Muhammad Ali - Into The Mid 80's....

It really all depends on what sort of shape he was really in and how fast he deteriorated.

 

Tough one... Ali had a great disrespect for most oponents, and remained willing to absorb severe punishment from the vast majority of those he faught in the 70's, purely for the sake of being a stubborn egotist. Take away FOTC, THRILLA for example, a little more of Ali would be left in the early 80's. A decision over Berbick may have opened the door for Holmes II, yet I doubt Ali would have gotten past Holmes at all, especially in the early 80's.

 

I remember talks of Ali supposedly coming back to fight Tim Witherspoon in the mid 80's.

Still, he would be 38-40 years old? I dont think he could pull it off. Lets say he did avoid alot of the bigger fights, would he still have burnt out and gotten the Parkinson's? Its hard to say...I just cant envision Ali at 38-40 years old beating capable boxers like Dokes, Witherspoon, Holmes, Coetzee, Berbick and the like.

He'd still get his ass handed to him, just not as bad.

 

Ali developed Parkinson's syndrome which according to experts, is not caused by head trauma. I'm not saying that taking all of those punches helped matters, but one has to wonder.

Had he not become ill, I have little or no doubt that the Greatest would have continued his career for as long as his body would permit. He loved boxing along with the fame and fortune that came along with it. Probably the most painful part about leaving the sport was not the illness or the final beatings that he took from Holmes and Berbick, but the dreadful thought that he would no longer be the center of attention. For a man like Muhammad Ali this is worse than death. Had he been healthy enough to continue, I could see him winning fights against men like Scott Ledoux, Tex Cobb, Marty Monroe, James Tillis, and perhaps even capture an alpha title against one of the lesser acheivers. Of course his sites would have always been aimed at the top dog in the division, but even if he couldn't be #1, I'm sure he'd settle for being a close second.

 

You're confusing Parkinson's disease with Parkinson's syndrome.
IMO the hole in his head was almost certainly due to blows he took in the ring.

 

He has Parkinson's syndrome, not Parkinson's disease.

 

Good post.

 

Ali always has a little more wiggle room for getting into a fight than others due to his inhuman durability. His ring guile and while slowed still above-average handspeed could make him competitive in a lot of fights he wouldn't necessarily have a great chance of winning. He'd have a lot of close decision losses, I think.

 

Exactly.

Parkinson's syndrome after closed head injury

"A 36 year old man, who sustained a skull fracture in 1984, was unconscious for 24 hours,
and developed signs of Parkinson's syndrome 6 weeks after the injury."

http://books.google.com/books?id=0XijYbEuoQcC&pg=PA220&lpg=PA220&dq=Parkinson's+syndrome+as+a+component+of+post-traumatic+encephalopathy+in+boxer&source=bl&ots=E9albX8zvp&sig=ANa4zdYOLrbN5y67oN3VsR-ykEw&hl=en&ei=-NWfSff9B9G3tweku8iTDQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=3&ct=result
pg 220
"Head Trauma
Parkison's syndrome as a component of post traumatic ecephalopathy in professional boxers and National Hunt steeplechase jockeys
is well recognized, and a striatal variant of dementia pugilistica is also acknowledged."

 

Ali was starting to sound punchy as early as 1977.

 

Yeah. I posted a video on here before the Spinks rematch and he looked stoned when being interviewed by Cosell.

 

I think even in 1976, during some interview after the Manilla fight, you could see him slow down, and not because of maturing.

 

Apparently I stand corrected then.