Muhammad Ali through old camera technology

Then no offense but you're doing yourself a big disservice by presenting film where all of us clearly see a big (bigger than Louis, Johnson, and Dempsey) heavyweight gliding around the ring, controlling the range of his fighting with long jabs and footwork, scoring from all distances, showing excellent defensive reflexes, using subtle feints and head movement, lowering his level to go to the body, showing excellent balance and weight control, and throwing fast combinations, etc.

Even as a relatively inexperienced professional in poor-quality footage, he looks nothing like his predecessors.

 

IMO Ali looked good enough already (6th fight) to fight Patterson, Johanson, and Liston. I haven't seen a video older than the Clay-Clark fight in which a fighter looked more impressive than Clay/Ali did in the Clark fight. Another older video that I've seen that was impressive was the George Benton - Hurricane Carter fight, but I think it was after the Clay/Ali-Clark fight?

The boxers that I think look particularly bad on video are Corbett, Willard, Max Baer, Stribling, Galento, and a few others. The video is not the problem.

 

I don't really agree with the bolded Rez. What footage would you put forth where an individual that looks as good as Clay (in this instance) was picked apart in here?

 

Robinson, Louis etc. You haven't answered the question tho.

 

Well this was what you said -

It implied to me that you had witnessed said certain group dishing undue criticism to guys fighting at a similar level on film, genius.

Yes i see Louis being somewhat disregarded of late. I think it's as much for the perceived strength of the opposition he sometimes struggled with as anything else. Technique and ability wise he looks excellent on film imo.

 

I assumed he was referring to our unflattering appraisals of Jim Corbett, in response to posts like this:

 

Corbett hardly looks like Clay (in this film) that's for sure. Big gulf.

 

Looking at Ali with the old technology kind of gives us a tool to measure how much better some the old fighters were than previously thought

It enhances how impressive and fast Dempsey is

Ketchel was a wolverine in real time

Johnson ring IQ is more impressive if it could be corrected

It is interesting

 

Agreed.

Camera tech does matter. If it doesn't to the die-hards who are used to seeing old footage, I can guarantee you it does to most everyone else. My unscientific method? Showing my buddies who are casuals and gauging their reactions.

At the risk of coming off as an uncompromising jerk, nobody can really convince me that the the 20's filming technology would lead to people being as excited as the 4k footage we have a century later. It sure hasn't when I show old film clips of HOF'ers. They'll pick Tyson, Pac, Roy, SRL, Duran, etc. highlights all day over the old ones. The presentation quality absolutely makes a difference in perception of the fighter for most people. The point Rez was trying to get across, I got. Most people here are used to having lower standards as to what "good" footage is compared to what the average person does, so they're already compensating in their minds for the worse quality.

Take somebody who's used to seeing fights on a 55 inch HD tv, or HD highlights on YouTube, and their reaction isn't so forgiving. They'll usually see some skills and try to be nice about it, but they're just not as impressed as they are by modern fighters and don't really take the old guys as seriously H2H as a result.