Muhammad Ali (1967) vs Larry Holmes (1978) - who wins?

Ali would win by unanimous decision over Holmes, due to his speed and reflexes

 

Holmes wouldn't be able to deal with ali's movement. If you check out the 7th round of their "fight", you can see holmes was becoming fustrated as a much faded and slower ali danced around and flicked out the jab. If this fustrated holmes then i could only imagine what would happen if ali was at the height of his abilities.

Combine this with the fact that ali could move for 15 rounds and still be fresh, along with his faster hands and superior combination punching ability and you have a comfortable ud win. As great as holmes jab was, ali was just too resourceful to let any one thing defeat him.

 

I've noticed that.

For brief moments, Ali got on his toes and Holmes suddenly looked very ordinary -a level or even two below.

You can just envision Ali at his peak with the swifter, sharper jab and superior harmony and fluidness handling Holmes quite well, thank you.

 

Good point about the seventh round of their real fight. I still feel that even a well conditioned and focused Ali of 1972-74 could have squeezed past a peak Holmes over the distance. Ali of '67 takes it clearly.

 

I was just going to post this. Futch will actually help, he's that great, but his impact on the earlier model Ali will not be as effective on the latter version. Ali wins a decision here.

 

Ali, but I do believe that he would have some degree of difficulty with Holmes.

 

I don't think any heavy in history wouldn't.