Would you consider Ali an embarrassment to boxing after manilla

Embarrassment to boxing? Wtf?

1. He was still the best HW in the world for a couple of years after Manila, in a time that's called the golden era. How can the best in a division in a sports golden era be an embarrassment to the sport?

2. An embarrassment to the sport is someone who disgraces it with his conduct out of the ring or commits crimes inside of it. Mike Tyson(im a fan of his but it's true) at some points in his career was an embarrassment. Antonio margarito. Panama Lewis. Guys like that, who make headlines for the wrong reasons.

Calling ali an embarassment to boxing is Poor word choice tbh.
More like an embarassment to himself, and still only in his fights vs Holmes and berbick.

In the sense you probably meant it I would say Leonard vs Camacho was more of a embarrassment, or Duran in the late 90s-early 2000s are much closer to an embarassment. Ali didn't fight on THAT much longer once he was no longer the champ.

 

Embarrassment? Because he wasn't in his prime anymore and clowned? No. That doesn't make someone an embarrassment. Poor use of the word.

 

I think the threadstarter has too much time on his hands.
Ten or so new threads started in 1 day.

 

No.

 

No.

 

Ali's life was pretty much out of control from Manila to the Spinks loss.

When he beat Foreman, he came back to the States and talked about doing all this good work for the poor and how he was going to fight for free and help all black people. He tried to get the Jackson Five to sign on and donate all their money, too. But somewhere in 1975, he realized nobody was willing to do it, and none of his people wanted him to do it, and he just sort of swung the other way and decided to grab any money anywhere he could and party and bang as many women and young girls as he could get his hands on.

I always thought some of it had to do with the fact that if he'd lost his Supreme Court case in 1971, he wouldn't have gotten out of prison until 1976. And he would've had nothing.

And when 1976 did roll around, and the war was over, and the country was sort of in a drug-induced disco haze, and all people wanted to do was party, and he was the world champion again making millions, and his wife was leaving him, and girls were throwing themselves at him, and all these offers were pouring in ... he just said to hell with it.

He was more or less a trainwreck after the Bugner fight (where he met Veronica Porsche) to 1978, yet, the best heavyweights still couldn't beat him. Frazier trained his hardest. So did Lyle. So did Norton. So did Shavers. So did Young. You could harp about scores in two of those fights, or Ali looking uninterested, but even on those days when Ali was partying his head off and not training he fought them on even terms or won (or, in the case of Lyle and Frazier, stopped them).

He was that dominant. Frankly, Norton should've stopped him. Ali looked bad against Young. He didn't look that great against Dunn. Then he went to Japan and got his legs destroyed by Inoki. Then he went on a tour giving exhibitions around the world. If Norton really was the best heavyweight at that time, the fight never should've even been close, or Norton should've stopped him.

But Ali was just so dominant that even when he was a bad version of himself ... it was equal to or better than the BEST versions of the other top heavyweights.

Probably the only difference between Ali and Elvis was Leon Spinks beat Ali before Ali could die on the toilet like Elvis did in '77.

So, I can understand why some people may find many of those performances embarrassing. Some of them were downright bad. He certainly wasn't trying his hardest in nearly any of them (except for probably Manila, when he realized Frazier wasn't going to be as soft a touch as he thought he'd be).

But even the best guys at that time couldn't dominate a half-hearted version of Ali and take it from him.

 

"He was that dominant". Lol. Ali was never dominant in the 70's. He squeaked by time and again with a little help from his friends. Yes, after Manila, he was not a respectable champ, just a media darling.

 

the only real embarrassment was the spinks fight which on paper looked historic but was a pretty weak klitchko level defence (well parhaps a bit better, more like one of klitchkos better defences).

 

I'm sure Angelo Dundee or maybe Dr Pacheco said Ali was badly hurt in the 2nd round against Shavers. He survived through most of the fight to make it even before he dominated the last round and pulled the win out of the bag. I've never seen the fight but it sounds like Ali put a lot into it. An underrated performance maybe?

 

If Ali was the best heavyweight after Manilla, then the heavyweight division at that time must have been awful, he was dreadful in the Shavers fight with only he`s great chin saving him, he was awful in the 3rd Norton fight and never gave one good performance after Manilla, he just wouldn`t let go, reporters even found his interviews boring at this point because his speech began to slow because of damage done in the Shavers fight.

 

His reflexes were awful in that figt, all Shavers had was a big punch, he wouldn`t have landed a punch on Ali in his prime.

 

What about Holmes and Berbick?

 

oh yeh sure but that wasnt in terms of being a titlis, which was what I was assuming. Anything in his parkinsonians streak is embarrasing.

sure he was bad by then, looked embarrasing, Antie, totally.

 

Yes and did you know around about this time Elvis actually met Ali and as they went to speak Elvis who was learning martial arts at the time the king swept him onto the floor, I guess between the two he had more left in the tank! lol!