Muhammad Ali all time P4P ranking?

I’d have him above Hagler partly because of his confidence and mental strength.
Id put him above Hearns since Hearns lacked a little stamina, chin and durability, all of which Ali had in spades.

I’d only put Duran, Robinson, perhaps the enigma that is Greb, Armstrong, pep and one or two others above Ali.

He was the fastest heavyweight ever, possibly the most durable too. That’s a pretty supreme combination, added with his mental strength, who cares if he had his hands by his sides, didn’t go to the body enough, etc.?
I’m a big fan of Roy Jones but could he adjust to a layoff and come back and adjust his style and win through durability and will like Ali? No. Ali also has by far the better resume.

I find it quite ridiculous that say, Usyk is ranked so highly yet Ali is not top 50!
Fury and Joshua is essentially his record, and arguably neither were prime. Talking of slow lumbering heavies..
Ali as mentioned went 5-1 with three of the greatest heavies of all time, most of those wins were after he’d lost his best attributes too.
We never even saw what would surely have been the best version of Ali.

Whilst I don’t agree with a lot of his politics, he could have gone to Vietnam and done a little exhibition boxing for the morale of the soldiers. He wasn’t going anywhere near any real fire.
He knew that and risked his career to stand up for his beliefs.

Even if you took away a lot of what he did, you still find a place for the greatest heavy in the top ten pfp, or you probably should.

 

Yeah, sorry, I meant Louis, but I typed out Hearns because I'd named Duran and Leonard before him, and I'm so used to mentioning them as a group, haha. I've edited it now. I have Hearns higher than most. I have him top 25, but not close to the top 10. I mean, Hearns absolutely blew Duran away in one of the biggest P4P mismatches of the 20th century, but I'd still have Duran above Ali and Hearns P4P. You're right about the resume. I don't rate Greb as highly as everyone else simply because I haven't seen footage of him, and that sends some people on here insane, but I go by my own eye test rather than newspaper reports from 100 years ago.

 

Delusion at its finest

 

Good, you've redeemed yourself. For a moment I thought you put him above SRR, Greb, Armstrong etc

 

Personally I have Ali ranked 1 - 2 places above Louis, predominantly cos of résumé and I happen to think in a H2H, his durability, unorthodoxy and adaptability prove too difficult a puzzle for The Bomber to solve.

I don't rank fighters in absolute places but rather in tiers.

On skill, Duran in Montreal and Palomino is amongst the best that I have studied, however, Devils Advocate, won the LW title on a low blow, No Mas, Hearns KO, uninspired performances and poor out of ring professionalism - he sits on the border of my Tiers 1 and 2.

I firmly have Ali in Tier 2 - nobody alive is going to breach Tier 1, the résumés, achievements, skills and legacy are too deep.

 

What puts Arguello above Ali P4P in your opinion?

 

P4P there are dozens ahead of Ali. I won't list them all here but take any top ten list of ATG BW, FW LW, SLW, WW, SMW, MW and we are there and then some.

I agree with Hagler being one of the greatest MWs, but if Ali was a 5'8" 160 LB fighter with his skillset he gets mauled by Hagler. Norton was not a great fighter, I felt he was robbed against Ali in the two rematches. Frazier's crouching style allowed Ali to lean on him and push his head down in their trilogy. Patterson was washed up. Ali got a few gifts in his career. He was charismatic and came along at a time when live boxing venues were being replaced by the television era. Networks, sponsors, promoters wanted someone who could get ratings. Liston wasn't it.

 

What wins does Chavez have, which can eclipse Ali’s wins?

That’s absurd.

 

Any fighter of any weight can be rated.

You can use the same criteria.

You cannot hypothetically envisage guys being bigger or smaller.

Much bigger versions of Tyson and Frazier, would bare no resemblance whatsoever to the ones we saw.

They would be completely different fighters.

They wouldn’t have those same styles at those higher weights.

It’s a waste of time even thinking about it.

 

You can objectively rank anybody.

From any weight class or era.

It’s just that many of the smaller greats will have had more opportunities.

 

Ridiculous.

Greb was a swarmer.

It doesn’t matter what their style is.

It’s what they did.

Who they beat.

At what point.

Where would Marciano rank under your criteria?

 

You cannot shrink anyone down.

You just simply use the same criteria:

Overall ability
Overall resume
Wins
Accomplishments
Longevity

They’re the main 5.

We can rank the HW’s.

It’s just that many of the smaller guys had the opportunity to fight in more weight classes.

Therefore, their resumes are stronger, and they accomplished more.

 

Just looking at BoxRec (I know, definitely not the best rating system) - but just going off any top ten list, as you said, they have Naseem Hamed in the top 10 at featherweight, and Ricky Hatton, Tszyu, and Shakur Stevenson in the top 10 at 140. There's no way any of these names are close to Ali, when it comes to avenging losses, battling through adversity often, winning when they were written off, or the sheer calibre of their wins - that's why I was wondering who you actually rate above them. Fifty is a huge number of fighters.

Norton was a great fighter, though; I'd have him in the top 20 heavyweight fighters of all time. He was a first ballot HOF. Which Patterson fight are you referring to by the way? I agree he was washed up for the 2nd one, but he was 30 in the first one. Ali won them both with ease. I don't really see how Ali was leaning on Frazier. In the first fight, he was mauled, had his jaw broken, and got dropped; in the rematches, it was sheer will to win. His tactics in the 3rd Frazier fight were completely different from the first one.

I disagree with Ali being someone the networks wanted to get ratings, his first reign, before he refused to fight in Vietnam, he beat a raft of excellent, and in many cases, underrated fighters. When he refused to go to war, he was essentially public enemy number one, especially in the US in the late 1960s; networks did not want anything to do with him. That's why they tried to throw him to the lions on multiple occasions, but he pulled through on the other side.