Is there any 180-199 pounder that could have done better against 1965 Ali

I don't blame you for this misconception considering how wide spread it is, and it's always mentioned when Louis Conn 1 is discussed, but Conn was not able to stick and move in the 13th round not because he got greedy, but because his legs were gone.

Look how he moves on round 7 (8:54 if timestamp doesn't work)

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Now look at his feet when he comes out for the 13th, even at the moments he is actively trying to retreat away from Louis.
(16:38)

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It's night and day, and no wonder. This is the 13th round, the guy has been intensively fighting off Louis for the entire time, coping plenty of body shots along the way. The idea that Conn could have just danced away for the last 3 rounds is fantastical.
And that's the same issue Ali would have, that Joe would be actively working on the body, fighting on the inside and pressuring Ali for the entirety of the fight. The idea that Ali would be effortlessly jumping around for 15 rounds against Louis is equally fantastical.

Joe beat Billy, he knocked him out for a ten count twice.
Ali never really got the better of his two demons, yet Louis is the one who is always mentioned as having "stylistic problems", because he allowed slicksters into the late rounds before punching their heads off, yet Ali's nightmarish match ups against Norton or Frazier don't nearly come as close to damaging his chances in H2H match ups, because of the 3 years exile working as a shield, protecting prime Ali from the losses he'd endure just a few years later.

 

Amen to that statement.

 

Nullifying Ali's speed advantage is a better than nullifying his size advantage.
We know Conn can take a punch, guy can take them for 10+ rounds, it's not like he'll get mauled by the bigger fighter.
While Conn lacks Walcott's or even Tunney's punch, he could sting at heavyweight, more from an accumulation of punches rather than a well timed single punch.

Tunney's practice on Greb would be very beneficial though and he had great timing to offset Ali's speed, but I still think Conn's natural speed would have been better help here.

Walcott, I rate his chances lesser than the two guys above because he had a habit of letting fights he could win slip away from him (Ray, Maxim, Layne, Louis 1). Against Ali this is not a flaw you want to have.

 

“Louis didn’t have the footspeed to keep up with Ali,” is, for me, as inane as saying Ali doesn’t have the punching power to hang with Louis.

 

Even in the earlier rounds where Conn is floating around the ring Louis is right there stalking him.
I don't see the arguments for Louis being too slow, Pastor couldn't escape him and neither could Ramage. The Ramage rematch is filmed and Louis is on him from start to (the very short) finish.
The question that arises when Louis gets criticized for his slow feet or stylistic problems with quick fighters is: who was better at trapping and dealing with quick boxers than Louis?
Liston couldn't stop them, Foreman lost to Young and Ali the only boxer types he fought in his prime.
Tyson couldn't stop Tillis, Dempsey couldn't beat Tunney, struggled with Meehan and Gibbons made tbe distance. Rocky was struggling with 35+ year old movers and Lastarza.
Ali had his close decisions over Young and Jones.

Louis finished every quick boxer he fought between 1934 and 1948.
8-0 with 6 KOs against Ramage, Pastor, Conn, Walcott.
Add every other boxer who desperately tried to make a run for it when Louis was about to end them.
The only one he missed was Farr who was way behind on points by the end.
No one has that track record against that type of fighter in the heavyweight division barring Joe Frazier (Ellis, Machen, Ali).

 

Tunney had the chin, speed, stamina to absolutely give Akli a very challenging fight ... a prime Dempsey could have absolutely given him an interesting fight was well with his own speed, power and stamina ...

 

Good Post. I think the thing that a peak Muhammad Ali had going for him was his natural physical gifts as well as his huge Ego, he never considered losing. But those few that you have mentioned were great fighters too.

 

Good points New.

I don’t think Louis has to necessarily “keep up”with Ali though - it certainly would be a mistake to literally follow the exact lines of Ali’s movement.

Louis could (and I think would) generally occupy the middle and simply visually track the ever circling Ali,- looking to stalk at a relatively slower mobility pace (as compared to Ali) and cut off the ring.

60s Ali had great stamina to fuel the movement but then he would be working that much harder than Joe to maintain the mobility throughout the whole fight - and even 60s Ali didn’t literally dance every second of every round over his more protracted fights.

At the risk of invoking an opposing analogy in Ali’s disfavour and overweighting it as some do when referencing the first Conn fight to Joe’s discredit - I see some promising features from the Ali - Zora Folley fight for Joe.

Zora idolised and modelled himself on Louis - and you can see several similarities - though they weren’t up to Joe’s standards and Louis had a number of other features going for him.

Boxing by the book, a past prime, 2 months shy of 36 yo Folley gave an absolute prime Ali quite a competitive fight for several rounds.

Stalking and when cutting off the ring. Folley was able to interrupt and break the rhythm of Ali’s dancing with jabs and a good number of jarring right hands - at times, Zora was also able to land to the body with both hands.

The KD in the 4th round was somewhat of out of the blue -though initially flat out, Folley didn’t really appear that hurt but took a 9 count - once back up, he roared at Ali, immediately landing a left and 2 solid right hands.

Folley did appear to slow down somewhat after the 4th - Ali himself apparently told his corner that Folley was tired after the 3rd round and that his punches were losing steam.

Ali’s IQ was brilliant. He knew to really work the jab in this fight, very hard jabs too - his safest punch to launch, and imo, that punch primarily dismantled an older and fast tiring Folley. Ali only weighed anchor to punch when Folley himself was beginning to clearly throw less punches himself, at any rate.

Or course, watching that fight I’m subbing in Louis and visualising Joe doing so much more with the tools Folley displayed and with more tools and power (in both hands) in his arsenal anyway to unleash on Ali.

I also noted that when more energised, Folley easily parried a number of Ali right hands with his own left arm simply raised in readiness.

Again, Ali’s primary weapon was a laser fast and particularly hard jab - the successful right hands came later, synced with Folley becoming more tired. Yes, that beautiful jab would trouble Joe, as it did with many others - though Louis wasn’t defensively inept as many believe.

But, at the end of the day, as Joe did it his way with Conn, ultimately still winning, so too did Ali against Zora.

Even the very best ATGs have their flaws to pick at and perhaps over magnify - but their net, overall high quality always saw them win.

Personally, the more an opponent approached copy book, technical executions and style, the more trouble they gave Ali and his own, generally less conventional style, just imo.

And we know the terms copy book and technical fit Louis like a glove (excuse pun) and Joe also had his extraordinary power atop all that.

At their best, ATGs will always bring new qualities or heightened qualities to the table that couldn’t necessarily have been accounted for until we actually see them displayed in the ring -

I think given an Ali - Louis match, we would see a fight that would unpack in some very positive ways for both men that were beyond all trash me prognostications - and that is often a key and necessary ingredient to perceiving a fight as being truly great.

Apologies if I’ve typed too much on this.

 

Fifteen rounds is a long time to dance away & not make any mistakes with your low hands from a prime Joe Louis. I’ve never been sure who I’d pick but many, many people under-estimate the danger for Ali in this fight.

 

I was at the old Madison Square Garden with my brother to watch Ali vs Folley. Our seats were far back in the nosebleeds but we had a clear view of the fight. This was 57 years ago and the fight wasn't at all competitive, at least not in my memory. It was Ali's last fight before his enforced three-year vacation from boxing and he wasn't about to do anything stupid. Ali put Folley to sleep not just once but twice. The first time Zora woke abruptly at about "four" but I'm not sure he wasn't sleep walking for the remaining few rounds. I believe the old Garden was on its way out, too. I remember feeling like we hadn't seen much of a fight but we did witness history.

 

I’m so jealous. Ali live and his last ever fight during the 60s.

On film, it appears strange how Folley dropped as if dead only to suddenly jump again - doing same for both KDs - though legs still weren’t under him after the 2nd KD.

I can understand the alternative perspective that Ali was feeling Folley out for the first 2-3 rounds, assessing Zora and strategising for how he would fight him when he settled into his offence.

Ali’s right did begin to find a home - but Zora was fatigued by then and Ali processed that fact. I have to repeat that Ali’s jab was very hard, it was extremely effective and hurtful.

For whatever it’s worth, Ali did basically say he found Folley to be an awkward and difficult customer until he nutted him out.

I know you were sitting well back and it was a 50 + years ago - but do you remember how you perceived Ali’s speed - in terms of both legs and hands?

George Chuvalo was always very considerate and detailed in his appraisals of different opponents that he fought.

He said that he knew Ali had very fast hands BUT you didn’t appreciate just how fast those hands were until you got in the ring with him.

I know that you yourself didn’t jump in the ring at the time, lol, but I guess Ali’s hands still appeared even faster than they did when watching telecasts??

 

My impressions and memories of Ali are such a mixed jumble of live telecasts, reruns on TV, YT videos and that one experience of seeing him live at MSG.

What I thought at the time:
Folley is so DONE. He can't take a punch anymore. He looks stiff and slow. He isn't in the same league with Aly. I never considered him very talented. Many of his fights were boring. I never looked forward to his Friday and Saturday night appearances on TV. His style was to stand straight while keeping his weight back and his right hand cocked. He'd use his jab to create openings for the right. Orthodox to the max. I wasn't a fan.

 

Really I've seen very few fights in person. I wish I'd seen more. I saw Raymond Patterson fight a no-name in a 4-rounder in Teaneck, N.J. and I remember thinking his fighting style was almost a duplicate of his brother Floyd's peekaboo. Raymond had pretty good hand speed too, but not much talent beyond that. Two years later he got KO'd by Albert Westphal.

I saw Monroe Brooks, a Sacramento kid, and also Pete Ranzany on several cards when I lived briefly in that city (1970-71). Sacramento had a good fight scene and the arena there was perfect for the fights. You could get a great elevated view from the balcony but still feel close to the action, and the fans did turn out. I saw Oscar De la Hoya destroy Julio Cesar Chavez at Caesar's Palace in 1996.

I visited the Fifth Street Gym in Miami, 1962, as a guest of Chris Dundee who was a card playing friend of my Uncle Harry. This was just a couple years after the Cuban Revolution and the gym was full of Cuban fighters (Luis Rodriguez, Florentino Fernandez, Doug Vaillant, others, and then also Willie Pastrano, Yama Bahama.)
Cassius Clay was there that day. I met him but was only 14 and too shy to talk with him much. He signed a picture of himself in a boxing pose and wrote, "Liston in 8". I kept that picture on my bedroom dresser for years. We had a black maid and she made sure that photo was displayed prominently. But when I moved away my mother had a garage sale and gave the picture away. She also threw away all of my baseball cards.