Ali Was A Great Fighter, But Way Overrated In Terms Of Boxing Ability'' Larry Holmes

[BennyST]

iv said it for a while. its not that his not good, i mean his probably top 10 all time heavy weight. but its just that his considered the greatest by pretty much anyone who doesnt know too much about boxing. alis biggest strength was his toughness. theres loads of fighters who bring more to the table, roy jones/toney are slicker and have quicker hands, larry homes has arguably better footwork and jab. tua/tyson are fast and powerfull and would stand a chance of taking ali out in the first few rounds. george foreman destroyed alot of guys ali struggled to beat.

Yeah, and there are the other people who don't know much about boxing that can't recognise that toughness was a small part of Ali's game. If it was only toughness, then how in hell did he beat so many great fighters? Frazier was tough, Foreman was tough, Cooney was really tough, Patterson was really tough, Tyson was tough, Jones Jr was tough, Holmes was tough ......

....Tex Cobb was really tough, Chuck Wepner was really tough, Margarito was really tough, The Big Klitoris is really tough......

[SplitSecond]

Huh? They were slow then? Really? News to me. I seem to remember Floyd Patterson, arguably the fastest HW after Ali etc was before Ali's time. Nor would I call Holmes, Norton, Quarry, Moore, Charles, ..... slow.

If I look in comparison to todays HW's, they seem ridiculously fast in fact.

Blocked punches with their faces? Geez, if guys back then blocked punches with their face, what do the champs of today do?

Ahh forget it....trolling. What's the point?

where did i say fighters of back then were slower than fighters of today?

i'll wait

[cameronpaul]

if you was a heavyweight fighter, would you rather fight ali or george foreman?

[BennyST]

his style was somethin special in the heavy division, where the guys were slow or could'nt cut off the ring, not to mention most would block with their faces back then

p4p ali is getting sodomized by alot of the ATG's, and not even

Taken in context and by 'back then' it is saying you are comparing it to today. "Back then, chicks were real ugly man" immediately conjuring up the context that they were uglier than today.

Maybe I misunderstood because you can't string a proper sentence together.

It seems to me though that you are saying he was something special 'back then' when guys were slow, couldn't cut off the ring and would block punches with their face. Or did you not write all that? Maybe I'm hallucinating.

[Stone Roses!]

if you was a heavyweight fighter, would you rather fight ali or george foreman?

Correction: 'If you were a heavyweight fighter'. Not, 'If you was'.

That came as no surprise to me as I read your initial post in the first page of this thread. You not only lack boxing knowledge but happen to possess a level of grammatical aptitude equivalent to that of a 5th grader.

Furthermore, your silly question has no relevance to this thread.

[SplitSecond]

Taken in context and by 'back then' it is saying you are comparing it to today. "Back then, chicks were real ugly man" immediately conjuring up the context that they were uglier than today.

Maybe I misunderstood because you can't string a proper sentence together.

It seems to me though that you are saying he was something special 'back then' when guys were slow, couldn't cut off the ring and would block punches with their face. Or did you not write all that? Maybe I'm hallucinating.

maybe your stupid, think of that? "No, could'nt be, BennyST bothers with full stops, checking his spelling, re-checking his spelling, utilizing full stops and proper usage of capitals." but who the **** cares? it's the internet not english class

anyway, ignoring the ****** that is BennyST(who didn't realise who was roy jones favourite fighter and thought he was special when he found out, personally i thought him finding himself special to be kinda funny)

Ali's style was special in the heavyweight division where fighters are plodding, flat footed and can't cut off the ring, adding insult to injury he faced alot of face blocking chumps. Lucky he had no Tyson, Holmes or someone fast of foot to face, all one-dimensional ali had to do was jab and move, no slickness required, just be on the backfoot and these guys can't catch you.
Use his talent which was his athleticism and durable chin(which came into player later on)
well to show a little love for the man, he did know how to pull down on necks of fighters to neutralize their power and soften them up for the ko

my favourite fight is ali cleveland

[T.McGrady]

Holmes is dead wrong. Ali has a great jab, footwork, timing, and the thing that seperate from any other fighter his "Intelligence". It wasn't about toughness.

[them_apples]

Well Holmes was open to a counter right hand all night so he should be one to talk. At least Ali at his peak didn't really get hit too much.

Ali did have flaws though. No body attack, and his defense couldn't keep up later on in his career once his lateral speed had slowed down.

People need to know this though, at a high leverl of boxing, being fundamental too a T isn't even always the best thing. fundamentals have fundamental counters, this is why being unorthodox screws things up for a lot of fighters.

a fundamental counter: opponent a throws a double jab and then a right hand, oponent b slips the right hand and counters with a left hook followed by a straight right.

You'd never land that on Roy Jones because he'd never do a jab jab - right. Same goes for Ali. Strict fundamentals are what you learn in the ams.

[StarshipTrooper]

Well Holmes was open to a counter right hand all night so he should be one to talk. At least Ali at his peak didn't really get hit too much.

Ali did have flaws though. No body attack, and his defense couldn't keep up later on in his career once his lateral speed had slowed down.

People need to know this though, at a high leverl of boxing, being fundamental too a T isn't even always the best thing. fundamentals have fundamental counters, this is why being unorthodox screws things up for a lot of fighters.

a fundamental counter: opponent a throws a double jab and then a right hand, oponent b slips the right hand and counters with a left hook followed by a straight right.

You'd never land that on Roy Jones because he'd never do a jab jab - right. Same goes for Ali. Strict fundamentals are what you learn in the ams.

Exactly! The bottom line isn't whether the technique is text-book perfect but rather how EFFECTIVE it is. Fighters such as Ali and Jones probably wouldn't have been as effective as they were if they fought in a techniqually "correct" style, while other fighters would not have been as effective as they were had they fought in the unorthodox manner of Ali and Jones. The bottom line is a fighter should fight in a way that makes the best use of his unique natural talents. If textbook does that (and for the majority of fighters it does) then great! But if doing things "all wrong" as I've heard it called makes you more effective then go for it.

Poet

[Vadrigar.]

Exactly! The bottom line isn't whether the technique is text-book perfect but rather how EFFECTIVE it is. Fighters such as Ali and Jones probably wouldn't have been as effective as they were if they fought in a techniqually "correct" style, while other fighters would not have been as effective as they were had they fought in the unorthodox manner of Ali and Jones. The bottom line is a fighter should fight in a way that makes the best use of his unique natural talents. If textbook does that (and for the majority of fighters it does) then great! But if doing things "all wrong" as I've heard it called makes you more effective then go for it.

Poet

Excellent point, you've pretty much sealed this up. Archie Moore tried to change Ali's style and ALi got annoyed. As I said in my post ALi used a style that was tailored towards his natural athleticism. If Ali used a textbook style his natural abilities would be "bottlenecked".