Legacy of Muhammad Ali and Roy Jones

Senya - stop acting like a clown. Ali was undefeated til exile. The first fight with Liston was not a fix you muppet. He gave Patterson a good whupping, Cleveland Williams couldn't even hit him, Terrell would've been lucky to win one round outta 15. He defended his title like 7 times in one year. How many heavies do that? Yeah he deserves the odd bad performance if he fights that often. He is banned and comes back nearly 4 years later more flat footed and beats up the next generation of heavies. Most of these guys are at their peak whilst Ali is great but he's not peak which was just before exile. Liston x2, Frazier x2, Patterson x2, Norton x2, Quarry x2, Chuvalu x2, Bugner x2, Foreman, Folley, Lyle, Shavers, Ellis, Foster, Young, the list goes on.

 

you'll find on here that there are revisionists mostly who weren't around at the time who will downgrade and even dismiss his achievments.ali fought every and i mean every top heavyweight there was possible to fight in the sixties and seventies and beat them all sometimes twice,he ducked no one.from the early sixties until 1980 thats something like 18 years.sure he benefitted from a dodgy decision or two but over such a long stretch thats bound to happen.put it this way if a young twenty year old heavyweight appeared and stopped vitali klitschko and up to the year 2025 had fought and beaten every top contender there was to fight ducking none,i think you'd say he was pretty good.

 

What would you say to claims Ali ducked a Foreman rematch then?

 

Wow this place hasn't changed at all.

 

Only "the names have been changed"

Well, some of em lol

 

wow you've managed to drag one up?big george wasn't exactly chomping at the bit for it.

 

Actually i think MDWC said recently that Foreman even stormed an Ali press conference. Much to the contrary, i think Foreman was absolutely salivating for this match, and a chance at redemption.

Dinner educated me on this one, and further inspection told me he is prolly very very right. I'd hate to take on the task of disputing it i think.

 

Right, Liston was throwing left hands till the very end, yet he quits with supposedly injured shoulder.

Patterson who had a sore back, which made any upper body movements very painful. Patterson that was shot by this time anyway.

Williams was an invalid, literally. He should have never been allowed to fight in the first place.

He was fighting one-eye from second round on.

Very true. There are many revisionist on this forum, who praise fighters who were considered mediocrities and journeymen in the 1960-1970's, or even early 1980's, such as Quarry, Norton, Ellis, Terrell, Young, etc.

 

Yes, but is it a quit, or a fix??

:smoke

 

When a fighter, who had gone the distance before while fighting with broken jaw, keeps throwing left jabs in bunches, then suddenly claims he had an injured left shoulder from 2nd round on (if I remember correctly) as an excuse for quitting, then takes an obvious dive in rematch, there should be little doubt about the fix.

 

Just watched Ali v Spinks II.

One of the most under appreciated performances in his entire career. Not only did Ali win the fight comfortably, but he looked pretty damn good while doing so as well. Considering his age, and how badly he had looked in previous fights after the "Thrilla in Manila".

Ali's jab was back, and he threw some nice power shots as well to convince the judges. During the late rounds he was up on his toes. Not sure where the hell he got the stamina.

 

Rubbish. It was a mental quit, not a physical one. Who would be stupid enough to tank (fix) a fight by quitting in this way. If you're going to go the fix you aren't going to arouse suspicion by quitting on your stool. When Ali was blinded Liston was throwing punches in bunches that would have felled a damn rhino.

First fight IMO = mental quit

Second fight IMO = fix

Shame, i think Liston would have been in superb shape for the rematch and it would have been a better fight.

 

An Olympic gold medalist, Ali had 19 successful heavyweight title defenses, the third most in history. He became the first three-time heavyweight champion. He dethroned two all-time greats in Sonny Liston and George Foreman. Not counting W.B.A. titlist Ernie Terrell and anointed champ Ken Norton, he beat four other heavyweight champions. He was the most dominant champion since the most illustrious reign of Joe Louis, and would have accomplished much more had he not been banned from boxing for 3 years. In the process, he truly ushered in the era of million-dollar paydays for
athletes.

On facts alone, Ali looks impressive. But, of course, his legacy goes well beyond raw stats. Ali used boxing to "serve God" as he understood it. This resulted in the unprecedented happening of a boxer, and a black boxer at that, using sport as a platform for political commentary and elevating the self-image of, primarily his own race, but certainly also human beings of every stripe and circumstance.

By simply saying "Black is beautiful", and "Why should I fight for another people's freedom when my own people ain't free?", by crying, "Who's the heavyweight champion of the world?", he compelled responses from an unjust society and young hearts the world over. No matter your opinion of Ali, he walked the talk and gave up all he had for his convictions.

He knew he had a gift and he tried to use it to help others. To me, that's Ali's true legacy.

 

Stonehands gives you a pretty good overview.

(Re: Senya's wisdom: Some things to bear in mind:

Senya wasn't around for ANY of Ali's career. One can be a boxing historian and do lots of research and such but it's not the same as actually being there.

(Consider the political landscape today in the US: Bush, Cheney, Hilary, the war in Iraq, the weakening dollar, the race issues, Oprah, etc.

Or if you're British: Tony Blair's decline, his legacy, the rise of yob culture, the London subway bombings, multiculturism and immigration, Roy Keane and Beckham, etc.

If someone born five or ten years from now were to research all this stuff some 30 or 40 years from now, they would get a general sense of things and find out lots of facts and dates, etc.

But they wouldn't have the same sense of the times as one who had lived through it.

Same with boxing. I can read about Dempsey and Tunney, even watch their fights in old grainy movies, but I can never get the same sense and flavour of the era as one who lived in the first half of the 20th century.)


Ali was NOT a popular figure in the mid-sixties. His anti-war position made him a hated figure in many quarters. He lost 3.5 years of his prime and was never the same after. But he defeated many great fighters and his record of accomplishment is IMO, unmatched in heavywt history.

In the mid sixties, his speed and flair were unmatched at that wt, and he was nearly invincible

Senya believes that George Foreman (on nearly everyon's top ten list) should never have gotten his shot at Frazier's title and had little or nothing by way of accomplishment.

Senya also believes that prime Roy Jones would beat prime Ali.

I rest my case.

 

i could be falling into your trap here but do you actually know what your talking about?going off your posts you could easily write down your total boxing knowledge on the back of a postage stamp.