Finished watching prime Muhammad Ali and here was my take away

We all love the Greatest.

This man is the most talented man in heavyweight history in terms of physicality and athletism. BUT,and we will get to that

PROS ( oh god the pros):
* FEET
- Now what I took away, this man in his prime was the fastest heavyweight of all time on his feet. His ability to move around the ring was ridicolous. Him dancing around the ring did not truly start until after his fight with Liston the 1st time I felt. I wonder if he picked up on the idea when he was running backwards and doging from Liston in the first 1 minute of the first fight. Because most of the time before that he would stand infront of the guy sticking his head out moving away from punches and during the 2nd Liston fight that is when he would start moving around the ring. The best display to show how he didn't dance before the Liston fight, is watch his 1st and 2nd fight with Cooper. Then you will see the change,

*HANDS
- This man's hand speed is ******ed,this is best displayed in his knockout of Brian London. Although I think Mike Tyson and Patterson are in the conversation.

*STAMINA
QUESTION: Do you think Ali's stamina was overrated?(And by overrated I mean he was had the best stamina of the heavyweight history) Because he did not dance for a full 15 rounds like people claim,but more like 10. And he would usually just stop infront of the guy and look at him pulilng back from punches.
- One of the best simply,look at how long he dance

* RECOVERY
- His ability to recover was pretty insane when Banks and Cooper knocked him down as he walked back to his corner after a knockdown.

*REFLEXES/RANGE
- This man must have been psychic, there is no way reflexes like that are for real. Also I feel his sense of space and range helped a lot as he could see the punches coming easier this way.

*PSYCHOLOGY
- Now I'm not talking about the trash talking. This part of him was underrated as hell. What I am talking about is,this guy ,knew what he was doing to destroy his opponents psychology. He would move around the ring and make the opponent miss everything. One thing the opponent would resort to would just chase him around the ring then occasionally throw halfassed aggression. I remember Terell,Patterson,Foley almost looked by body language like they were giving up after the first few rounds based on body language and just got frustrated and jumped forward trying to land but missed. He made these fighters feel completly helpess.

Most of my cons he actually patched up during his prime, please read this,this was very facinating to watch.

PATCHED CONS:

*JAB
- He didn't really have a solid jab at the beginning of his career. This started to get better at the 2nd Liston fight, it wasn't very authorative before then and it started to get really good in the Patterson fight.

-COUNTER
He would pull back A LOT but he never capetilzed on it properly. UNTIL his 2nd Liston fight, this was when I felt he really and truly started to use it and I was so hpapy.

* LEFT HOOK
- A lot of people say he was susceptible to left hooks. I do agree in the beginnig of his career,because when he would pull back, the range of a jab and a cross is easier to gauge. But leaning back from a left hook is harder because it is outside your field of vision. HOWEVER if you watch the 1st cooper fight, he is super stationary which is what allowed him to get hit a lot. Then you watch the 2nd Cooper fight and he barely got hit,because this is when he started dancing. Simply beautiful.

CONS THAT DIDN'T GET PATCHED:

*OFFENSE
- He really lacked an offense in my opinion, most of his fights were mostly won on defense and ring generalship,he would land clean punches,but I just felt he wasn't busy enough in the punching department ( He still won pretty much every round he was in).

* MAIN WEAKNESS
- When he would remain stationary ,which I feel he did because he was conserving energy (he would just stare at the guy not throwing any punches) which was replaced by the rope-a-dope in the 2nd career. He would get hit A LOT by Zora Foley's overhand rights. Like just watch the fight, he would get hit some when he was dancing,but e could lean back from those, when he was stationary and would lean back, he wouldn't get out of the way.

In Conclusion:
In his prime,this was the most complete fighter I think at heavyweight. Dancing for 15 rounds, FASTEST FEET at heavyweight, FASTEST REFLEXES ,One of the FASTEST HANDS at heavyweight. It is the most beautiful thing to watch at heavyweight. It almost looks like a classic stage performance of sorts

 

**** I forgot, also his uppercut seemed a bit lacking too