Who is the worst fighter that would give Ali trouble

He'd go the distance for sure. Would probably lose every round though.

 

Plus, we would get to see how Muhammad would respond to repeated use of Jheri curl juice in his face lol!

 

I think a tricky southpaw like Chris Byrd might give him trouble just because Ali didn't have much experience against southpaws.

 

Larry donald

 

Funnily enough Ken Norton with all due respect might be one of the worst fighters in history to beat Ali.

 

Yup and he definitely demonstrated that in their fight.

 

Henry Cooper floored Ali and probably would have beaten him if Dundee hadn't ripped Ali's gloves to buy time. Chuck Wepner was credited with a knockdown. Alfredo Evangelista gave Ali a hard night's work. Leon Spinks actually beat him. If you want to watch these fights online, I have the Wepner and Evangelista bouts on my channel (https://www.dailymotion.com/20thCenturyBox) and the Cooper and Spinks fights will be uploaded next week.

 

He said Norton and Shavers.

 

Ali told Howard Cosell in 1976 that Rocky Marciano would be the toughest...he also told Cosell that he didn't know if could have beaten Rocky...he also said the same things to reporters in the UK...Ali also said that Marciano was better than Joe Frazier...

 

I think Henry Akinwande would’ve been awkward as hell for Ali.

 

I'd take those comments with a grain of salt, he also once said ,,"The idea of that short small man gettin to me is science fiction talk" .
Just like Foreman when he came back and said on the Letterman show , when asked about a Tyson fight said " I promise you I'll do the same thing to him ,no more than one or 2 rounds" Years later George said,,"I wanted nothing to do with Tyson" Just trying to be kind in his later years.

 

Orlin Norris would give him at least some amount of trouble! I tell you why:
1. Ali would enter the fight rather unprepared, underestimating Norris.
2. 70's Ali tended to have problems with shorter fighters, while Norris showed his best performances vs taller guys.
3. Look how he outboxed Greg Page in his prime. Awkward, elite timing, sharp, broke his rythem. He "outboxed the boxer" ...the taller guy. Page at his peak had kinda similarities with late 70's Ali. Height, range, style (footwork). And again he was 31, 220 lbs. (the best shape of his career).

 

Not saying he wasn’t a tough match up but Mike Weaver might have given Ali a fight. Weaver was extremely strong, big power, long reach with a good jab .. Ali wasn’t a huge puncher to catch Mike early .. weaver had good stamina .. he could give Ali trouble.

 

I’d agree on Cooper as one possible candidate.

Not overweighting the KD in the first fight - that was a momentary glitch - Ali caught out not being serious enough, his mind on all things and trying to fight to prediction.

But in the general run of the fight, Cooper proved to be somewhat awkward at any rate - similar to his effort in the later title shot against Ali.

Cooper never really appeared to be hurt by Ali - and Henry said as much himself - of course his night ended in both fights due to bad cuts.

Apparently Ali claimed he backed off when he saw how badly Cooper was cut - Cooper himself said while he liked Ali, that was not at all true -

Rather, Henry believed Ali really went for it (including the cut eye) when Henry started pumping out blood by the gallons. The vision may support Henry on that claim -

From the first Cooper fight to the Liston fight, it’s fair to say Ali improved to some extent.

However, as opposed to Liston, I think Henry would always present some stylistic issues for Ali - so Ali’s perceived development from Cooper 63 to Liston early 64 might be a bit exaggerated.

The best way to compare and gauge how much Ali did improve would be to analyse the differences between the two actual fights that he and Cooper had in ‘63 and then ‘66 - personally, I don’t see a great deal of difference - only that Ali was that much more wary, of course.

As Champ, Ali later sparred an exhibition (in ‘66?) with previous opponent Doug Jones and appeared to easily have it all his own way - but then it is arguable that Jones himself was that much lesser a fighter than he was in ‘63.