Is washed up Ali the worst version of an undisputed champion?

I actually think the Ali of the Holmes fight was by far the worst, he was taking all the wrong medications to cut weight and it backfired, his legs were even more shot fight night.

Ali of the Berbick fight wanted one last hurrah, he didn't look half bad that fight for the conditions he was in.

Ali of the Holmes fight in my opinion is by far the worst version of a (former) undisputed champion, and loses to the Tyson who fought McBride, the Butterbean Holmes, etc. He really shouldnt have even been in the ring at all, he already could barely put his finger on his nose at that point.

I'd actually favor the Berbick Ali over McBride Tyson.

 

I would say 08 Bowe is a lot worse. 81 Ali or 05 Tyson would beat him.

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Maybe the Bob Fitzsimmons of the Jack Johnson fight? Age 44, torn ligaments in right elbow, and probably lighter than 175 (I forget his actual weight this fight)

 

Leon Spinks was undisputed champ for a minute or two in 1978. He was really bad at the end of his career. 1980 or 1981 Ali would have beaten him.

 

Jack Johnson fought into the 1930s, anyone know how bad he looked according to reports?

 

I’m gonna have to say yes ...mainly because of the condition that Ali was in the last years of his life ....that’s probably influencing my opinion

 

It's sadly ironic that what you say may be true, yet he was once up on a time the Greatest version of the heavyweight champ.

 

It really depends what is meant by "worst version."

Worst version in a Lineal World Title Fight? Probably Muhammad Ali.
Worst version to ever enter the ring in a real fight? Possibly Bob Fitzsimmons.
Worst version to ever enter the ring at all, even in an Exhibition Fight? Probably Evander Holyfield.

 

For Berbick, I recall Ali looking pretty bad - those type of fights you don’t go back to very often to review - perhaps my memory has him even worse than he was.

Fitz apparently took an injured arm (useless) into the 1907 Johnson fight - but he was already 47 and it seems he went down to some relatively innocuous punches.

I’ve only seen the last few rounds of Fitz v Lang, by that stage Fitz wasn’t throwing much and was getting brutally pounded - I haven’t read a prim. source for the fight but some informal poster comments I’ve read suggest that Fitz was doing pretty well in the early going.

How about Jeffries perhaps? Pretty one sided brutal beat down in a fight that Johnson likely protracted several rounds longer anyway.

 

If its any weight class, then its the orginal Jack Demspey when he fought Tommy Ryan.

 

Leon Spinks vs. John Carlo. Carlo had no fights before this. And he was a late substitute. Carlo ended up scoring 14 wins in his career ... but only two people he beat ever won a fight. (One of them being Leon). His other 12 wins came over fighters with no wins.

Leon was 41.

The first 20 seconds of the fight are missing. But this only lasted 69 seconds.

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Probably. But Evander losing to Toney wasn't cool either.

 

Good grief, this thread is depressing.

Late career Charles was apparently already suffering from medical problems that would get worse after his retirement. Maybe he qualifies.

For those who consider the old timers primitive, though, you might invoke an ultra-late career version of, say, Jack Johnson.

 

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