Would Ali have won the FOTC had he taken more tune up fights before?

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Not sure. Ali kind of needed to fight Frazier to learn how to deal with him. He’d not fought anyone like that before and more tune ups wouldn’t necessarily drive that point home the way a loss did.
Similar to losing to Norton forced him to deal with someone taking away his jab.
1967 Ali might have overcome this based on reflexes and speed but no amount of warmups makes you 3.5 years younger.
Joe was always a tough matchup and that night he was undeniable. That version of Joe is hell for any version of Ali.
Even the “best” lose. That’s why we watch.

 

It's only fair to give Ali that it's a damned sight unlikely a champion will return to form getting that amount of time carved out of his prime. But you have to give Frazier the benefit and detraction of how Ali had to gut out some things before the exile that are easy to forget or dismiss and that Quarry and Bonavena being perceived as mere tuneups and beating them is criminally written off as being able to shake the ring rust off. Should someone beat present day analogs to those fighters in their last two fights, in the same length of time and number of rounds, I don't know who is going to go around saying they're too rusty to fight the Usyk. It's just not something I take that seriously. I agree Ali's as good as he will be in this time and he had an absolutely horrible handle waiting for him, in style and ability, even if it was that same Frazier pre-exile or in a few more fights for Ali post-exile. .

 

On paper a better argument that watching the fights. He tired vs Quarry. He looked horrible vs Bonavena. Any deeper dive gives a more accurate portrait. Huge layoff. Rushed fights. The body and the skill sets require time ..look at Ray Robinson’s first comeback … loses to Tiger Jones, struggles badly w Lombardo.it takes time when fighting an all time great in the greats prime. It was an amazing performance by Ali and I believe if he had a few more fights over another eight or ten months and allowed his body to heal he’d have been ready and won. That said the sport was always about the money and it played out for the money.

 

I think it's forgotten how rushed those fights were. 6-7 weeks to shake off 20-30 lbs and get back into some sort of shape for Quarry. Then Bonavena 1,5 month after that, which was a bruising battle, and then Frazier just three months later. This schedule was forced because they didn't know if Ali would stay out of jail.

Compare that with Leonard's preparation for Hagler. Zero tune-ups, but a full year which he started with rebullding his conditioning on "Mount Mouther****", as he called it, and then going into sparring under pretty much match conditions.

Of course, I think it was a plus for Ali to tune-up against as good opponents as Quarry and Bonavena, but I also think he would have benefitted from taking months just to rebuild his legs and conditioning. So not so much the number of tune-up fights, but more to have 6-7 months before the first, then another three and then another four at least.

So the same tune-ups, but in late 1971 instead. As I said earlier, seeing how the fight hung in the balance for 10 rds, that extra time to focus on getting as much of his legs back as possible could have been the difference. Not saying it would have, but perhaps.

 

The Quarry match is somewhat a given where the rust would need to be shaken off. And you may extend that to Bonavena, to an extent, after the limited rounds with Quarry, but it is only AFTER all those rounds with those two gentlemen that we see him against Frazier, therefore making the ring rust argument frankly bad, imo. I also think it would have been a difficult, grueling fight for Ali even pre-exile with Bonavena. The idea of rushing is not one I am arguing against, as far as a factor, but it's also not the point of taking more tuneup fights due to rust, and therefore a different discussion than the thread-starter began. An understandable factor in your judgment for why you think Ali would win if he played it differently, but simply not the point of the thread and by extension my points regarding the thread's question. Now, I have used the words 'extend,' 'extent,' and 'extension.' in one paragraph. If that has not convinced you that you are wrong and I am right about everything, then...I don't know; I could do an extension of my earlier comment to extensible-um-...God, what word am I looking for? I could commit to an extensibility is what I am trying to say, HG.