In which fight was Ali hurt the most?

C'mon now Kamakazi. We both are civil, but you this time choosing to skip addressing *any* of my points & post a single word that falsely suggests you are put upon does not seem like you either have the ego capacity to admit you are wrong...

Nor is consistent with being open minded & committed to reach what is likely to be true.
Before you assigned me the identity of people who over-rated Foreman, & when I pointed out I never said a word about how I rate him, you ignored that too.

Start a thread about it if you like. You will also see that even almost all folks who think Foreman was not as great as others rate him give Ali credit for a Superb FIght in Zaire.
And like you, anyone will be hard pressed to do more than ignore all the things Ali did well to brilliantly.

 

Definitely Earnie Shavers. Earnie clocked him good quite a few times.

 

Cooper knocked him down. That's different than getting beat up. He took a beating in the Thrilla, the Shavers fight, and the Holmes fight. He pulled two of those fights out. He was Done for the third.

 

I'll mention one fight that hasn't been listed here Muhammad Ali Vs George Chuvalo 1 who claims he gave Ali kidney issues whilst he went dancing with his wife.

Henry Cooper 1 (Big left hook flooring Clay)
George Chuvalo 1 (Continuous body blows)
Oscar Bonavena (Ali's decline in defence and footwork was evident here)
Joe Frazier 1 (Hooks to the head hooks to the body in fact hooks everywhere)
Ken Norton 1 (A fractured mandible)
George Foreman (Big body shots getting through and being hit upside the head)
Joe Frazier 3 (Massive hooks to the body and head)
Earnie Shavers (Big bombs landing on Ali where he was rocked hard)
Leon Spinks 1 (A lot of accumlative punches got through)
Larry Holmes (Took punishment unanswered for 9-10 rounds)
Trevor Berbick (Couldn't mobilise absorbed more damage than he should have done)

 

This. Nobody else made him scream.

 

As I posted before, the first fight against Henry Cooper on June 18 1963, Muhammad Ali was legitimately knocked down, no doubt about it. But in 1963 Ali was very boastful, immature in the ring at times, dropping your hands and toying with Cooper was not a wise thing to do. In the May 21 1966 rematch, Ali showed maturity as a champion, he cut up Henry so bad that he required 14 stitches to close a really bad wound. Ali won by TKO 6, no knockdown in that one. But I think the fighter who really did a lot of damage to Ali and his ego was Ken Norton on March 31 1973 in San Diego, California. The fight was televised live on ABC's Wide World Of Sports, everyone including myself figured an easy win for Ali who ballooned to 221 lbs, heavy for Ali even back then. Ali took Norton for granted, Norton proved everyone including Ali wrong. Ali was embarrassed as Ken broke his jaw, scoring a 12 round split decision on national television. Ali trained for the rematch on Sept 10 1973, Ali weighed 212 lbs, and scored a 12 round split decision. Norton became a thorn in Ali's side.

 

The question can be taken at least two ways

- 1) the most hurt in a moment of time or 2) most hurt by way of steady punishment, accumulated over the course of a fight.

I’ll just address 1) - The Cooper fight, for sure. Then maybe either rd 11 or 15 of the FOTC - probably interchangeable.

Part 2) is more complicated because sadly Ali was involved in a number of gruelling fights.

Also, as many times as he was demonstrably hurt, there’s no accounting for how many times he was badly hurt but either hid it or we simply missed it.

Combining the stage of his career/deteriorations as at the time and the gruelling nature of the fight itself, probably Manila might be the answer to 2).

Then again, Ali was older again and even worse off (in terms of substantive physical health) when he took hellacious shots from Shavers over the long haul of 15 rounds. Ali looked in clear pain throughout that fight.

Also, in Rd 10 of the Thrilla there is a period when Ali is on the ropes covering up with Joe teeing off. Joe lands a particularly hard left hook and an already hunched Ali slumps that bit more and simply isn’t moving.

It only lasts for about 10 secs max. before Ali seems to wake up and start throwing back. Who knows, Ali could’ve been temp. out, like a micro sleep.

The vision of this type of stall on Ali’s part wasn’t entirely rare and maybe for that fact, it lent to over sighting such occasions and not appreciating how badly hurt Ali was.

I think Foreman himself observed moments in Zaire when it seemed Ali was “out” only for Muhammad to come “alive” again shortly thereafter.

 

Round 11 i reckon Pug. Ali was terribly hurt and IMO it lasted until just before the rounds end when he feigned wobbly legs. They'd been wobbly for the previous 30 seconds. Frazier landed a couple of big blows after Ali's legs gave out. His ability to take a wallop and recover was insane.

 

If Shavers had the ability to come up with the big punch when he needed it...he might have won that night...

 

On the flip side he was fighting quite possibly the hardest to stop heavyweight in history. Even badly faded Ali could still take it like few ever.

But yes Earnie was a pretty poor finisher against top durable opposition. Obviously his punching power far outweighed his overall ability.

 

Possibly. Ali was a different type cat, however.

 

I should imagine he was most hurt from a single punch by Earnie Shavers, but he was taken to the extremes of his physical limits by Frazier in FOTC and Thrilla.

 

He got hurt in that computer simulation fight with Rocky!!

 

Yeah an some people still believe the myth that Holmes was holding back.

 

I do believe that. Larry's usual approach to finishing people included throwing a hailstorm of rights. He never did that. And he stepped back from Ali quite a bit.