The Art of Ali (1969)

One writers contemporary opinion on Muhammad Ali.

https://www.si.com/vault/1969/05/05/611006/muhammad-ali-art-boxing-strategy

'There is a classical way to make every move known to boxing, but no prizefighter ever has fought entirely by the book. Among heavyweights, Gene Tunney came close, with a style as stilted as his prose, and twice beat the crowding, crouching, slugging Jack Dempsey. And there was Rocky Marciano, no purist, who retired undefeated after repudiating every nicety known to the sport. More recently there is Muhammad Ali-Cassius Clay (see cover), whose style is a mix of the classic and the insolent. Ali gets away with the insolence because of astoundingly quick reflexes, speed of foot and an uncanny ability to gauge distance, as shown on the following pages. For the photograph at right he was asked to jab at and smash a balsa board 16½ inches away when a light was flashed. Timed with an Omegascope, he did it in 19/100 of a second. His fist actually covered the distance in 4/100 of a second, about the period of an eye blink. Here he has knocked out Sonny Liston with an unorthodox downward chop that, he says, "goes back to Jack Johnson."

To retreat, the budding boxer is instructed, slide the right foot back and follow immediately with the left. Ali demonstrates this above (right to left) but considers it inferior (because slower) to his own method, a fast backward shuffle on his toes (below). This is part of the "float like a butterfly, sting like a bee" theory he developed early in his career and which, indeed, won him the title.

The art of slipping a jab or straight right consists simply in moving the head sideways, letting the punch go past (left). Reflexive speed is all-important, "it's not dangerous when you're on your toes and know what you're doing," he says. "There's no footwork. Footwork comes in when I'm moving backward, not sideways." The hands-down position is typical of Ali's nonconformist habits.'