If nothing else changes then nothing at all where Ali is concerned (he's still #1) and you can't have Holmes in the top 30 or 40.
Well it depends on perception i think. Obviously that exact version of Ali was never beating Holmes, he'd beaten way way better. So we are looking at a great effort from Ali as opposed to an incredibly weak one from Holmes. Lets say Ali retires sometime and Holmes regained the reigns and finished similar to what he did. Larry would still be oodles better than outside the 40. Depends on what we make of the scenario i guess, you are maybe looking at Holmes being terrible enough to lose to that exact (woeful) Ali where i am looking at an inspirational effort from Ali to beat the version of Holmes he actually fought.
Destoryed? No. Damaged? Yes. Ali's resume would be a clear #1. Holmes would slide way back from where he is now to out of the top ten and maybe out of the top 13 if he lost to Ali. The real fight was a mis-match that did not matter much for either man's legacy. Holmes won every minute of every round and stopped Ali.
Ok, well you're going by the actual Ali that fought Holmes. In that case to the threads null and void i think as anybody could deal with that Ali and Holmes had already beaten better fighters i.e. one that could punch back, so it just wasn't going to happen. There were still plenty that somehow picked Ali, but little did everybody know he was as good as a corpse walking going into the Holmes fight. It's a tricky criteria i think.
It certainly wouldn't help him. However, you have to consider what other authors have already said, and let Holmes have a chance to redeam himself. Assuming that Holmes was still just as good, and didn't allow the Ali loss to shatter his confidence, I think he could come back strong, and perhaps even give Page and Thomas shots in an effort to prove himself down the road.
It will indeed knock Holmes out of the top ten imo. That version of Ali would have lost to any of the top ten contenders of that era or any. I may even give plenty of jourmen like 2 Ton Toney a hell of a shot in beating that Ali.
My first impulse would be to say that Holmes would be ruined in a historical context, but Ali was supposed to be in better physical condition for that match than the return go with Leon Spinks (according to Angelo Dundee, in the immediately preceding days). The excuse Ali gave for his poor showing in the days following this debacle is pretty well known. Thyrolar had been prescribed for him, and Muhammad discovered that a side effect of this drug when taken as directed is a slight improvement in speed, reflexes and reaction time. Figuring that he would double that advantage if he doubled the dose, he foolishly decided to take twice as much without telling anybody. (Which didn't make him a very good Muslim on that occasion, as anybody familiar with the tenets of Islam can affirm.) When fight time rolled around, Ali quickly discovered that twice as much Thyrolar cut the advantages of his prescribed dose in half, and Larry beat the devil out of him. What if Ali had done the proper thing, and continued to take his Thyrolar as directed? Early on, Holmes afforded him far more respect than he should have, and this could have cost Larry in the scoring. I believe Muhammad had the mind games won (in a way which would not have been the case if Futch was working for Holmes, instead of Giachetti). Should Ali have managed to pull this rabbit out of his hat (and I was one of those who actually believed Muhammad could come back from his loss to Larry), just how would that have impacted the Holmes legacy? The best analogy I can think of, off-hand, is Bobo Olson. His devastating back to back knockout losses to a faded and comebacking Robinson for the middleweight title might have been expected to ruin his position in the boxing hierarchy, yet he won at the world class level for another decade, posting wins at the end of his career over EBU LHW champion Piero Del Papa and eventual LHW title challenger Andy Kendall (who gave Bob Foster some hairy moments with his body attack in that shot). Regardless of Robinson's aged mastery of Olson, the Hawaiian Swede is in all the boxing halls of fame today. If Ali had beaten Holmes, Larry would not be acclaimed an ATG today, but he would still be a guaranteed HOFer, if the rest of his career unfolded as it did.
You are quite right, by that point he had converted from the blasphemous, misguided and abhorrent Nation of Islam to orthodox Sunni Islam. He should have known what he was doing with the drugs dosage was morally wrong in that he had hoped to gain an unfair advantage over Holmes.
Of course today, Ali is well known for performing magic tricks for children, and in keeping with the tenets of his faith, he then reveals to them how those tricks were performed. I don't believe it was appropriate to paint Ali as akin to Satan's envoy on Earth during the 1960s, nor do I think it would be proper to consider him as a saint or martyr today, merely human. In the ring, Muhammad made cheating tactics look graceful, but most boxing champions didn't get there by being choirboys. (In his autobiography, Arthur Mercante made reference to the fact of Ali being a dirty boxer for his style.) Because of the nature of his abuse of Thyrolar, I have no doubt that he would have tried using steroids the same way at the time, if it had occurred to him that such other performance enhancing substances might have given him a similar edge. But whether the term to be applied is karma, justice, yin and yang, or whatever, he certainly paid the price for his attempt at deception, a cautionary tale for anybody attempting such a shortcut to success. (How does one determine the worth of sacrificing well-being and integrity?) While I realize that confronting this issue could be a sensitive matter, considering Ali's currently sainted iconic status and ailing health (as contrasted with his former demonization by antagonists), it truly is what it is, and anybody who looks up to him as a role model ought to accept and learn from the realities of his flaws and failings, as well as his strengths and virtues. Too often in our culture, we shy away from the acknowledgement of such facts. Benevolence and malevolence can emanate from both the "good" and "bad," and we need the courage to face such facts head on, if we are to ultimately survive and succeed. ("It is neither good nor bad, but thinking makes it so."-famous Shakespeare quote.) The question to be considered is whether or not it promotes our survival and well-being. Ali is a follower of Islam, and Bundini Brown was Jewish. Angelo Dundee was neither. So while Ali bucked authority and practiced antagonism, he alternatively demonstrated tolerance and the pursuit of integrity and congruent living in his personal conduct. As is typical of people, he's had his share of hits and misses. How many of us can truthfully claim otherwise? I'll shut myself off here, as it's too early for me to make such pathetically immature and uninformed pretenses to heavy thought.
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I once worked for a converted Muslim who was a direct descendent of Stanley Baldwin (!). He expressed many of the same sentiments about Ali that you have. Yet another quote attributed to Shakespeare was that, "The evil that men do lives after them; the good is oft interred with their bones." With that in mind, it would also be my guess that Ali's good deeds will outweigh the bad. I greatly respect your rational, constructive, and clear minded perspective on Ali. Emotionalism can blind all.