Prime Muhammad Ali was hittable

They sure imply it lol

 

What about Bonavena? Mark Kram was no Ali fan boy and he said the most rounds he could give Bonavena was 3. He was an infinitely more dispassionate observer than Yancey Durham. In any case boxers and trainers gravitate towards certain styles when judging a fight. That's why Floyd Patterson gave the nod to SRL in his match with Hagler and Boom Boom Mancini gave the nod to Hagler

 

I wasn't angry. This is a hobby I do on the toilet while hiding from my boss. Don't flatter yourself.

 

No idea where my perception of events is coming from?

Let’s see. In the lead up to the Cooper fight, Ali repeatedly referred to Cooper as a “bum” and that he was going to knock that “bum” out.

Ali wore a crown into the ring, saying “You gotta a Queen, you need a King”.

So focused, Ali spied “Cleopatra” in attendance and later said that her presence caused sufficient distraction for Henry to catch him - of course Ali was joking - but he was clearly too loosey goosey going into the fight.

Ali had predicted a 5th round KO/stoppage. He was fighting to his prediction.

Ali most def. wasn’t taking Cooper seriously - he was viewed as a mere stepping stone to Liston.

Ali wasn’t serious during the fight UNTIL he got caught napping in round 4. He stepped it up in round 5 - fight over.

It was PRE-prime Ali and Ali took harder punches with less effect later in his career.

These are known facts and observations - not because Ali said so, lol. Nice deflection. No dice.

You’re not trying to help me - and I don’t need your help anyway.

No amount of sparring, whatever the alleged extent was, prepares you as well as actual fighting does.

There are real fight nerves, arbitrary refs, happenstance ring environments (see Zaire, tiny ring, soft canvas) and all manner of other unknown contingencies to be getting on with - contingencies that don’t come with gym work.

See, I’m trying to help you here.

The ONLY fighter that I am aware of who actually replicated real fight conditions in the gym was Ray Leonard - in prep for his fight with Hagler.

Anything shy of such prep doesn’t cut it and I imagine that prep served Ray very well after his own extended hiatus from the ring.

Suffice to say, a very well gym conditioned Ray didn’t employ that type of prep for his first comeback attempt vs Kevin Howard. Did Ray look hunky dory to you for that fight? No, he looked as rusty as hell.

When he fought Bonavena, Ali’s obvious rust was popularly acknowledged. You’re trying to argue against a second fight in after 3.5 years exile, and Ali’s first fight back was just 3 rounds long - toward the end of which Ali was already, uncharacteristically, showing signs of fatigue. Didn’t you see that?

Okay, fine, you would’ve taken a gamble on Ali against Liston - even though Ali’s last fight saw him KD’d hard - when Ali wasn’t fooling around nor unfocused - as you see it.

Then there was Liston, coming off back to back first round KO’s of Patterson, who wasn’t all that good? Hmmm.

Finally, let “what” go exactly? I haven’t been flogging a dead horse.

I submitted a single reply, expressing my opinion as freely as you did.

 

Personally, I think that more has to do with a tendency to sell contemprorary fighters a bit short than thinking Ali is untouchable. If it was a match-up against Louis, Holmes, Tyson, Holy or Lewis I don't think Ali would be tipped to cruise through it.

As for me, I have no idea who would have won out of Ali and Usyk, but man, oh man would I like to see it. I am quite sure that Ali wouldn't cruise through it, though. But each to their own. Just guesses anyhow.

 

Its both I would say and I'm sure similar people would say the same about Ali vs some of those

 

>Cuchulain
>"Respected member"

Pick one.

 

Ali has for sure been the favourite when those fights have been discussed, but most agree that they would have been tough and competitive, I think.

 

Not sure who's considered respected around here but ask Man Machine and he would say the same that dude really doesn't respect modern fighters at all......

 

Many do but then you have some who glaze past fighters way too much and have no respect for modern fighters at all

 

lol honestly you couldn’t help me with anything but trivia and history, I prefer ya know what’s happening in the ring- I’m not gonna play with this wall of text of which most is BS “you don’t know **** about boxing” seriously mate, you live in your magazines and what other people have wrote but when it comes to the actual boxing knowledge it’s pretty obvious ya know nothing, ya probably never will but rest assured everyone will pat you on the back for quotes, dates, and Ring mag references.

 

‘Doza. Lol. Just for his departure the average IQ level in Classic jumped up dramatically.

One of his “trump” cards for Jeffries was Jim’s alleged invitation (corroborated by only Jeffries himself) to a no holds barred fight in a saloon cellar - in order to prove that Jeffries wasn’t worried to fight Johnson without the title on the line.

Another pearler of his was the claim that Jeffries didn’t duck Johnson, rather, unbeaten Jeff “defended” his title against Johnson in 1910.

So much for the contrary catch cry of the day for Jeff to return the title back to the White Race.

How do you bring back what you allegedly hadn’t lost yet. Haha.

Of course that was when ‘Doza was inexplicably trying to frame Joe Louis as having ducked certain back fighters during his reign - cluelessly throwing fake stones whilst living in the glass of house of James J Jeffries -

 

On this forum it takes a while. When I started here 15+ years ago many still had anyone with a decent punch icing Lewis. "Galento hit every bit as hard as McCall or Rahman, so he could well do what they did" type of comments. Today Lewis seems to be perhaps behind only Ali in terms of the h2h respect he gets. I think Usyk's time will come as well. The man is a complete fighting machine. Ali isn't stopping him, not outworking him and not outthinking him. Pretty much no one is. Extremely hard to beat for anyone who ever put on gloves.

 

Yeah, he was something else alright.

 

God what memories. Don't forget the two Klits and GGG............sure had a thing for white muscular Euro fighters.