tv announcers give ali so much credit for his flurries..where he missed 90%of punches

this is probably my biggest pet peave of the modern fight game. Chavez-Taylor is a great example. How about Hagler-Leonard, also? Ali was a good part sham during much of the 70's. The clowning, meaningless, inaccurate flurries, incessant clinching, holding and hitting, grabbing the ropes, taking the role of punching bag. I find it largely unwatchable.

 

his commentary during Benvenuti Monzon=

 

Just watch the Muhammad Ali vs. Jimmy Young fight closely.

Then look at the Judges scorecards. Giving Ali rounds, whem he hit nothing but air.
And Howard Cosell screaming,
'Now he's back to dancing and boxing, he's the Ali of old.'
'Back when he was giving Sonny Liston a boxing lesson in Miami Beach'
'This is what we've been waiting for'

Then Jimmy Young pops Ali, with a perfect counter, right into Ali's face.

Howard shut up, and didn't say a word, he didn't even acknowledge Jimmy's good
scoring blow, one of the best of the fight.

 

Cosell was a jack ass

 

Howard had a total man-crush on Ali. He was like a nerdy school kid wanting to hang out and be accepted by the big jock. It made for a lot of biased commentary and further distortion of the Ali legend/myth.

 

Some say Ali's pittypat bogus flurries are what stole him two victories from Norton and arguably the second fight with Frazier. Both opponents said repeatedly in interviews that Ali's punches had no sting, no zip and was basically for show. Once or twice in the round he'd sit down on a hard shot.

 

Mac Foster on Muhammad Ali's punches,

'The dentist's needle has more sting than Ali's punches.'
'Look at me, I went 15 rounds with Ali, and not a mark.'

'Oh yeah, he can outbox me in a boxing ring the size of a football field, but
in a telephone booth, he doesn't get out alive.'

Brent Musberger, announcing Ali's fight 'joke fight' versus Jean Pierre Coopman,
'Ali is so fast and powerful, even when he misses punches, Coopman looks like he might fall.'

WTF,,,,,Brent

 

The fights where Ali displayed the best leveraged punching were imo Liston I, Williams (Williams was very much target practice, though), Frazier I (before he gassed), Quarry II, Foreman and Frazier III. I can't see much fault with his punching in these fights. There weren't much flurrying against Lyle either, and his punching looked solid after he came off the floor against Banks. Similarily with Cooper.

In these instances I think Ali got the most out of his potential in terms of power. The combination he felled Foreman with was sublime. How many other HWs have you seen letting loose such a combination with such accuracy during a 270 degree turn?

 

RC, WISE WORDS. Ali was 50% glitz,and glamour. Joe Louis was all about
DEMOLITION !

 

Yeah, he was sure guilty of that sometimes.
Knocked Foreman out. Punched plenty hard then.
Beat Frazier so badly in Manila Eddie Futch said no mas. Hurt him 4 times, nearly did him in by clean KO. Punched plenty.
Essentially stopped Ron Lyle with one punch.


Ali had his tricks to win fights. He had a ton of flash. But the utter ignorance complicit in ignoring the substance? Saying all Ali did was throw pitty pat flurries is asinine when he has stoppage victories over some of the toughest fighters in heavyweight history.

 

We should also acknowledge that not all of those pretty flurries missed, and they may have hurt quite a bit more than is being made out to be here.

Frazier had a simple strategy to counter this move of Ali's, he'd make him miss and then land a solid blow of his own as Ali's hands were down. As a result he took a good amount of punishment though because Ali would throw 3-4 punches to every one of his.

For the critics, this is a great example of Frazier making Ali miss many of the punches, and landing his own left hook:

[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e7RjPJbvMiI[/ame]

2:20

Of course in the later rounds those flurries of punches started to tell on Frazier.