Muhammad Ali 1975 v Tokyo Buster Douglas

Buster Douglas at his best would give the 1975 Ali a very tough fight. Possibly beat him on points in a close fight.

Then again, Ali might stop him like he did with Ron Lyle.

 

Buster would outwork and outbox Ali.

I love Ali as much as the next guy but i think he was gone by that point.....

 

Douglas had a beautiful Jab that night.

 

Might not be as one sided as people think, Ali was sliding fast at this point and was already pretty far gone. Douglas fought out of his skin that night and would cause Ali problems but still ultimately lose on points I think.

Prime Ali would tear Douglas up bad though

 

In 1975 Ali had possibly his greatest fight. He was in great shape fighting a motivated great challenger. That night very few past hwts beat Ali....certainly not Buster Douglas.

 

That night Buster was unsoppable. physically and mentality . He fought the perfect fight.

 

People don't realize how tough it was to win rounds back then on the scorecards against Ali. For Buster to win a decison, he simply has to win about 3/4 to 4/5 of the rounds to get a split decison. And Buster only knocked down 1 top 10 ranked opponent & this guy is not going to get stopped by Buster Douglas.

Ali decision.

 

Lyle might be the closest analogy we have here, but Ali was more battle prepared for Manila after further getting extended the championship distance by Bugner in the daytime Malaysian blast furnace, where Joe made Muhammad do most of the work.

Ali would still be vastly more experienced than Buster, faster from longer range, and still had dangerous power in his right when he opted to load up on his cross.

Sure, Douglas was good with Tyson, but Mike was also badly off his previous game in Tokyo. I also can't take that title winning version of Buster over the 220 pound Muhammad who stopped Dunn in Germany. [Ali was in continual training over the nearly three and a half weeks following the scare against Young, his briefest interval between bouts in years. Richard's timing for Ali was horrible, but that would have been true for any contender in Dunn's place just then. Two months later, it was Ali-Dunn which Jerry Quarry had in mind when he commented that Norton 'is gonna have to fight a heckuva lot better than that to beat Ali!," as Norton-Middleton drew to a close, before anybody realized just how badly Inoki screwed up Muhammad's legs in Tokyo two weeks earlier.]

Other than the negligently bloated 230 pound Ali of the Young debacle, I'm not sure what pre-Inoki version of Muhammad loses to Buster as he was against Tyson.