereto-for involved within this tale of rhetoric and lace!

Sometimes people misremember things to make their favourites more realistically clever than they likely are. Greater than they likely are. By relation to that of every other man else. I know that I, for one, do declare myself to have been guilty of just this type and manner of hijinks and tomfoolery for lo and behold the impish roustabout and ignominious scallywag and hoopleheaded dunderfoot I hath become! For the Lord himself seems to have wroughteth me into this ironwork of which that I have befell of my own very self!

 

I wouldnt call Mildenberger a mediocre fighter. He was a very solid contender. Definitely top five material in the mid 60s.

 

He has like one good win over a past his best Eddie Machen and beat no one of note. If he was really top 5 material in the 60s then that just shows how weak the 60s were.

 

He was beating the same fighters everyone else was to get ranked so what makes him any less? He was European Champion for four years when it meant something and probably would have continued being one for a bit longer if the referee in the Cooper fight hadnt blown the call and DQd him for a supposed headbutt when the damage done to Cooper was clearly done by the punch that rocked him right before the DQ.

 

Ali had to adjust to the tricky southpaw style in the early rounds but in the end won pretty convincingly flooring his man 3 times and stopping him.

Ali at max lost 3 rounds the most common score I've seen is 2 rounds for Mildenberger.

It's no different to Usyk losing the early rounds to Hunter taking time to adjust and then coming on strong to dominate.