Let's look at some of these dominant monsters Ali had to beat on his first title reign. Floyd Patterson why was Ali fighting such a washed up opponent, and why did it take 12 rounds for Ali to get rid of 196 pound light punching midget. George Chuvalo 34-11 losses, also coming off a loss to a cruiserweight, and had lost 2 of his last 3 fights. Henry Cooper Ali wants to rematch a oppoent he has a 20 pound weight advantage and 8 year age advantage over. Brian London 35-11 losses bum and this is a world championship fight lol, what a weak era. Karl Midenberger with a weak 30% KO rate who got his title shot by beating Ivan Prebeg who had a weak record of 13-9. Yes that is all you have to do to get a title shot in this weak era, just beat a complete bum. Cleveland Williams 9 years older than Ali. A shadow of himself, could not train for a year, because of a gunshot wound, he had 7 feet of his intestines removed and part of his kidneys leaving him limping against Ali in the ring, literally a handicapped oppoent. Zora Folly gets his title shot by beating three bums Floyd Joyner 22-11 losses, Jefferson Davis 28-10 losses, and Henry Clark 8-2 losses. Yes Ali looked great in the 60s, because the era was so weak.
Ali didn't reign champ the entire decade. Only 3 years. Also, the description you posted of those fighters are trash. In the 60s there was Sonny Liston, Cleveland Williams (before gunshot), Patterson who packed plenty of punch you obviously dksab, Muhammad Ali, George Chuvalo (who was tough as hell and packed plenty of punch), Joe Frazier, Oscar Bonavena, and Jerry Quarry. 3 of those fighters are all time greats some would argue 4. That's a pretty ****ing stacked era.
70's are just about the consensus golden era of the heavyweights, not the 60's. I don't hear people even say that the 60's were that great on a whole regardless.
The 1960's had good fighters but Ali didnt fight a few earlier like he KNEW he should have..Williams and Folley come to mind. Ali even stated Folley may have won had he fought him years earlier. I find the 60's rather dull and weak,with limited talent.The 1970's ushered in much better fighters.
You expressed your opinion (and a shitty one at that) along with GALVATRON etc. already. Are you guys going to make a new thread every 2-3 days on how AJ is better than Ali?
That is the world title challengers as Ali the champion faced them. Bums, or fighting bums to get a shot at the heavyweight championship. Very weak era.
He would have better long range boxers to deal with . the 1980's are highly underatted...Williams/Holmes/Douglas/Tucker/Ruddock / Dokes ..etc..all could give him fits. Cooney is also forgotten despite his 6'6 frame LEFT hook and showed he could fight against Holmes.
Of course it was pathetically weak, it was the 60's for crying out loud. Most of the prize fighters were fighting so they could eat, training LMFAO unless you were backed by the crook you couldn't waste your time "training" Seriously, how "great" do you think ANYONE could be smoking 2 packs a day going with all you booze consumption. Every athletes legend grows to pathetic laughable, cartoonist levels every passing day they've been out of the game. There's reasons the fights were fought at crazy slow, lethargic and bar room levels. Ali could probably compete at CW and gather some titles but his competition was so low it's hard to truly gauge what he could or couldn't be in a true athletic era.
I agree that he would have 2 or 3 guys that would possibly give him a loss, like Frazier and Norton did in 70's
Joe Frazier at 5 11" 210 pounds would have cut through that bunch like cake! Only Holmes would have had a chance at going the distance and then if it's 12 rounds
