When should have Muhammad Ali retired to avoid Parkinson's disease?

[hayZ]

He should have retired after the 3rd Frazier fight. He was basically in it purely for the money after that and because he just loved being the champ. He lost a lot after that fight.

[soul_survivor]

After Zaire

/thread

[socialteach]

I think you're right. He was never the same after that and took a tremendous amount of punishment. I think the Shavers fight took a lot more out of him than people think.

[Tedkidlewis]

After Zaire

/thread

Pretty much.

The third Frazier fight did his health no favors. Things could have been different if he retired before that fight took place. Beating Foreman in Africa would have been the perfect ending. He would retire having beaten every guy he'd faced and capped it off with one of the greatest moments in sports history.....but of course that would never happen, I imagine being the champ and all that comes with it is like one of the most addictive drugs you could take.

[SthPaw]

After the Thrilla for me...

[champion4ever]

After the Thrilla in Manila in 1975, he should have retired but instead had gone on to fight for six more years. That one night n Manila almost singled-handedly ruined what was ever left of his boxing career. He would never be the same person after that bout again.

[soul_survivor]

Pretty much.

The third Frazier fight did his health no favors. Things could have been different if he retired before that fight took place. Beating Foreman in Africa would have been the perfect ending. He would retire having beaten every guy he'd faced and capped it off with one of the greatest moments in sports history.....but of course that would never happen, I imagine being the champ and all that comes with it is like one of the most addictive drugs you could take.

Frazier and Shavers took what was left of Ali but that's not to meant all the hours and hours of sparring, the busy schedule, fighting more often than most current heavyweights, it was ridiculous.

Then came the humiliation of Holmes

As you said though, Ali loved the limelight, he loved the money, he loved the women, he loved the crowd, he loved boxing and he loved the fact that he could help others with the profile that he had. It was all too much, plus he had too many voices whispering in his ears, telling him he was the greatest, how could the greatest lose?

[Tedkidlewis]

Don't get me wrong I'm glad the thriller in Manila happened for a fans perspective but that fight was very damaging to Ali's health and he continued to take beatings after that fight. Unfortunately for Ali's health too is the fact that he had one of the greatest chins in boxing. Ali could take punches all night and too many times he did to.

Watching Angelo Dundee pull Ali out of the Holmes fight was one of the saddest moments, Ali should never have been there that night.
Dundee didn't want to train him either, he said in an interview later that he only trained Ali because in the fight he'd be the only person around Ali that would pull him out, and that's exactly what he did.

[champion4ever]

Ali not only needed to fight during that time because of the money because he had been married, divorced and sued multiple times by former wives for alimony and child support but he also craved the spotlight.

He loved and enjoyed the notoriety and recognition of being heavyweight champion so he could use it as a platform in order to speak out on various social issues because had he not been the champ, then no one would have cared one way or the other of what he was trying to say.

[Pigeons]

From BoxRec (http://boxrec.com/media/index.php/La...._Muhammad_Ali)...

"Three months before the fight, Ali was ordered by the Nevada State Athletic Commission to go to the Mayo Clinic for a neurological exam. The exam was not made public at the time but contained the following results: Ali was a little off when he tried to touch his finger to his nose, he had trouble coordinating his speech, and he couldn’t hop on one foot well. Nevada approved the fight with Holmes based on this exam."