Muhammad Ali a fraud?

[nissassagame]

I can understand why anyone would question Ali's legacy. I recently watched a ton of Ali fights and felt some of the fights were a little suspect. Overall however, I have to say Ali was indeed great and is deserving of his legendary status.

[hunkysoupbone]

My take on Ali is that he was able to beat sluggers like Foreman, Shavers & Cleveland Williams, boxers like Jimmy Ellis and Floyd Patterson and pressure fighters like Frazier, Bonavena, Liston and Chuvalo. He really took on every style.
Norton's style of jabbing with him was Ali's hardest. So, he was able to handle whoever was in there with him. He ducked nobody.

As for the prior posts in this thread, I never thought there were so many "shady" happenings. But once you look at the whole career, you can see some question marks....

Bottom line for me was that almost every other great heavyweight had his own questionable things happen in the ring. Ali in that regard just may have had a little more of them, considering his longevity and high profile.

[Vadrigar.]

Another HOF inductee for "the most ******ed threads on BH"

This may actually be #1

[BritishBoxing92]

your a fool....

[Fighting Marine]

Another HOF inductee for "the most ******ed threads on BH"

This may actually be #1

you didn't have to bump this ******ity bro

[GJC]

the Lyle fight was an early stoppage to.

I keep reading that, how many unanswered punches did Lyle take while weaving from one corner to another?
Maybe he was ok to continue, but he should have thrown the odd punch back to give the refereee a clue.
Lyle was winning but that isn't relevant the only thing that is relelvant is whether a fighter is able to defend himself, Lyle didn't show that

[edgarg]

There are rumours about everything.

Facts are, Foreman was young, in his prime and coming off dominant wins over two fighters who had beaten Ali while Ali was 32 years old and had not looked too great in his recent performances. The question before the fight wasn't whether Foreman would run out of stamina, it was whether Ali could keep moving for 15 rounds in his present condition. He couldn't do that against Norton and Frazier.

No one thought laying on the ropes and standing in front of Foreman would be the way to beat him as Norton and Frazier had been quickly destroyed that way.

I have never believed that the laying on the ropes by Ali was anything other than neccessity forced by Foreman pushing him there and keeping him there. Ali didn't have the legs to do anything else, and after 5-6 rounds he noticed that Foreman was fading. With his mischievious mind, he proposed the catchy "rope-a-dope" as if it were something he invented.

I've always believed that if Foreman had not had the eye cut in sparring, neccessitating a 6 week postponement, plus the refusal of the dictator to let him leave the country, he would not have been stale, tired, and lethargic, as he undoubtedly was. his simple, credulous mind (at that time) also played abig part in his mental condition, what with witchdoctors, spells, inner voices, and such crap, he was in a rare state, not conducive to winning an important heavyweight Championship fight.

Just my opinion.

[TheGreatA]

To me Foreman looked like the same destroyer who had walked through 40 opponents for the first 5 rounds. He was simply in there with a man who could take it from him and make him pay for his misses. Early on Foreman was walking through Ali's best punches without showing any signs of being affected by them. By round 5 he was starting to tire though. Ali seemed to take control after the big onslaught by Foreman on the ropes, during which Ali made Foreman miss and landed flush counter right hands that backed Foreman up for the first time in the fight.


6 minutes

[boxing boy]

I have watched over 40 Muhammad Ali fights in the past two weeks, and I gotta tell ya, rather than coming to the conclusion that he's great like everyone else says, it made me wonder, are all the premature stoppages just a coincidence?

Of course, there is the main three points which come to mind when talking about this subject.

1.) Sonny Liston taking a dive.
2.) George Foreman getting to his feet at the count of 8 but the ref calling the fight.
3.) Cutting the glove against Henry Cooper.

There is also maybe five or six instances of fights being stopped by the referee when Ali's opponent takes two or three punches but still looks capable of continuing and is not in any serious danger. And again, there's alot of times his opponents dramatically drop to the floor and roll around, or play dead while the ref counts to ten when there is no clear knockout punches thrown. In all of these fights the opponents seem to recover miraculously and have no problem congratulating Ali. 25 of Ali's KO wins have came as a result of the referee stopping the fight.

To me, this is all shady business.

Let me correct you on a few things.......

Foreman was on the floor for 12 seconds against Muhammad Ali.It's the time keeper and the ref who's count which matter,not the announcer.I timed it myself,and Foreman was down 12 seconds.

It was the 2nd Ali-Liston fight that was fixed when Sonny took a dive.People try to transfer the 2nd fight to the 1st fight,which is wrong.Watch the 1st Ali-Liston fight again,and you will see Ali beating Liston fair and square.Liston quit for the same reason Roberto Duran quit against SRL.

Muhammad Ali only got an extra 5 seconds when his glove split against Henry Cooper.There never was an extra pair of gloves! That's just another myth about that fight.I have the fight and other films of the fight,and Ali only got an extra 5 seconds between rounds.That is a fact.

Muhammad Ali's TKO's were his opponents taking many punches over all the rounds,not just the round the ref's or opposing corners stopped the fights.It was a cummulation of punches that Ali stopped his opponents.A cummulation of punches over the "entire" fight.

Please name the fights(Besides Sonny Liston)that Muhammad Ali's opponents dramatically drop to the floor and roll around,or play dead while the ref counts to ten where there is no clear knock out punches thrown? You said this happened "alot" of times.Please name these fights where it happened "many times" please?

[boxing boy]

I have never believed that the laying on the ropes by Ali was anything other than neccessity forced by Foreman pushing him there and keeping him there. Ali didn't have the legs to do anything else, and after 5-6 rounds he noticed that Foreman was fading. With his mischievious mind, he proposed the catchy "rope-a-dope" as if it were something he invented.

I've always believed that if Foreman had not had the eye cut in sparring, neccessitating a 6 week postponement, plus the refusal of the dictator to let him leave the country, he would not have been stale, tired, and lethargic, as he undoubtedly was. his simple, credulous mind (at that time) also played abig part in his mental condition, what with witchdoctors, spells, inner voices, and such crap, he was in a rare state, not conducive to winning an important heavyweight Championship fight.

Just my opinion.

They said Ali beat Liston because he had a bad shoulder.

They said Ali beat Patterson because he had a bad back.

They said Ali beat Cleveland Williams because he had a bullet in him.

They said Ali beat Foreman because of about 10 different reasons.

I think i see a trend developing.Lol