If Ali had kept his mouth shut and been gracious to Frazier in Manila …

Patterson got better after his title reign, and Ali fought him twice during that span, whereas Frazier had a one fight peak- Ali had one chance to beat him like that and lost an extremely competitive fight. Frazier and Ali both declined past that point, but Joe never won again.

 

I disagree. And more importantly, Patterson had an injured sacroiliac joint during their bout.

So Ali never beat a prime Frazier, which proves my point.
Ali had to resort to cheating in order to win their rematch.
And in their 3rd fight, Frazier was already completely washed up and blind in one eye.

 

During ONE of their bouts. It's also less of a matter of opinion and more of fact. He went from losing to Johansson and getting dropped by Rademacher to beating men like Bonavena and Machen.
It seems that you're quite biased to Frazier if you think that Ali cheated to win the rematch. Are you going off of his statement that the judges were paid off, or that he won all 12 rounds of the superfight? Both suggestions are bat**** crazy.
Frazier was so washed up that he was able to score a TKO off of Jimmy Ellis just seven months before, seems about right to me.

 

I'm not biased one bit. I'm a Tyson fan and think Frazier is overrated. But Ali's cheating was blatantly obvious.

No, I'm not going off any of their things.
I'm talking about Ali holding Frazier’s head throughout the entire fight (a foul but never any warnings much less point deductions from the referee) thereby taking away Frazier’s inside fight game, and getting the decision.

Jimmy Ellis was not a big HW size wise, and not a big puncher either. He stood little chance stylistically to a hard hitting swarmer like Frazier, even though Frazier was not prime.

 

Agreed about the holding & pulling on Frazier’s head. Ali fans don’t want to hear it, but it’s as simple as this - when Ali tried to fight Frazier, he lost. When he tried to spoil, he was successful.

 

I apologize for assuming your position, and I agree with you that Ali was illegally holding for a major part of the match.

Jimmy Ellis WAS a big puncher. He dropped Bonavena multiple times en route to a UD, which is not exactly an easy feat.

 

How many wins over prime ATGs does Tyson have?

 

One moment vs twelve consistent rounds is not my idea of poor refereeing cutting, “both ways.”

 

1, just like Ali

 

Which prime ATG HW (I.e. all time great at HW) did Tyson beat?

 

Spinks

 

An ATG at HW?

You need to make your trolling less obvious.

 

He's an ATG in general.
And he climbed and dethroned an unbeaten Holmes.
Spinks was unbeaten when Tyson finished him in 90 seconds.