And in it they said he had already developed a slight tremor in his hand prior to The Rumble. That really puts his accomplishments in perspective. Un----ingbelievable.
He should have retired much sooner than he did. His sparring sessions were usually horrible after rumble. Idk if he got it in his head that it was a good strategy because he would often rope a dope in sparring taking massive abuse. His best attribute (his chin) led him to making poor boxing decisions late in life
Ali was having novocaine injections into his knuckles regulary before fights during the second phase of his career. A lot fighters suffer from damaged hands Joe Calzaghe another example fought through most of his career with a hand injury. What was the documentary? I've read most of the books and seen alot of documentaries and interviews with Ali. One I still haven't watched yet is Cassius X:Becoming Ali.
I have studied Muhammad in depth throughout the years and throughout his career and I have n't noticed any sign of illness prior to the late seventies. Even then it was in a minor way. The first really obvious indication was in 1979 when he was over here in Britain hosting a programme named "Muhammad Ali's Greatest Hits" This was a career retrospective in front of a celebrity audience and his voice sounded what you would describe as "Thick" I thought he'd developed a cold. And as we all know he was still due to have those final two sad fights. Disgraceful that those two bouts were allowed.
I think its probably an exaggeration. Ali looked so sharp in Rumble with his hands flowing as fast as ever, i just can't buy it. Its possible he had taken a lot of damage in sparring that would show up a few years later but that damage had not yet effected his physical abilities.
I see sparring footage of Ali vs Holmes yesterday and my goodness were they going at it no punches pulled what so ever. I do think Ali's rough sparring sessions definitely played a part in his health declining just as much as his fights IMO. I do agree with what you're saying though i think it's an exaggeration aswell Ali's performance vs Foreman was the last time he looked sharp and was in great shape. There was nothing in regards to the eye test that appeared to me what Ali was having difficulties in that fight with his hands. Ali should've retired after the Thriller in Manilla IMO.
Guys today have access to different technologies. Usyk reportedly uses a headguard that mathematically measures how much damage he takes in a sparring session and that is then used to reduce the intensity of his future sparring sessions or keep it the same. Everything is so well co ordinated, measured and monitored now. Ali should have retired post Manilla for sure.
A truer demonstration is that his speech is markedly slower and the semblance of slurring starts occurring as early as the early '70s, in comparison to his early pre-prime self. You could argue that his mind was already starting to show the effects and that the body, aided by taking crazy punishment in the ring and in sparring sessions, as well as the toil of getting out of shape and then working hard to be fight night ready and what it does to man who lost 3.5 years of training and fighting consistency and is also fighting father time.
There is a study where the researchers concluded from old footage of Ali that it started already in the early 70's. FOTC can't haave helped.
If you are referring to the 'Float Like a Butterfly Sting Like a Bee: Changes in Speech Preceded Parkinsonism Diagnosis for Muhammad Ali' study (Berisha, Liss, Huston, Wisler, Jiao, Eig - 2017), then your statement above is not really accurate. The study did find that there was a statistically significant decline in the speed of Ali's speech over the whole period in scope (1968 to 1981), but one could not responsibly conclude from this study that Ali’s speech began to slow in the early '70s. It also identified that, after the interviews in '77, there was a very notable reduction in 'vowel-space area' (a measure of how widely separated a speaker’s vowel sounds are acoustically). This was perhaps the greater indicator of a collapse in Ali's speech. Interestingly, the measures of variation in intonation showed no steady decline. Although, some of the data suggested a possible short-term post-fight effect in this regard.
Fair enough, 'concluded' was too strong a word. More exact to say they found signs signs that could point in that direction from as early as his late 20's.
