Would Ali be too small for today's heavyweight division?

I'm not convinced he wouldn't struggle or lose to Lewis, Vitali, or Wlad. He never fought anyone like them so it's very speculative to say he'd get past their jabs and length. I doubt he'd get through all three undefeated.

 

Anecdotally, having met Ali before he was entirely wasted away, I can attest that he was a big effin dude, impressively built...

 

For his 3rd fight with Frazier he was 224lbs and looked to be in good shape. Considering how brutal that fight was he obviously had to be in great shape so his weight at that time wasn't a factor. He still moved well enough and his hands were still fast. that Ali would fit in just fine with today HW's and would probably be the best out there as well. Too much is made of size nowadays. Vlad K, while certainly a good fighter and a big SOB, bigger than Ali doesn't have Ali's speed or chin so he's not going to walk over him or overpower him right? Who has Vlad fought that could be remotely compared to a prime, near prime or slightly past it version of Ali? I think a few sharp right leads on the point of VK's chin would keep the big guy honest and conservative and Ali isn't crumbling when Vlad connects either. This is Boxing not wrestling or MMA where u can take a fighter to the ground to nullify any advantages he may have standing up so size isn't the be all and end all. Ali would certainly have the size, skill and will to compete in todays HW division as would a few other ATG's as well.

 

Yeah, we did see Ali at his best but not in his prime. For example, Ali was at his best when he fought sonny liston for the first time and the cleveland williams fight. The exile prevented us from seeing his prime. Of course the competition was much better in the 70's but you can't disregard Ali's greatness in the 60's. He achieved greatness in one night when he defeated sonny liston in the first fight. You also need to understand Ali in the 60's was so great that he didn't even need to go all out to beat his opponents. He would simply toy with his opponents. Ali also dodged punches like it was nothing from guys that had a 82" and 84" reach. In the 70's, Ali couldn't effortlessly dodge punches from guys that had a 73" reach. No he wouldn't lose a lot of his movement because he never used weights. Heavyweights today weight train and that's how they put on the extra muscle. You also need to understand that Ali was a head of his time and is no ordinary heavyweight. He moves like no other and would be able to go 30 rounds because of much better nutrition.

 

John Mr. Bokaj is completely correct. And he is stating it politely.

It is unambiguous that you suggested Ali used PEDs. No rational anausis of your wording can suggest otherwise.
You would need to float a Clinton-esque smokescreen such as what the definition of "is" is to even try an illogical argument.

You can see my detailed post about this recently, & I submit you can cointest none of it.

You really just had no idea how to distinguish normal growth & maturation from PED use.

Ali showed no signs associated with PED use, had no likely exposure to them, his increase in size was not unusual at all for an athlete his age-& he did not even end up bulky!

Ata time when -well you can research it yourself & find out when they had substances that mostly increased strength not bulk. Unlike old-line steroids like Deca & Winstrol.

Your very general & literally truie argument that anyone COULD do anything does not mean it is at all likely someone did, or fair to essentially accuse them.

The evidence that he almost certainly did NOT use is overwhelming.
But I will add if he had, he would have almost certainly actually DONE some weight training, had big arms, etc....

I am highly critical of some of Ali's behavior, like towards Frazier.

But to say even he cold weell have used PEDs...

You or I COULD be molesting children when nobody is looking.
But there is no reasonable susupicion to float that possibility.

Fair is fair. Ali was clean.

 

I agree with Galt, for the reasons he's stated. PEDs were around, and if they were around I assume the champions all used them. There are records of people being caught cheating or doping all through history. In our time, I think a lot of people learn about doping in the Olympic training system.

PEDs don't always make you huge, so I don't know if the arguments about Ali's size are convincing either way. Bob Beamon looked tiny in 68 when he set the Olympic long jump record. He broke the Olympic and world records by about two and a half feet. Nobody has even come close at the Olympics and only like one guy broke the world record 23 years later, barely, at a non-Olympic event; so he probably wasn't subject to the same levels of strict drug testing. Did Lance Armstrong look huge on the Tour de France? Or Usain Bolt when he shattered the 100 meter record running backwards?

We just had the Kentucky Derby and a horse named American Pharoah won, but someone at the Wall Street Journal had the idea to run a split screen video showing what it would look like if AP raced Secretariat from 1973. Secretariat won by two seconds, which is a lot in racing terms. The very next year horses start getting tested for doping, because things were getting ridiculous, and no horse has ever run that fast since. Drugs had permeated all levels of sport by the sixties.

It's like the Soviet women's track records from the eighties that still stand, because nobody is that good. This ain't just confined to bulking up and lifting weights.

Does anybody think that it's a character issue? Because he was a racist and an adulterer. Do you think that he wouldn't cheat inside the ring? Because him and Angelo Dundee split his boxing glove to buy time against Henry Cooper. Do you think that other champions were above that sort of thing? Because Ali accused Liston of putting something on his gloves to blind him in their first fight and then taking a dive in their second.

We just had a thread about champions hitting opponents when they were down. We could probably fill another with champions winning by lowblow, such as Duran or Dempsey did, hitting on the break, or biting people's ears off. All this they are capable of, but not PEDs?

 

Jesus, what drivel.

No one is saying that there isn't any theoretical possibility that Ali took PEDs. There is, just as it is with any other fighter (or any athlete for that matter) over the last 80 years or so.

We just apply something called "innocent until proven otherwise". You apply "guilty until proven otherwise". And by that logic everyone from Louis onwards were on PEDs. As long as PEDs have existed, you can't prove anyone didn't take them.

 

Ovid's Exile, with respect, you are all mixed up on this issue.
Not that you do not have generally very good posts.
To actually be precise, if you respond, please address these specifics:

1) Mr. Galt did not stand by his original belief that Ali used. Now he says it is "suggestive". But folks have made many objections, see my past 2 posts herein: & none are addressed. No particulars.
There is no decent liklihood Ali used PEDs.

2) That PEDs were around...You use as an argument that "all champions used them? :roll: Because some cheated, absent evidence...ALL must have?

C'mon man that is not remotely logical.
Many murdered & robbed throughout history to gain various advantages & all can theoretically shoot, use a big rock, strangle...So most or ALL did secretly kill? This is not a sensible argument at all.

3) PEDs make you significantly bigger, unless you use more modern stuff that minimizes bulk & maximizes strength. Not available then.
And Ali gained weight from 18-22 at a very reasonable level for a still growing athlete. And did not end up bulky at all!

4) One of my favorie feats & I met him when working security years later. Promo event before Athen Olympics.
Bob Beamon broke the long jump record by about 1 foot 10", NOT 2 & 1/2 feet. These details are important. Please look it up. And the Long Jump record of Jesse Owens (before there were ANY steroids) AND Mike Powell who broke Beamon's record have stood for LONGER.
And Beamon had at least a small, real advantage due to altutude.
And a small aid in a maximum allowable tailwind.

5) Outliar records cannot be fairly & rationally always assumed to be by cheaters!!
There is ZERO evidence that (rail thin) Beamon ever used ANYTHING.
It was a once in a lifetime, perfect conditions perfect effort, jump.

6) Your comment about Lance (Ph)armstrong shows, again with respect...
That you do not know the most basic facts about PED usage Sir.

He used EPO & blood doping. This is TOTALLY DISTINCT from steroids/Androgens & HGH.
Substances that help you carry more oxygen/more red blood cells & transfusing your own blood have NOTHING to do with what we are discussing, building bigger stronger muscles.
Of course he did not look any bigger. Irrelevant. A *completely* different class of drugs.

7) I assume you are jus' joking about Bolt running backwards.
However, while Bolt COULD be using, he also has superb turnover & developed the technique, when hard to do when so tall for a sprinter. His dominance COULD be PED related...
But the Tour de France is more thoroughly corrupted + much harder to win if clean.

8) Now Secretariat was a cheater? Though I know you mean his handlers.
Look man, the horse documentably had an enormous heart. Literally. He & Giant Man "O War were just superior genetic specimens.
If so many cheated then, why did he run so much faster...In a race he won by over 30 lengths so was not even challenged? :huh

Because he was an astonishing animal.

9) Ali had his faults, but throwing in "adulterer" is a bit silly.
Almost all males with complete ***ual access take it. Though adultery is wrong. Does not show what he would do in the ring.
Also others may tell you Dundee did not split his glove...But either way, that is not what ALI did.

The argument was never he was too pure to do so...
It is there is no remotely good evidence he ever DID.
And considering access, natural growth, build, the way he trained...
It is very unlikely he ever took any variant of steroids.

10) There is a ton of actual & curcumstantial evidence that the Soviet Bloc nations cheated a lot with their female athletes. Not that others were not, but they broke records as a team without it being exceptional individuals, ground-breaking training technology...
And even before all the stories of "vitamins" & injections came out...
These woman appeared very masculinized.


None of this has anything at all to do with Ali.

Or the tons of boxers who gained a lot of weight young, often MORE, moved up a few divisions, did not look very bulky, often gained a higher % of bodyweight than Ali did...
And some before steroids were INVENTED.

Just because someone COULD have used PEDs does not mean it establishes that it is at all likely.


In Ali's case for the many reasons already stated it is very UNlikely.

 

At the age of 18, Ali weighed 192lbs for his first pro fight in October 1960.

 

Now you'll have Galt claiming that he possibly couldn't have gained 15 lbs since the Olympics in the summer without the use of PEDs. 'Cause the explanation that he cut weight to make 175 for the Olympics is just too far fetched.

So, during his first 3,5 years as a pro, in his late teens and early 20's, he gained 18 lbs. Ca 8 kilos. For someone still growing, training full time and having the frame and height to carry 210+ lbs without being the least bit bulky. Can we once and for all dispel the myth that there is anything strange with this?

 

First of all, thank you for that. That's very kind of you.

I have no specific reason to think Ali used anything other than a general suspicion that PED's have been widespread since the 60s. It's sort of like when I hear accusations that Dempsey might have used brass knuckles or plaster of paris in his gloves against Willard. Do to the extent of the injuries, I sort of shrug and think "I can see that." I don't have any proof beyond heresay but it wouldn't surprise me. I don't think Dempsey needed it to do what he did, but it's certainly possible, and far from unheard of.

It's sort of projecting backwards in history from what is standard now, I suppose. There's been a lot of smoke around May and Pac. Shane and RJJ got popped. Holyfield. A lot of suspicious body types walking around the sport, and the length of everybodies careers just gets longer and longer. BHop fighting at the championship level into his fifties. Old men with abs getting stronger and faster at the end of their careers (Marquez).

This is all in an era when there's a ton of regulation against doping and tests to stop people. Back in Ali's day it was the wild west. Just before Ali's time the sport was officially run by criminals, mobsters making Jake LaMotta take dives and so forth.

I'm not saying that everyone is a murderer. But I can see the majority being cheaters to some degree. When Lance Armstrong got popped, I remember some paper saying that you'd have to give the medal or trophy to the guy who finished 17th in the race because the first 16 had been popped for drugs at one time or other. I think drugs in sports are just a fact of life.

Whistle blowers like Jose Canseco or Victor Conte allege that drug abuse is widespread in the 80-90 percentage, which is totally understandable when the stakes are that high. These athletes are playing for tens of millions of dollars and they are looking for any advantage they can possibly get on their opponents.

It doesn't make them murderers. There is a difference between saying someone probably cheated and calling them a murderer. But yeah, we have a lot of those types too in boxing. Don King, Carlos Monzon, Edwin Valero, Billy Papke, Ron Lyle, James Butler, Jo El Scott, Esteban de Jesus, Curtis Sheppard, Kid McCoy. It can be a pretty dirty sport full of rough characters.

Are you absolutely certain that there wasn't anything that didn't make you bulky. I used the Bob Beamon example because that was 1968 and he isn't bulky at all. He's skinny and fast.

I hear a lot about guys growing into their mid twenties. That wasn't my experience. I was pretty much done around 16/17/18. And I certainly didn't put on any bulk muscle.

Like I said before though, PEDs aren't just steroids. There's amphetamines and all sorts of other stuff. If Ali did steroids, then perhaps he only did a little, or he didn't lift weights to maximize the bulk. I don't know, but I got a poster of him looking like the Incredible Hulk. He's a huge freaking guy with muscles all over the place.

That's right, he jumped about two feet past the previous record, but he was about two and a half feet ahead of the next farthest jumper. So he broke the record by about 9 percent, when about 1 or 2 percent is the norm when breaking a world record. Records can be broken but when you shatter them like that it's fishy. Then when the record stands for fifty years, that's fishy too.

I'm talking about the Olympic record where there is strict drug testing. Not Mike Powell's equally fishy world record twenty-three years later. By the way, Powell broke the record by two inches, not two feet like Beamon.

Before the 2012 Olympics the New York Times made a graph of every medalist's results in the history of the Olympics. Bob Beamon is just floating above the curve like a Greek god. Everybody ought to see this graph and then ask themselves if they think Beamon was on the up and up.
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2012/08/04/sports/olympics/bob-beamons-long-olympic-shadow.html

You can see Carl Lewis getting within half a foot of Beamon's record in 1988, the heyday of Olympic cheating, right before they cracked down with drug testing. Then all the scores take a little nose dive 'til the last one where we're just a bit above Jesse Owens record from 1936.

 

If you say so. You are a trusting soul but my cheater alarm is going crazy on Beamon.

I never claimed that I knew which specific drugs he took. I'm not a pharmacologist. I'm just saying that I wouldn't be surprised if he took *something.* It's the sixties after all. We know that LSD, weed, and heroin were going all over the place. There was a very lax attitude toward drug taking at the time. The way that cocaine was flying around in the 80s.

Remember Bolt being way out ahead of everybody and then showboating the last third of the way, and still shattering the record? That's what I jokingly referred to as running backwards. Then the next Olympics his buddies on the Jamaican team are all running as fast as him and everyone else looks like they are in slow motion.

As for your question, if everyone cheated then how come these guys are winning by enormous lengths? The answer is that they cheated better with superior drugs, cheated more by taking still other advantages, or that they were naturally superior athletes and when everyone cheats then the playing field is leveled. My thinking is that the champions are frequently better trained, naturally better conditioned, and their superior competitive spirit drives them to cheat more and be better at it. Sort of like, if you aren't cheating then you don't want it bad enough. Whatever your opponent is willing to do, you have to be willing to go farther.

How about this, do you believe that Sonny Liston took a dive in their second fight? Or do you believe in the phantom punch. Because if you don't believe in the phantom punch, which Ali claims he hit Liston with, then Ali is also a liar. Basically, I'm just trying to say that Ali wasn't a saint, and I can see him doing something wrong. That's all.

Fair enough. I'm willing to believe that he didn't. I'm just willing to entertain the idea, since it's not impossible.

 

Nah man, that ain't me. I was always the sickly fat kid with asthma and glasses.

 

Ali would be fine, of course. He would beat all these giants because he was technically better than them. This doesn't apply to Joe Louis, Jack Dempsey or Joe Frazier, though. Size would be the only factor in any match up they faced.

Ali always wins. Always.

 

I understand the sarcasm, but Povetkin is definitely technically better than Ali.