If Ali were never stripped of his title ...

Yeah but when did Ali get tired when he was in his prime(if we can say prime since his prime was taken away by government), he could move 15 rounds no problem before lay off, so i dont see Fraziers workrate and pressure taking over. Its fair point you are making but i just dont see Ali getting tired, i can see maybe Frazier taking over but late in a fight and losing a decision.

 

Serious? YOU **** off and be realistic, for once. Last I checked Cooper would give Ali a fight based on STYLE ALONE. cooper being a persistent, left hooking beast would always trouble Ali, period. Cooper's left hook for me, had power to knockout Ali as shown in the first fight.

 

Exactly as I have always surmised the scenario myself. With both Ali and Frazier burning the candle on both ends, rapidly eating up the division's viable contenders, they most assuredly would have met much sooner than they actually did. Ali would likely have been around 26-27 years old, in peak condition, and perhaps even a more polished version than that we've ever seen of him... Meanwhile, as you've already touched upon, Frazier may well have been a work in progress.. At some point along the way, Muhammad would have probably still run into Ken Norton ( albeit the dynamics of the division in the early 70's slightly altered. ) But without the layoff and his sites full heartedly set on breaking Louis's record, I don't know if Norton would have turned the trick under these new set of circumstances.. Weather or not he would have ever encountered Foreman is highly debatable. But having beaten Foreman in the reality that we are familiar with, I don't see his chances as being any less. I certainly hope that he would have had the sense to step down before going through the whole gambit of facing Shavers, Young, Lyle, Spinks, etc... But knowing Ali, he was probably going to milk his talent until there was no longer an ounce of fight left in him.....

 

If you don't use it you lose it, plain and simple. 3 years is a long time for any athlete to go without engaging in competition especially when you consider that his body was maturing and undergoing transition. Look at had happened to john mc'enroe, he was never the same tennis player after he came back after being away for 2 years.

If Ali had not been laid off I think that he would have gone undefeated probably into his late 30's with 30-35 title defenses.

 

Are you aware that they fought 2 times and in second fight when Ali took him seriously he killed him!!!

 

This is not a knock at all on ali; it's just that frazier was so fukin good.

If you create an anti-ali that man would be frazier.

Prime for prime the two are a match in my eyes.

the only seperation between the two at all is that ali had much better longevity. Frazier kinda went from great to shot over night with his 4 losing efforts against foreman and ali.

 

I suppose what also seperates them is what Ali did to Foreman,and what Joe could n't do.

 

He'd defend against the likes of Quarry, Spencer and Patterson again before losing to Frazier in 1969. Not that he necessarily couldn't beat Joe at his best, but a mixture of his over-confidence and Joe's hunger would see the title change hands.

 

I see where you're coming from. Then Ali beats Joe in a rematch setting up a third fight,which would be the 'Manila' of it's time in terms of savagery.

 

Joe was calling him "Clay" in an interview conducted in 1967 which is on youtube, so this is not something Frazier reverted to after they became active rivals. We saw how Terrell's calling Muhammad "Clay" fired Ali up. (This is actually somewhat ironic, because in a prefight song about the Ali-Terrell showdown also on youtube, Ernie alternates between calling him, "Cassius" as well as "Muhammad," to the tune of "Won't You Come Home, Bill Bailey?") Patterson and Frazier were much more militantly adamant than Terrell over calling him by his birth name. I think Smoke's insistence in calling him "Clay" would have been all the incentive Muhammad needed to whip himself into peak condition and a motivated performance. Joe's hunger would not be enough to overcome the extent to which calling the much more experienced Ali "Clay" would also fire Muhammad up. There was a world of difference between publicly calling him "Clay" in 1969, and in 1971, (by which time the tide in favor of "Ali as general usage had been irreversibly turned).

No, Ali would have used Frazier's use of "Clay" to **** himself off and psych himself up during the late 1960s, depriving Smoke of the opportunity to catch Muhammad off guard and overconfident. Beyond that, Ali would have recognized Joe as a legitimate threat. While competing during the 1960s, he remained in fighting trim, even training well for challengers like London. He'd be ready for Frazier, his best challenger of the decade.

At the time, Joe and Muhammad had two common opponents who stood out. Chuvalo left Ali pissing blood in 1966. Doug Jones nearly decked him with a hard right in the opening round which left him hanging on with a bear hug for dear life, and otherwise gave him hell in Ring's FOTY for 1963. In 1967, Frazier stopped them both. Their relative performances against Jones and Chuvalo would have provided a guaranteed promotional hook, and Ali with something to prove against this upcoming star.

 

The fact that we never got to see a prime Ali, is one of the biggest tragedies in the history of sports. He was just approaching his prime after the Williams fight.

 

Very Bold but oddly I find myself agreeing with this theory. Ali never really had the fundamentals, it became clear later in his career that he never really learned proper defense but he was unorthodox, he figured a way out over and over again and his toughness was incredible.

I think that his layoff allowed fighters like Frazier to develop into great fighters as opposed to premature title shots that end up derailing what could have been a great career.

Frazier beating Ali allowed Joe's stock to go up. Foreman beating Frazier in the same manner he was beating up tomato cans made noise and Ali's greatness was set by the fact that people recognized the challenges that he faced.

His layoff did him well.

If he was never stripped I'd say Norton (depending on when they fight) would be the first person to lift the title from him.

 

Don't think so.

 

Do think so.