Is there anything '74 Ali was better at than '67 Ali?

My take has always been that early 90's Holy was still better, but in fairness he had packed on muscle and it must have helped him in the kind of trench fight he made it into, even though I personally don't think it made up for the loss of speed and stamina.

But Ali at 215 against Frazier and 216 against Foreman didn't look like a muscled up fighter compared to the 212 lbs 60's version, he just looked like he had a couple of extra spare kilos. Still in shape, but going from say 10% to 12% body fat would explain the extra weight, and I think that's pretty much what happened.

In the second Liston fight he actually looked stronger to me than in the first, despite weighing in at 4 lbs less. I would say that it's the same thing with middel/late 60's Ali compared to FOTC/Zaire Ali.

 

Nice points again. I think in the rematch he'd also acquired a confidence and belief (from the first fight) that led to a much bigger "presence" which contributed to him being more, how do i say it, of a boss in the ring.

 

Good point.

 

Ali in '67 had better rhythm, better stamina, better distance negotiation radar, took just as good a body shot, knew how to clinch already (controlled and moved/negotiated Liston and Chuvalo around when he wanted to) and threw a snappier jab and a faster right hand lead. He also bladed, pivoted and hid his chin much better when he danced, as well as showed ability to move counter clockwise with more fluidity and grace. He jabbed to the body and carried much better muscle tone overall. I also believe that it's evident on film that he threw more creative combinations and coasted less rounds before exile.

The Ali of '74 sat down on his punches more simply out of the skillets of the competition faced, lowered leg conditioning and other factors. The visible loss of his good jab to the body in his reportoire meant that he became a pure head hunter by this time.

If Ali was arguably better at anything, it's likely mental willpower and self-confidence and even then, how do you discern that? Having gone through what he went through to become the champion he was until exile took a lot of willpower and self-confidence anyway. Increased self-confidence with diminished physical ability is arguably a nightmare waiting to happen.

 

The thing you say about the jab to the body is interesting, because it should have been a good weapon against for example Foreman and Lyle, but he didn't use it.

I think he did use it quite well against Al Lewis, though, if I remember correctly.

 

Lack of leg speed and conditioning IMO, Bokaj.

Compare the leg speed and body positioning against Al and then him throwing it 64 - 67. You just can't do that against Foreman.

The other thing is as he threw it, he bladed, tucked the chin and angled off and could either throw the check hook or dance out of range. On the canvas in Kinshasa and with his diminished leg conditioning, employing that as a tactic puts Ali in the type of danger that he just couldn't afford to with Foreman. Making yourself smaller against Foreman favours his uppercuts - keeping yourself relatively tall and keeping him from pushing you backwards is a good way to negate a lot of Foreman's M.O.

The gameplan of sinking into the ropes and sharp shooting in between George's punches, whilst blocking, rolling and dampening George's punches was likely less risky to Ali as it was a style he had been honing since the first Liston in training.

 

Top analysis.

 

I think the biggest thing was Muhammad's ability to read his opponents. Who was better at it? He was absolutely fantastic at it--who surprised him anyway?

But following boxing closely and having that quick mind and ability to make the right decision at the right time. It could be broken down to milliseconds.

I would say Ali was a quantum computer and the guys he fought looked like dos 3.1. To the degree that some of his fights almost looked correographed.

What a fantastic skill to have===how many other guy's could have used that skill?

 

And Ali used that jab to the body quite effectively against Joe Bugner too at times.

 

Could take more punishment and stronger in the clinch maybe? Sat on his punches a bit more too.

 

Holmes was not the same fighter against Witherspoon, Williams, or Spinks. Those are from three different years, and I'm obviously not saying that the declining version of Larry is superior to all who came before. I'm talking about Holmes in '82 and '83 when he had his best performances against guys like Cooney, Cobb, and Frazier. Very disingenuous comparison.

He also would've struggled with Witherspoon at ANY part of his career, so I don't know why that's what you're trying to use to discredit my stance. He would've outpointed Shavers no different when he hit his peak, but he also probably wouldn't have gotten knocked down. He got knocked down against him, Weaver, and Snipes while being out of position and way too close, but after that point, Larry wouldn't get knocked down again until fighting Tyson.

And how am I dead wrong about Ali?

 

Witherspoon was in '83, and for me '82 is still early 80's. So the natural conclusion was that you meant more towards the middle 80's.

But the not disingenious interpretation would have been that '82 is not somehow early 80's and that the only good opponent he had in '83 (Witherspoon) doesn't count? I am understanding you correctly?

I don't think Holmes at his best struggles like that with a still fairly green Witherspoon, no. I think he started to handpick his opponents after '82 for a reason. He met one top 5 ranked opponent after Cooney. That was Bey, and after that fight he said outright that it was his last against any risky fighter. Spinks was a cherry pick that went wrong.

 

Oh wait, I must not've really clarified what I was talking about in my original post, sorry about that. I'll correct it. I'm talking about Holmes from '82 and '83.

The "fairly green Witherspoon" was still better than the other fighters he was up against before that point, better than a partially declined Norton, better than Weaver, better than Zanon. Handpicking opponents has no bearing on how good Holmes was at the time. He started to think heading into '84 that he was going to retire early, and I'm not talking about him from '84.

Talk performances if you're going to argue against what I'm saying, we are talking about how a fighter is better in ring, aren't we?

 

Yep. And I would hesitate very much to say that somewhat green 'Spoon was better than ageing Norton, but one of Holmes's best opponents for sure. In general what he faced that year was below the Shavers,Snipes, Weaver, Cooney level I'd say, and he looked slower to me. Like you would expect someone closing in on his mid 30's, which was a high age at that time. I just see no reason to believe differently.

For Ali, we have the very rare example of something you could call natural experiments, i e that he faced the same men both before and after exile: Patterson and Chuvalo. They both said what is crystal clear on film, that the '66 Ali was faster and better than the '72 one.

And me and a few other posters have earlier in this thread in detail debunked the myth that he somehow learned to clinch and take a punch only after the exile.

 

Strength in the clinch and punching power