What Fight Was Ali’s Peak

EVERY fighter has flaws.

EVERY fighter has something that another fighter can exploit.

They are all different sizes.

With different styles.

With different attributes.

At different weights.

It’s why the sport’s so intriguing.

 

Michael Jordan gets the same adulation from a lot of basketball fans. If Michael gets it Muhammad should get it too.

 

Similar to my view. I rate Williams and Folley as his absolute best,and Quarry II,Norton II,Frazier II and Foreman bouts as his best form post-exile.

 

Easy solution, just don’t click on the Ali threads but my guess is you loooove the attention of being the dissenter/troll.

 

Except for Ernie "Terrible" Terrell.

 

Lot to unpack in this post, and all of it good and insightful.

I was going to mention the mental part.

Peak Ali as we saw him physically was maybe Cleveland Williams or perhaps one of the others mentioned like Ellis, where he’s a more mature athlete but still has the gifts.

Peak Ali mentally was probably Foreman or Manilla. Unconquerable mentally.

My brother and I were talking at lunch the other day and Ali came up — he mentioned how Ali was to some degree a reflex fighter like Roy Jones Jr up to a point in his career … but when the reflexes faded we saw there was another layer to him mentally. He simply willed himself to some wins, either to barely scrape by (say Norton III) or to overcome a fighter who had a significant physical edge (Big George) or to dig so deep inside himself that he would push his body past its limits to win (Manilla).

I’ve heard it said that the guy who wins an even fight is the one who is willing to die, and I think Ali reached points in certain fights where he was willing to do that to win. He’d win or die trying, because he was just going to push himself past all limits to make sure he prevailed.

Truly a rare human being to have that mental and physical blend in one man.

EDIT: This is not me disagreeing with @META5 on Ali being a reflex fighter or not — he was a man with amazing reflexes who also had what seem to have become under-credited skill and IQ in his earlier days, but there was just so much more substance as we found out when the reflexes began to fade and he had to rely on mental strength, guile and grit.

 

Bang on mate.

 

I said to you in another thread that you have tendency to read something and assume something else.

Let's be honest - you tried to throw shade and then got checked on it. Your instant dismissive tone got pulled up and then you're trying to revert and be more reasonable.

I simply said Ali was plenty skilled and used techniques, skills and ring IQ that was utilised by greater, much more plaudited, defensively aware fighters. It's ironic that most so called boxing fans cannot recognise the skill/technique in unorthodox. What we call brilliant and defensive savant in Pep, we call reckless and all reflex in Ali.

Where do I pretend that every flaw is intentional or has no consequence? Have you ever genuinely thought that showing a fighter your flaws and beating them anyway has a psychological effect on them? Makes them tired, angry, makes them abandon game plan or engage you at levels that don't suit their best interests?

Ali, like others from the same technical wheelhouse did this time and time again and for the most part was successful - when he wasn't successful, as iterated by @Saintpat he had other layers e.g., he had a phenomenal chin, unrivalled ability to absorb body shots, he could tighten up, he could use a higher guard, ala Liston, Quarry, Foster, Foreman. This doesn't mean he had no flaws - as @Loudon says, every fighter has them. Ali was successful despite his flaws, hence his unrivalled HW résumé, hence is the number 1 HW, and at very worst no. 2 and Joe Louis and he are clear, very clear of every one else chasing them.

I like breaking down fighters, Ali is my favourite fighter - I am fair in analysis and consistent in my assessment of what makes for greatness.

Had Ali not fought like a lighter weight class fighter and abandon the textbook, like Archie Moore tried to force him to follow, the purists would love him, but he certainly isn't beating Foreman without the ability to improvise and change strategy and do something counterintuitive to what it would take to beat Big George.

 

I think you’re doing a good job explaining what made Ali great. I’m not denying any of that. He was insanely skilled and obviously had layers to what he was doing.

Where I think we disagree is that I feel like you’re romanticizing some of those traits a bit. The same habits that worked when he was young and faster than everyone are also the ones that got him into trouble against Frazier and Norton when he faced guys who could consistently exploit them.

And once the athleticism dipped, leaning on toughness and durability doesn’t really prove the flaws weren’t there, it shows the style became more punishing over time. That’s part of why he took so much damage in his 30s.

To me it’s the difference between being brilliant and being structurally sound. You can fight in that mobile, reactive Ali style and still keep tighter fundamentals. Holmes and Usyk are good examples of that. They keep the fluidity but don’t rely as much on reflexes and grit, which probably helps them age better and absorb less damage.

I’m not denying that toughness played a huge role against Foreman obviously it did. I just don’t think that means it was the only possible way he could’ve won. Sometimes when something works, we assume it had to happen that way. I think with slightly tighter fundamentals he could’ve exploited Foreman’s flaws without having to rely so heavily on toughness and absorb that much punishment to win.

Overall I still think Ali is great. I just think he leaned more toward maximizing upside than minimizing risk, and that caught up with him as he aged. That side of it shouldn’t get glossed over.

 

Ali deserves to be glazed tho, pause.

 

What I find amazing, Ali came back after over 3 years of suspension, fought 4 top contenders that arose during his absence and stopped 3 of them, losing only to Frazier.

 

Every fighter does but I think its a bit overdone here. Would rather more obscure fighters get more glaze makes things more interesting instead of seeing the same things over and over.