!! Anorak
05-25-2005, 03:30 PM
... seen 'em before (well, Toney-Ruiz anyway) but fancied watching 'em again.
Now, this is going to sound like a stupid thing to say, and most will swear blind I'm saying it tongue-in-cheek, but I'm honestly not: Ruiz fought a better fight in that fight than Ali.
Now, I know we're all sick of Ruiz threads at the moment, but The Pretender has often made me think the guy should get more props: he does a lot with a little. He wins ugly, loses uglier, but in that horrific-to-look-at scrabble with the popular Rahman, his power was clearly getting to Rahman and Hasbeen was clearly reluctant to trade at several stages.
But back to the point of the topic. I love Ali, love him to pieces. (check the current avatar, natch). But, while Frazier I and III somehow made it to classic status despite themselves, Frazier II was an ugly fight, with Ali doing the very worst of the "jab and grab" technique he relied on in his later life.
Don't get me wrong, Ali is clearly a vastly superior athelete to Ruiz, and a superior boxer to pretty much everybody, ever. His hand speed and movement in this one were superb. But every time Joe gets close - it's one hand behind the head, another on his arm. Every single time. Cheating, basically. Ali's okay to get off, but when Joe comes close he doesn't have an answer so it's the sort of holding a fraction of which we'd see Ruiz vilified on this board for. What's more, as John was actually trying to fight clean in the Toney fight, I enjoyed that one more. Ali showed tremendous, almost superhuman abilities in the second Frazier fight, but his constant grabbing was maddening.
Now, this is going to sound like a stupid thing to say, and most will swear blind I'm saying it tongue-in-cheek, but I'm honestly not: Ruiz fought a better fight in that fight than Ali.
Now, I know we're all sick of Ruiz threads at the moment, but The Pretender has often made me think the guy should get more props: he does a lot with a little. He wins ugly, loses uglier, but in that horrific-to-look-at scrabble with the popular Rahman, his power was clearly getting to Rahman and Hasbeen was clearly reluctant to trade at several stages.
But back to the point of the topic. I love Ali, love him to pieces. (check the current avatar, natch). But, while Frazier I and III somehow made it to classic status despite themselves, Frazier II was an ugly fight, with Ali doing the very worst of the "jab and grab" technique he relied on in his later life.
Don't get me wrong, Ali is clearly a vastly superior athelete to Ruiz, and a superior boxer to pretty much everybody, ever. His hand speed and movement in this one were superb. But every time Joe gets close - it's one hand behind the head, another on his arm. Every single time. Cheating, basically. Ali's okay to get off, but when Joe comes close he doesn't have an answer so it's the sort of holding a fraction of which we'd see Ruiz vilified on this board for. What's more, as John was actually trying to fight clean in the Toney fight, I enjoyed that one more. Ali showed tremendous, almost superhuman abilities in the second Frazier fight, but his constant grabbing was maddening.