How does a young Ali do in the 70s?

You still here?

 

Is your vision impaired?

 

He faded out quickly, but he was really good there for a while. Every bit as technical as the lauded Young, but much more aggressive and entertaining.

His fight against Folley is a great one.

 

I would say the Muhammad Ali of 1964 and beyond would have beaten the 1970's contenders. After he defeated Sonny Liston for the title, his chin had improved, he was decked by Sonny Banks on Feb 20 1962 and Henry Cooper on June 18 1963. During his title reign, he had all of his physical gifts, speed, stamina, reflexes, and footwork, which he no longer possessed on March 8 1971, though a terrific win by Smoking Joe Frazier, the only thing Ali had left was his speed. On March 31 1973, Ali had began to look flabby at 221 lbs against a tough ex marine named Ken Norton who broke Ali's jaw, later in their two fights, they would turn out to be very controversial. I think 1964-1967 Ali decisions Frazier, Ali was not a vicious knockout puncher like prime George Foreman. Ali would have scored a more convincing points victory over Ken Norton. Against the likes of Jerry Quarry, he scores a stoppage on cuts, against Oscar Bonavena, they were originally supposed to fight on May 27 1967, Ali outpoints him, too much stamina and speed. Ali would lose to Frazier in the rematch, probably in 1971, because Joe would have gained more experience, he had that drive and determination to win, Yank Durham did say in 1967, that Joe was too green for the likes of Clay (Muhammad Ali). I also think that Ali loses to Norton in the second fight of their trilogy in 1973. Remember a peak Ali was banned from 1967-1970, his title and boxing license had been stripped from him. Ali usually weighed 203 to 212 lbs during his first title reign, when he returned in 1970, he started to weigh 215 lbs and beyond, he had power but no stamina, he began to lay on the ropes, his legs were gone.

 

On May 21 1966 in a rematch with Henry Cooper, Ali retained his title by a TKO 6, no knockdown in that fight. But he did slice Cooper up, 14 stitches.

 

I'm just assuming some weird timeline where Holmes ends up with the same skills and experience that he did in the real world, despite in this fictional world him not having sparred so much with Ali.

Given that, I think we get a great Ali-Holmes trilogy, as well as a great Ali-Frazier trilogy. I think Ali wins 2 out of 3 of both of those, with his loss in each being the first fight. Foreman gives him trouble, Norton gives him trouble, Lyle gives him trouble, but he pulls off the wins against those anyway. Quarry he demolishes in much the same fashion as he did the first time.

... and what in the real world was the Holmes-Ali fight ends up being the Tyson-Ali fight. Instead of ignoring all of Ali's **** talk like Holmes did, Tyson gets pissed off by it and Ali leaves on a stretcher. That Holmes-Ali fight really could have ended a lot worse. If Holmes had been an anger filled KO artist like young Tyson was... yeesh.

Here are a couple other fun scenarios:

What if Holmes was the same age as Ali?
What if Ali had aged like Holmes? What would have old man Ali have been like? Might old man Ali have given Holmes a good fight, or maybe even pulled it off? Then stomped Berbick?

Fun to think of.

 

42 year old Holmes >>>>>> 38 year old Ali

 

That was my point. What if Ali had aged like Holmes? Old man Holmes could still fight at a high level. Ali was a wreck after Shavers.