Is Ali a bit overrated ?

[tyger]

Shame that so many rely on what they read here for their boxing knowledge. Voting Ali is overrated???

[TheMagicMan]

Ali was not the greatest, how can people even argue he was the greatest. The greatest dont lose to people with 6 fights or get knocked out by 185 pounders. The greatest doesnt take 15 rounds to beat chuck wepner and get knocked down by him. Ali came out on top in an era where there was a lot of parity. That is all. When everything finished he won the last fights, but really, you cannot tell me that Ali dominated his division or anything like that. You might say it was the golden age of HW boxing because 1. other sports like football were much smaller, 2. Fights were on regular tv. and 3. there were a lot of evenly matched fighters with big personalities who were very active. Thats it. Tommy Machine Gunn Morrison would have KO'ed Ali in 3. The difference today is Vitali and Wlad are so dominant that they dont get the respect they deserve. People act like Ali woulda had a better legacy IF he didnt get banned and IF he beat Norton and Frazier....uhhh....no. Thats what made his legacy, losing to those 2. That allowed other fighters like Foreman and such to get more respect after beating those guys. It also gave Ali more respect for getting revenge. Vitali's problem is Lewis retired, Wlad's biggest problem is that the guys who beat him didnt do anything but get destroyed by Vitali. The two wont fight eachother, so they cant play off eachother or take credit for eachothers records. How often do you hear people say, "But Ali beat foreman and he killed Norton and Frazier"...Wellif Wlad hel a victory over Vitali you could say the same thing. The problem today is there are 2 heavyweight division. HW Division Vitali and HW division Wlad.

Ali was a joke who cherry picked fighters usually right after losses or who were much smaller than him. He demanded rematches but wouldnt give them to his tougher opponents. If I was making a list of all time great HW's itd look like this.

1. Vitali
2. Lewis
3. Wlad
4. Evander
...
48. Chris Byrd
...
74. Andrew Golata
..
148. John Ruiz
...
288. Christobal Arreola
...
347. Muhammad "Coward" Ali
348. Buster Douglas

[knn]

You might say it was the golden age of HW boxing because 1. [...] 2. [...] 3. [...]

4. It's called golden because it was such a P*SS.

[Tiozzo]

Uhh is the TS seriously? is Ali a bit overrated? uhh...hell no. Have you ever watched Ali? He is by far the greatest all time ***** of all time. Homeboy got knocked into ******ation by Henry "185 lbs soaking wet" Cooper. He then cheated to win that fight. Sorry Ali was a joke. He was the most overrated thing on earth till Kim Kardashian arrived. He won some rigged fights against Liston, he was consistently knocked down by bums (I saw some here say Ali fought the best...how do you explain Chuck Wepner who was fighting in local YMCA's before facing Ali and knocking that bum to the canvas). Hes a joke, anyone with any boxing knowledge can tell you that. What if PBF consistently fought guys 40 lbs less than him and mainly fought guys coming off of losses. Also Frazier was shot after the first Ali fight, he won 5 of his last 10 fights....the dude was done. Good job Ali squeeking out 2 victories over a shot frazier kind enough to give you a rematch unlike what you did for Foreman and Young.

64-67 his greatest years....yeah cause beating Cleveland "Literally Gut Shot" Williams was a great accomplishments. How was Williams' career after he was SHOT IN THE GUT? Oh he fought like 2 more times, did awful and retire? Good job Ali. The dude lost to a fighter with 6 pro fights. 6 PRO FIGHTS. And people want to say he was the greatest. He ranks somewhere between Chris Byrd and Buster Douglas on my list of all time heavy weights, because he was knocked ******ed by a 185 pounder. I mean beating FLoyd Patterson? Who cares, dude would be a LHW today. Most of his career he fought in the low 180's. Great job Ali...And who the hell is Brian London and why did Ali fight him? I mean 3 months before fighting Ali he had lost to the great Famous Amos Johnso....What a joke Ali was. He has more bums on his resume than any other fighter ever.

Oh and its well known that Doug Jones beat Ali in 63...the great...Doug Jones. 188 lbs of waterweight and ferocity. Did he give Doug Jones a rematch? Of course not, the hand picked 188 pounder who had lost 3 times in the previous 2 years and had never fought anyone over 200 lbs was too much for the coward Ali. Did Doug Jones ask for a rematch? You bet "I'm not knocking his big mouth, he made me a lot of dough. He talks a lot outside but doesn't show much in the ring. He better fight me again before he even thinks of Liston." -Doug Jones

Ali is a coward and an overrated fraud. Any real fan of boxing can see that.

it is true Ali was being criticized in his first career because the level of his opposition was somewhat weak

BUT, when he came back, although he fought a couple of bums, he fought all the best fighters out there, and I have listed their names in a prior post

I believe you're looking for some attention with that kind of very controversial comment

to say Ali was a joke is a joke in itself

[Tiozzo]

While at HW how many 185 pounders knocked Byrd or Buster Douglas unconcious and forced them to cheat by using smelling salts? In fact while at HW how many light heavies did Byrd or Buster Douglas fight.

Ali fan mentality- Ali beat Foreman, Frazier, and Norton.

Reality response- yeah he also was knocked down by Wepner, got beat by Frazier and Norton, lost to a guy with 6 fights, had a lot of questionable decisions

Ali Fan- Oh he was passed his prime when all that stuff happened

Reality respone- He fought wepner within months of Foreman

Ali Fan- yeah but his prime was in the 60's

Reality Respone- you mean when he got beat by Jones and cheated against Cooper?

Ali Fan- no, his prime was 1966.

Reality Response- so his prime consisted of 1 year.

Can you imagine if any other fighter was allowed so many excuses "yeah I lost, but I wasnt in my prime" Ali had 1 prime year according to his fans, its a joke. Wlad gets no excuses why does Ali? And Vitaly took 4 years off, came back, won the title, dominates, Ali is a joke.

I don't agree with all this, but it was funny

[Tiozzo]

Out of the 61 times he fought, he was the bigger man 43 times. His KO% ratio is 60% and he has more than ten guys who weighed in between 177-185 against him, when he was in the hight 190s or low 200s, so he was basically fighting guys at least one weight class below him. He was obviously not that smart for taking so much punishment, granted we did not know as much about head trauma back then as we do now and the refs did not stop fights as early as they do now, but still... Fastest? No way, his speed is not at all impressive. Greatest resume? Win to loss ratio, Tyson surpasses him on that and so does W. Klitschko. He was not the only three-time champ. In terms of him being "lineal", it's much harder to become lineal these days with multiple belts, therefore when a fighter like Lewis does accomplish that, the accomplishment is much greater, much easier to capture 1 belt than multiple belts. Vitaly Klitschko was also never knocked out in his career and only lost through injury, is VK the GOAT? (h2h I think he is but that is besides the point, we are talking about accomplishments)

the part I highlighted is particularly insane

[Tiozzo]

No way tyson would destroy him. Ali would give tyson a nervous breakdown and then mentally destroy him in the ring. The physical part would be easy.

LOL at lewis destroying him. Come on? there is no way that was possible.

No one can beat Ali in h2h matches. Only larry holmes has the greatest chance, but even then Ali would win a split decision.

All I am saying is: WATCH the Cleveland Williams fight. The protection of god was around him in that fight.

LOL at the Holmes-Ali comment... you say Holmes would have a chance, then you say Ali would still win a SD... LOL

who needed the protection of God ? Williams did, because he was litterally shot to death when he fought Ali, it was a mismatch

[Tiozzo]

Ali fought in the golden age of heavyweight boxing, so logically the competition of his era was the greatest.

that is unquestionnable

[WladIsTheChamp]

the part I highlighted is particularly insane

Try to refute any of these if you can: 1) the combined win -to-loss of W. Klitschko and Tyson's opponents is better than that of Ali's 2)Ali was not the only 3-time HW champ 3) It's harder to become a lineal champion in a division that has multiple belts than in a division that only has one belt 4)Ali is not only champion who has never been KOd. Which one of these statements is insane?

You can try, but you won't be able to.

[WladIsTheChamp]

that is unquestionnable

Ofcourse it's not, by US fans, this is the golden age of boxing in Europe and Asia now It's never been more popular. They are selling out soccer stadiums for adopted fighters, never mind the homegrown ones. They have more people watching the Klitschko fights in Germany than they have watching major soccer events, kind of like if the US audience all of a sudden got more ratings for a Mayweather fight than they do for the Superbowl. The entire country of Philipines shuts down when Pac is fighting. The US is not the world, boxing is a lot more global now, deal with it.