It's well known that Futch instructed both Frazier and Norton to take advantage in different ways of Ali's flaws. It clearly worked in their first meetings, but did Ali adapt in the subsequent ones? Frazier was told to ignore the head to start with when Ali was on the ropes since Ali was so good at pulling it back. Instead Futch wanted him to go to Ali's body, which Ali exposed by having his back against the ropes and leaning back. Not until Ali started to lean forward to protect his ailing body was Joe to go to the head. Norton was told to jab with Ali: to block and counter his jab in order to get him on the ropes. When he got him there he was to go to the body just like Frazier did. Do you think these tactics were as succesful in the second and third fights, or did Ali do anything to nullify them?
for me Norton won all 3 fights with Ali. Norton threw and landed so many body shots on Ali that I wonder how his kidneys, liver and stomach were at the same place after the fight. Ali also gave away many rounds against Norton, I think that he was healing then and gaining some breath. It wasn't good adjustment. Ali couldn't handle Frazier's body work and left hook to the head, especially in FOTC. In the second fight Frazier was tied by the ref, who didn't allow him to stay inside. In the third fight Ali was winning on cards but he took many hard blows, and couldn't avoid them. Medicore adjustment also.
I thought he tried to in both immediate rematches by staying on his toes and dancing. I thought he beat Norton in the rematch simply because he won the first 5 rounds straight just moving, moving, moving, like it was the 60's again. He tried it against Frazier, and it worked for a time. Ali certainly owned the early rounds clearly, but Fraziers pressure started wearing, Ali became more and more stationary, and had to resort to holding to nullify Fraziers smoke. This is a bit overstated, as Frazier threw many low blows and was a mile behind when the holding started getting bad, but, the adjustment still didn't work great here.
Joe didn't get to work his body during sustained periods, though. That should be evidence that it worked pretty well. Sure, one could say that the ref showed too much lenience with his holding, but it is what is. He moved and he held, and this let him without taking too much punishment.
I don't think Ali ever really did adapt, except with improved conditioning and speed in the second fights, then championship guts and toughness in the rubber matches. Remarkably, he was not in Kinshasa condition for Manila, but came in at the exact same weight he was for Lyle and Bugner. Had he trained back down to the 212 he was at for those middle bouts, maybe Manila would not have been the depleting war for him that it was. Through the first several rounds of Norton II, Ali was dancing, but also doing all the punching, while Ken merely followed without doing any punching at all. It was rare to see, but Holmes outboxed Norton over the first ten rounds in similarly one sided fashion to how Ali started out against Ken in their Inglewood return. Frazier and Norton did not truly replicate the architecture which carried them to historic wins in those initial bouts. It may be argued that Ali would have been ready for a replay attempt, so that it was prudent to vary the approach. In truth though, Joe wasn't ever the same after the FOTC, while Ken was never a genuine great of that caliber. I suppose in the final analysis, it was what it was. Muhammad was always the older man with more mileage who was never the same athlete after exile. He was always diminished for these six bouts, yet went 4-2, winning each series.
He adjusted well to Frazier, atleast as well as he ever could with the clinching and energy-conserving tactics, not so much to Norton. In fact his only true adjustment between the first and second fights against Norton, aside from the fleet-footed display in the first 6 rounds of the rematch (which was not necessarily such a great idea), was to be in great condition and to grit it out in the end.
In a way,Norton was Ali's toughest opponent,and not Frazier. Stylistically anyhow. His victories over Joe were hard fought,yet decisive. Against Ken,it was a skin of his teeth thing. I will always insist that Muhammad deserved the nod in the second fight,yet I admit that Norton should have been given the third. He edged it. Hardly a robbery.
I think there were some differences. If you look at 5:10 to 5:40 in this clip you see an example example of what Futch was talking about. Ali stands with his back against the rope, feets parallell, and leans back from Frazier's punches to the head, but Joe concentrates on the body: [ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dakDpjhfCgo&feature=related[/ame] In the same round in Manilla (in the clip below), Ali keeps a proper stance and leans into Frazier when on the ropes, thereby giving him less space for punching: [ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nzNBb6Ef8O0[/ame]
I agree it wasn't. He should have stopped dancing after the first 3, while still fresh, I think. But in the rubber fight, it seems to me that he's more disciplined with his guard and therfore not as reliant on his feet to get away from Norton's jabs.
Norton, to me, is why I think a lot of the older HWs like Johnson and Louis would have a great chance at beating Ali. That block and counter and lead controlling neutralizes the majority of the Ali offense, you can see what it did to his game. The only real adapting i think he did was to try and be as mobile as possible, to use his athleticism to counter norton's technique. I don't think it worked that well. Between the two of them, I honestly think Norton was the bigger foil for Muhammad Ali than Frazier was.