The Ali vs. Holmes Sparring Myth

Thanks my friend, he looked fast in the first fight I saw of Muhammad Ali, against Floyd Patterson in 1965, here he looks very fast and accurate.

 

WOW.

 

My pleasure. Funny thing is, I watch it and think, do some more dancing and throwing - please - I love it - but every great artist, like Ali, does it exactly as they see fit and it’s great to see the periodic flashes of offensive brilliance than not to seem them at all.

 

When I saw Ali defend his title against Floyd Patterson with my Dad and Uncle on Nov 22 1965, we saw it on Closed Circuit Television. The screen was pretty big, Ali was blazing fast, his reflexes were great.

 

Ali was well known for going easy on sparring partners. Cody Jones and Al Lewis earned a living out of him for years without as much as a split lip.
Holmes was not part of the "Ali Circus", he was an up and comer, a contender who sparred Frazier and Norton regularly and any other name he could get time with. I'm sure he would have come in late in camp to push Muhammad.
Ali wrote that he wanted his sparring partners to whale on him close to a fight to get him prepared for what was to come. Angelo Dundee hated it.
As an interesting comparison, Carl Froch told me that ten days before his re-match with George Groves, he paid Tony Bellew £10,000 to come to his gym and give it everything in a ten round spar. Ten ounce gloves, no head gear. Carl had to know he was ready. I think Ali used sparring similarly at times.

 

Holmes always says he held his own or won in sparring Ali, but that Frazier just whooped his ass. Kind of humorous.

 

I believe Angelo Dundee said something along the lines of:
"Muhammad was the worst gym fighter I ever saw."
"Ali hasn't won a round in the gym since I've known him."
These are not to be taken too seriously though, (in fact they probably should be taken with humor) just as Ali's sparring, since he usually went easy on his sparring partners. These quotes apply more to the latter part of his career anyway, or so I would imagine.

 

Ali staged that, though. I think that was clear from the footage.

 

Nice footage. It's interesting also to compare with the sparring footage from the 60's.

 

Henry Cooper would like to have a word with you.

 

Wasn't in his title reign - study up.

 

This Ali would have stopped any Larry Holmes in a real bout.

 

It was a year prior, so it's very dam close.

 

A trilogy between Ali and Usyk... The ring IQ, speed and skill at play in that match-up would be something to behold.

 

Holmes said that Ali was easy to spar when there were no cameras around, but that you better look out when they were.

In this clip it seemed to me that Ali used much of the second round to show who was the best, shook Holmes up a bit with the left hook, and when he felt he had done that he just went passive, let Holmes land a few and pretended to be floored by that right.

In that '65 footage you can see something similar. Just working on his defence most of the time before finally letting loose towards the end, just as to leave no doubt of what he was capabable of.