Why is Ali showered with the term " The Greatest"

What special wins did Holmes have?

 

It is possible that Holmes could have beaten Ali head to head but I don't think that a case can be made that his overall body of work was better than Ali's.

Personaly I think that Holmes would have given Ali fits at any stage of his career. I would be particularly interested to see a Futch backed Holmes take on a younger Ali.

 

atsch Sorry, but there is no other way to respond to such dribble.

Muhammad Ali is as overlooked as he is overrated at times. People think he gets more praise than he deserves because of his star status, for the work he did outside of the ring to help black people unite. That said, look at his resume and you will see world class fighters in his win column. Liston, Frazier, and Foreman are all certified top 10 ATG Heavyweights. Ali stopped all of them at least once.

I don't see why Liston taking a dive should make the win any less impressive. He was absolutely dominating Sonny, in both fights, and given what we now know about Ali's will and heart, there was no chance of him knocking Ali out. At least not in my view.

Ali has the greatest resume of all the Heavyweight champions, and he cleared out the division twice. He was around when the division was at its very peak, and just watching him at his best pre-exile is like watching Roy Jones Jr or Sugar Ray Leonard at their best. Special fighter.

Holmes gives Ali problems h2h, but no case can be made for Larry to be rated above him. He dominated a fairly weak era in comparison to Ali.

 

Patterson x2, Frazier x2, Liston x2, Norton x2, Foreman, Quarry x2, Bonavena, etc. Ridiculously stacked resume.

Ali made his name based not only on style but substance, and Holmes has no business being the GOAT. That's Ali.

We're speaking strictly Heavyweight here. It answers your question categorically.

Why is Ali showered with the term 'The Greatest'? Because he had the greatest resume during the greatest period for Heavyweights. Simple as pie. That and he did like to proclaim himself as such.

 

Because he said he was "The Greatest" so much everyone started to believe him. Even Ali got surprised that he got labeled with the nickname. Am I the only one answering the question on a technical level?

 

You'll notice I already did.

 

There is no reasonable argument that would harbor Larry Holmes being the #1 greatest heavyweight of all time. Doesn't matter how one tries to slice it, dice, it, or twist it...

Muhammad Ali fought and beat the very greatest challengers of a career that spanned 20 years, and at least 3 of of his best wins came against men who are commonly rated in most people's top 10.. He beat a fair number of others are also probably top 30 - 40.

Holmes has no such claim. His best wins against Norton, Shavers, Berbick, Witherspoon, and Cooney were respectable scalps, but none of those victories come close to beating an all time great like a Frazier, Foreman or Liston.. In fact, Ali was past his prime beating Norton and Shavers, who in turn were past THEIR primes when a peak Holmes finally got to them, and fought life and death with both.

Lastly, Holmes failed to establish himself as a true dominant force during his reign, as there were several challengers who were still running around with fragments of the title, and at one point, he even forfeited his own strap to dodge a contender....

 

Ali was a Don King created and self created fraud as the greatest boxer of all time.

There are atleast 5 of his "wins" that were "losses" when judged correctly, and with these losses counted he is just another HW champion, definately not to the extent he was.

Because he came along at a time of racial unrest in the USA, and because of Don Kings paying off of judges he managed to massage his record and image to still now be called the "greatest".

Ali is not the greatest at all, an absolute lie for me in this context.

He was a legend in terms of his achievements for black americans and that for me is his greatest achievement, but in the ring, the guy was a jab and run fraud, who had a good enough chin to stay up right and convince the judges to give him the "win" on alot of occassions.

He is a legend though and he made boxing a major sport because of his charisma and charm at a time when black people were still treated as 2nd class citizens. For that I love him, but in the ring he was never a great.

I am sorry if the truth hurts some people here, or maybe some people will respect it, lets see...:deal

 

Don King only came into the picture after Ali was past his prime. Ali could have retired after the Thrilla in Manila and he would still be considered a legend, in fact there would be no questions about Ali receiving gifts because all of those incidents happened late in Ali's career...

Ali to me was, as George Foreman put it, the greatest man to ever box. Not necessarily the best boxer of all time but unquestionably the greatest man to ever be involved in boxing or any sport for that matter.

 

Ray Mercer in his mid 40s perhaps?

 

Holmes never had life and death with Shavers. He more or less shut him out in their first fight and was easily outboxing him until being dropped in the 7th of the rematch. Even though he was dropped in the rematch, he still had an easy time most of the way.

 

No, you actually tried to answer the question to why he was "The Greatest." I answered the question to why Ali is referred to as "The Greatest." Obviously he doesn't get referred that way without being as great as he was but he invented the term for himself and it caught on. Ali has a quote that refers to my first response.