Which fight damaged Ali's health the most?

No way to tell. How do we even know if Ali wasn't genetically predisposed to get Parkinson's syndrome. Plenty of fighters have fought on past prime and don't suffer the way Ali does.

I do know that his handlers and entourage should be ashamed of letting him go into the ring with Larry and Teevor.

 

What about Kenny Norton?

 

I see it as being a slow process over various fights that damaged Muhammad's health rather than one in particular. No certainties but I've a feeling that had Ali hung them up after Manilla he would be a lot better,physically,today. Both Ali and Frazier should never have gone anywhere near a ring after that bout.

 

Good point mentioned. Ali should never have been given a license for the Holmes or Berbick fights.

 

I think the Shavers fight. Manilla was tough physically, but he shipped a lot of hard punches vs Shavers.

 

Pick one after his comeback...he didn't have the reflexes he had back in 1963-1967...he became a punching bag in the 1970's...

 

Believe it or not it's proberbly the very first Frazier fight. It came 12 weeks after the Bonavena fight too. Until that time the Bonavena fight was perhaps his most competative fight so 1971 was pretty tough.

The closest thing to two all time greats at their best in the ring against one another both fighting to win. A prime Joe Frazier punching himself to exhaustion on Ali has to be when it started. What fighter could be the same?

I think Ali had an extraordinary amount of energy, a hyper active kid. Always on the go. It possibly gave him the capacity to take too much punishment when the time came because initially he was so hard to hit..

They say even at his elusive best ALi pushed himself to deliberately take beatings on the ropes in sparring to toughen himself up. Just to condition himself to being hit because for a long while he just could not be hit that much in actual fights. Those punches count too.

But I have read there was early signs that before he even had a tough fight that he was always a bit different. He could get so excited while talking and suddenly just fall asleep mid conversation, be out like a light. That's just not normal. I'm no doctor but if a kid who never boxed could unexpectedly sleep mid conversation and later became a victim of Parkinson's I would personally be less surprised than I would if the person never did that.

 

If his current condition is a result of boxing its not going to be one fight, or even several fights. Its the years of being hit in sparring and fights, punch after punch, year after year.

 

Wasnt he showing signs before Norton 3 ? Now, i dont know if boxing was responsible nor do i know if that condition comes on instantly or gradually over time, but if boxing DID play a part its my guess that it began to happen well before Norton 3, maybe a far back as the 2 norton fights in 73? We'll never know, but i think its pretty unanimous thinking that he shoula retired after Manila

 

I watched Ali closely during the 70s and I never noticed anything that was obvious until his bouts with Spinks. However no one fight does this sort of damage. It's an accumulation over time which would include sparring. His bout with Shavers was exceptionally brutal as he took many right hand shots on the button from one of the hardest right hand punchers in history.