Fighters who could beat Ali

Joe Frazier is the obvious pick. I honestly agree with your points about Holy as well - he would give Ali, or any heavyweight, hell.

 

Agree with rough, Frazier is terrible for Ali stylistically.
Another one would be Marciano imo, depending on if Marciano can impose his will on Ali or if Ali can outpoint him, but I think Marciano would wear him down and stop him late.
Joe Louis is pretty 50/50, both would give each other hell

 

Carnera.

 

Holy was much easier to hit than Ali and why couldn`t Ali take Lewis`s power like all the other fighters that lasted the distance with Lennox adding the fact that Ali was harder to hit than anyone Lewis fought, Ali would have boxed Lewis`s ears off, he was far quicker than anyone Lewis ever fought, different class.

 

D`Amato told Ali on a vid that Marciano would have been his toughest opponent.

 

There's plenty who could, but only Frazier would imo.

 

David Tua

 

15 years old kid post

 

He destroys marciano in 1 or 2 rounds sure

 

He'd kill Louis, Marciano, Ali and Tyson in the same night.

 

Absolute warlord. His heir is an animal too. I heard big Joe Parker beat ANDY RUIZ!!!!

 

D'AMATO- THE MOST OVERRATED TRAINOR OR FIGURE PERIOD IN BOXING HISTORY. HAS 99 % OF YOU GUYS BRAINWASHED AND BAMBOOZLED.

 

I agree with you but he is right about Marciano and Frazier!

 

It would be very difficult to make anybody a clear favorite over Ali, but there are a lot of men who would have had a fair chance against him. I will break them down by style:

The pressure fighters
Joe Frazier beat him once, and took him to the edge of disaster twice, so we don't need to ask whether he could have beaten him. So could others have had success with the same style? Rocky Marciano is the obvious possibility. Dempsey and Tyson might also have been able to do it, but they did not apply sustained pressure in the same way.

The boxer punchers
Ken Norton beat him using sustained pressure behind a jab, so others could perhaps have had success with the same tactic. Joe Louis is one possibility, and there might have been others, who could have had success with eh same tactic.

The jesters
Ali looked very uncomfortable when he was forced to fight on the front foot, and it would have been interesting to see more fighters try this tactic against him. Somebody like Gene Tunney, Billy Conn, or Joe Walcott, perhaps also Larry Holmes could have had success with this tactic.

The wild card
It would probably turn out that somebody who we would never have thought, would have the style to give him fits. Somebody random like Fred Fulton or Tim Witherspoon say.