Heavyweights with the best defence

Okay champ.

I can highlight ample examples of Ali demonstrating sound fundamental defensive techniques throughout his career - you likely won't accept it.

Floyd was extremely skilled at all four facets of defence - Ali, at his best, excelled in three and was extremely inconsistent at hand placement, using a higher guard and elbows to block shots when facing the bigger punchers.

You would never expect a HW to be as skilled as the lighter weight legends - it is what it is.

 

There was no combo punchers of his era. The one and only was Povetkin.

Lewis at the end of his career , when slow and overweight and only throwing single shots , found it almost impossible NOT to hit him. Hence the state of his face. lmao

 

I'm sorry but you can't say the guy who practiced absorbing blows in camp to get used to had great defense compared to others who had better fundamentals and didn't get hit as much even as their athletism started to decline.

 

I'm sorry but you can't say the guy that can be seen on film parrying jabs, elbow blocking hooks to the body, even shoulder rolling a shot or two, blading his body as he pivots and hiding his chin behind the shoulder as he jabs to the body and dances, slips inside and outside of jabs, walked Foreman onto the right hand leads with his footwork and also showed reflexive head movement to negate the impact of punches didn't know and show fundamentals.

We are not having the same discussion. I am saying Ali knew defence, both fundamentals and his own unconventional stylistic preferences. I don't think I've compared him favourably to any other more conventional boxers.

Also, in many martial arts where 'proper' sparring is prioritised, fighters have been getting conditioned to absorb punishment for eons. This has no bearing on defensive ability - it is merely a conditioning tool both physically and mentally as no matter how good your defence, you will take punches. It is wise to know that you can survive rather than be shocked and fall apart in the ring.

 

Hard to see that when the same guy can be seen on film not being able to block a jab or left hook and be unable to adapt to block those punches from fighters who used then excessively against him i.e Norton and Frazier

 

Nonsense.

You can see him blading and hiding his chin in all pre-exile defences. You can see him shifting his head off centre line when throwing his jab, much like Louis, Pep and SRR did before him. This is extremely fundamentally sound and defensively responsible.

High guard, boxing off the jab and pivot to control ring centre versus Liston, using parries, slipping jabs, elbow blocking body shots, effective footwork to move around the ring and to move around Liston. Amples of sound defensive techniques versus Foreman, even blocking a punch with the shoulder.

Defence is footwork, hand, gloves and elbow placement, head movement and reflexive manoeuvres.

Ali had ample footwork, head movement and reflexive manoeuvres. His issue was not using his hand, glove and elbow placement consistently. This doesn't mean that he couldn't do it and the dogma saying so is lazy, especially when tape shows differently.

If I take the same logic, Oscar troubling Floyd with the jab means that Floyd couldn't deal with a good strong and quick jab; Hasim tagging Lennox means that any good right hand takes him out.

Again, Liston's got ATG jabs and left hooks. Terrell had an excellent jab and he had it taken away from him completely.

It's a fight - they're going to get hit - all that really matters is that they win their legacy fights or at least put in ATG losing performances when facing undoubtably great fighters.

This is my last response as the conversation is going nowhere fast.

 

Looking at one fight vs his whole career is pretty telling and the difference is that Lennox and Floyd both adjusted Ali never did its why Norton gave him so much trouble. Now I'm not saying his defense was bad I'm just saying he can't be considered the heavyweight with the best defense when he was getting hit because of his lack of fundamentals while other had better technical defense and were more consistent with it.

 

I always thought that Vitali Klitschko was quite difficult to hit...

 

Excellent.