Was ali's punching power underated?

[likeamulekick]

Ali was never known to be a puncher or be very strong in the ring but i think it was more to do with the way he threw his punches. Its a 2 part question really because i wanted to know how people felt about the knockout over sonny liston and if it was real. Was it fixed, was it alis power or was it jus a quick well timed punch that liston wasnt prepared for. I personally think Ali was strong in the ring when clinching and if he were to get some leverage on his punches and slug it out, would be a good puncher.

[McGrain]

Forget the Liston KO. Too difficult to unpick. Ali has two unique stoppages of fighters with granite chins in Bonavena and Foreman. If Ali hadn't stopped these guys we would now be arguing that they are utterly unstoppable - granite chinned and terrifying.

When Ali set down on his punches he could hurt these guys. He wasn't a puncher but is a harder hitter than he is generally given credited for.

[likeamulekick]

looking at that liston ko again, i think its all of the 3 i mentioned. He was defntly caught off guard, ppl assumed that ali was a butterfly and dint hit that hard making the punch look very weak, another thing is ive seen alot of fighters go down by average punches whens its on top of the forehead so i think it was a real KNOCKDOWN but not a knockout. Liston falling back down looked fake and was probably thinking at the time "**** it, i tryed, but i cant break this guy and im not gonna go through this again" and enjoyed his payday. He looked fine to me when he was back up

[McGrain]

Who knows? There is more than enough circumstantial evidence to write it off as a dive, but the scenario you present is reasonable. Who knows? Nobody knows. Nobody will ever know.

[Prince_Pugilist]

Ali had very good power. He wasn't always a one punch KO kinda guy but he could hurt you.

[Panamaniac]

Ali was never known to be a puncher or be very strong in the ring but i think it was more to do with the way he threw his punches. Its a 2 part question really because i wanted to know how people felt about the knockout over sonny liston and if it was real. Was it fixed, was it alis power or was it jus a quick well timed punch that liston wasnt prepared for. I personally think Ali was strong in the ring when clinching and if he were to get some leverage on his punches and slug it out, would be a good puncher.

Ali/Liston II wasn't fixed, it was as you described (see bold highlight) above. Ali had average punching power, no more, no less. If such a concensus underrates his punching power, then it was underrated, if not, it wasn't.

[KO'er]

I have read books about Ali before, and fighters have said that Ali's jab isn't very hard hitting, but it would make you dizzy after a while.

I think his power is above average though. If Foreman and Shavers were a 10/10 in punch power, i'd give Ali a solid 7/10. (5 being the average.)

[Anthony342]

Sounds good. Yeah, I've heard opponents of his say his power was above average. Even Liston said, after the first fight, that Ali, who had just changed his name to Ali at the time, had better punching power than he was credited for and hit harder than people think.

[greynotsoold]

Ali had really bad hands. I've read that, in training, they would go to extremes to protect them. He often said he liked to hit opponents on the top of the head, to make them dizzy, and the skull his a much larger bone than the bones in the hands.

[SlySlickSmooth]

His power was snappy. Hurt you, wouldn't KO you, but you don't want to keep getting hit by him over and over.. it seems like it was real damn annoying having some man dance circles at you popping jabs every 2/3 seconds.

A lot of his KOs/TKOs were because of his boxing ability and counters(pull, right hand baby), not heavy handedness.