Ali, previously mentioned, would twist his wrists violently at the point of contact, which is what helped him open up guys faces like a can of soup. Somewhere in the combination of that turn of wrist and the velocity at which the punches landed and likely the speed and amount of torque in that turn was a combination that made leather to skin a surgical thing. And he also targeted — if he saw an area swelling up or the smallest of cut begin to open, he would laser in on it to exacerbate the damage. You could teach some of this, but I think his degree of calculation and precision of control was uncanny. As The Who sang in ‘Pinball Wizard,’ he had ‘such a subtle wrist.’
Would Ali be able to do much damage without the leather material? I was never very good at discerning lyrics, but Pinball Wizard is cleaner/clearer than most. It is "such a supple wrist". [url]https://genius.com/The-who-pinball-wizard-lyrics[/url]
Was at times very underrated for his power, Wlad. He certainly wasn't in the same sort of league as Valuev, who was massive but not really a hitter.