was ali better or worse after his ban from boxing???

Sorry for this next aside, the Classic Boys are gonna tell me to take this line of conversation to the lounge, T. Sorry I can't tell you that I'm a soccer fan. Maybe you don't know but Pittsburgh has a great "football" heritage too, American football that is, and I've always been into it, played in high school and sandlot afterwards. But with your prompting I will make a effort to keep an eye out for your football and your team on one of the cable sports channels we have here. And T, you should make an effort to check out that McCartney concert; McCartney was supposed to be the soft one, the pretty one, but turneed out he was as much of a fighter as Lennon; in his way, even as much of a fighter as a "fighter", without the robe and the trunks and the cup.

 

Will do Chinx.

 

I watched the last Ali/Frazier fight last night. Someone posted on another thread that Marciano always found a way to win, and of course that has to be truer for the Rock than for anyone since he never lost one, but Ali usually found a way to win too. Even after he'd lost his fleet-footedness, his miraculous boxing ability and he was in there with someone who hit twice as hard as he did, what heart it took for Ali to lay on the ropes and take all those shots. Jesus Christ Joe Frazier could hit, but you'd hardly know it when he was in there with Ali, the way Ali seemed to absorb them, it made you stop and ask yourself wait a minute, are these punches landing or not? And the truth of it, was yes, most of them were. Ali had sacrificed alot to stand his moral ground those three years, the wealth, his reputation, but maybe his most profound sacrifice was just what this thread started out to be about in the first place: I think Ali came back from his exile less alot of his superhuman athleticism, and soon found that the only way he was going to beat the best of the best was to take all that his guy had to give, to hang in there and wait for an opportunity to give some back, and then to hurry and try and close it before his guy came out of the ether. The cost of it, in the long or the short term, for Ali I don't think was ever a real thought.

 

ali i always felt had been relying on his athletisicm pre prison. the time out made him become a far more mature and rounded fighter. maybe not as fast or as urgant as the younger ali but he would not been able to out slick frazier. nor be able to rope a dope foreman. it's part of his mystique. that time out helped him i feel. similar to leonard