... would he have been as great a fighter? It is so difficult to separate the person from the fighter in assessing his greatness that I was interested to hear your thoughts on if he would have been as great if he had had the more conventional personality of a Larry Holmes or maybe the more thuggish character of a Sonny Liston? So much of his approach to a fight seemed to be mental as much as physical, if Ali did not have the ability to "psych out" and out think his opponents and relies purely on his skills and conditioning how would his greatest fights have been different?
Not in old age, he had more determination to win that nigh on any man and he psychologically dominated opponents too
His skills would have ensured that his success would have followed in the same way that it actually did. He may not have been so iconic a figure on the world stage though.
His Personality helped Market him. He also used Psychological Warfare on his Opponents. What was inside, what he was at the core, he was absolutely a Great Fighter. You can talk all you want but you have to back it up and he did.
Without his personality (and aura) I believe some later close decisions, i.e. Young, Norton III & to a lesser extent Shavers, would probably have gone against him. I cannot think of a single example of a borderline decision going against Muhammad; when it was extremely close, the rub of the green always seemed to go his way.
If the first Frazier fight is the best example of Ali not getting the rub of the green in a "close" fight, this kind of proves my point!
Ali was one of the few fighters (ala Pep) who could win rounds by doing "nothing". Going backwards, clowning, and pitty-pat punching.