Crease wrote: ↑20 Dec 2006, 11:28
This topic has been done to death. And everytime a thread is made which looks at this topic, the majority of BOXREC members agree that Ali would win either by stopping Rocky (on cuts) OR win on points outright...
BUT everytime this topic is looked at, people will examine both boxers records.
Then Rocky will be compared to Frazier (and the Foreman fight might be mentioned for Ali's abillity to take puns).
Ali will be compared to JJ Walcott (and doubtless, Charles and Moore will be mentioned).
But I like to say just 2 things...
1. After the Ali-Frazier trilogy, Muhammad himself said "that was the closest to death I've ever been", and he marginally defeated Smokin Joe. But if Frazier could run that close a race with Ali, could Marciano KO indefinitely?
2. Look at Marciano-Charles II. If Charles could damage Marciano's face that much (albeit from an accidental elbow) what would Ali do to him...
These will always be mentioned when this topic is discussed.....
(PS. It really annoys me when the majority of people put Ali as their NO 1, then throw Frazier down at 6-7-8... (I even remember someone not having Frazier in their top 10).
But I think that when people are ranking these fighters, they shouldn't put a big gap between these 2 boxers...(Remember the trilogy ended almost levelled out)... Ali wasn't signifcantly better than Frazier, merely marginally.
What do you guys think about think about my opinions...
***I would ask you for a prediction for the Marciano-Ali but I'm sure you're sick of it!***
Alí was a wonderful man, but I believe that his boxing skills are overrated: his fashion to lean back like he did, is something any responsible trainer will tell you not to do (I was told so, in first place, far from being in the Alí's era) , because your opponent might just take a little step forward and catch you flush with a hook: Frazier went to show it.
I've watched an interview to one of Alí's former trainers saying that Alí's technique was far from perfect, but he was so fast that nobody would dare to tell him. He relied on his lightning-fast speed more than to anything else, and that seemed to be enough, until he reached a certain age... Now the fight with Holmes was widely avoidable, but never mind...
Alí was a bigger guy than Marciano, but if Frazier has given Alí so much trouble, then Marciano's Suzie-Q would put Alí in serious trouble... Now Alí, as fast as he could be, was far from being a power puncher, and Marciano's defence was solid-enough to make him very difficult to hit by Alí.
No heavyweight world champion in history was smaller than Marciano... so I'd certainly pick Marciano as p4p better than Alí: a fight between the two wouldn't even be fair: they technically should fight to a catchweight, very punishing for Rocky, having Alí a
massive size advantage over him...
So, forget that, if I was Marciano's handler, I would approve a possible fight with Alí... no way.
If someone would be reckless-enough to arrange a Marciano vs Alí fight, Alí could outbox Marciano in the later rounds, exploiting the size advantage, but Marciano would be very hard to hit, as I've written before, and if he caught Alí a little off-balance, he could end the fight even by roughly round 7 or so... beware of Rocky...
