How would you rate Ali's punching power?

Check out his record before his first enforced retirement....he hit plenty hard. Add that to the fact that he was impossible to hit at that point and that's why he was the greatest HW that ever lived. Anything he did after 1967 was just gravy.

Sure the detractors will pick up on close decisions when the guy was about 20-21 years old, but the fact is from 22 to 26 no-one even came close to living with him is all you need to know, he packed a serious punch in his day.

 

I agree. He wasn't a devastating puncher when compared to great heavyweight punchers, but, in general, I think his punching power is under-rated.

 

Ali was a decent, underrated puncher. There was still one line that stuck out to me when watching the Holmes-Ali fight, where Cosell is talking about how Ali could win if he could landed the straight right. While I don't think Ali had any hope of winning given his condition, I do think if he hit anyone square with his right hand, he could at the very least have them on ***** street.

There's also the story, not sure how true it is, that Ali asked Cus D'Amato for advice before the Rumble in the Jungle, and Cus told him he had to earn Foreman's respect early on, showing his punches could hurt, hence the right hand leads. When compounded with Ali's taunts that Foreman had no power, I believe that the first round was very crucial to the success of the rope-a-dope later on.

 

Hard enough to KO, or TKO...or have guy's think-twice before charging in.

 

a single straight right hand dazed ron lyle, stopped foreman first to stop bonavena.

 

Hard. Underrated for sure.

 

It is not how hard he hit, it's how accurate he was. In terms of being a big hitter, that's relatively unfounded. In terms of being fast and deadly accurate, the writing is on the wall.

 

Placed his punches masterfully, as noted above, but I don't think that's it. He had great timing and could land a punch when his opponent least expected it, and I think he had a hard punch on top of it all. His win over George really tells the tale of what he could do with a solid connect or three.

 

He was a finisher of the highest degree. If he got a guy ready to go, they went. If a guy got busted up against Ali, the fight was over. He punched good enough to get them to that stage where they were ready to go & then those finishing skills took over. And he could do it in the first round, the 5th round or the 15th round.

 

Praise the big lipped lord!!
The man couldnt knock out a glasswindow with a sledgehammer...

 

well he stopped or knocked out some real monsters so the answer as got to be, hard enough

 

I think he was about equal to Holmes and prime Holyfield in this respect. The difference is that he rarely went full out with his punches. When he did he got some fantastic scalps like Foreman, Bonavena and Lyle.

I rewatched FOTC yesterday and still can't believe that Frazier walked through that barrage of the opening rounds. I just can't my head around it. Similarily I can't believe that Ali stood up to Frazier's punches later on. What a slaughter that fight was.

 

Who knocked out Foreman? One guy. Who knocked out Bonavena? One guy. Brute strength? Certainly had it, even if it wasn't the highest level but the punching was smart and could do the job at any given time against anyone. 1-10, not in the 8,9,10 range of course, but maybe as high as a 7 when he was committed to it.