jamesmcdonnell wrote:I think Ali's physical strength was very much underrated. You've got to remember how effective he was in clinches, Frazier was every bit as strong as the Rock, though the Rock was technically the better puncher, especially his hook which was a crisp and sweetly timed bomb, rather than a cudgel.
Watch Ali in clinches with Foreman. You really think Rocky was stronger? In what sense? Rocky would have made an excellent weightlifter with his physique, but Ali was a lot more athletic and elasticly strong.
Even if Rocky was stronger, ali was very very effective at using leverage, he'd have had a field day with a guy as small as Rocky. Pushing down on him, spinning him in clinches. I think Rocky would have been all at sea, and Ali was a spiteful puncher when he had someone going. Look at the fights with Frazier and Foreman, ali could really go to town on a dazed and confused opponent. Foreman had an excellent chin, but Ali tore him down mentally and physically.
I'm not saying Ali wasn't strong, but I have no doubt Marciano was stronger. Archie Moore called Marciano "far and away the strongest man I have ever encountered," and Moore had 225+ fights, several dozen against big, full-sized heavyweights, some of them against big, full-sized heavyweight contenders like Nino Valdes and Bob Baker, and even fought Ali as well!
Moore, the only common opponent between Marciano and Ali, also picked Marciano to beat Ali by KO, as did Joe Louis, another Marciano opponent, who, in the later '60s during Ali's peak years, wrote that Marciano would have beaten Ali the worst out of all the fighters throughout history(Louis also gave a gameplan describing how to beat Ali, which Joe Frazier followed in his 1971 fight against Ali).
The people who are saying Marciano was too small and Ali would make a monkey out of him really ought to reconsider, in my opinion. Sonny Banks, Henry Cooper, and Doug Jones were all almost exactly the same size as Marciano. All of them gave Ali hell. Banks and Cooper both had Ali on the floor, and Ali was in real trouble against Cooper, a mediocre second-rate contender who was 5'11, 185 pounds, the same size as Marciano. Jones gave Ali a lot of trouble, staggered him in the first round and brought him to a close decision. Jones was a former light heavyweight who weighed 185 for his fight with Ali and was not nearly as good a fighter as Marciano.
Have you ever seen Ali talk about Marciano? Ali had all kinds of respect and regard for Marciano after they'd done the filming of the computer fight with each other. He always addressed Rocky as "champ" once they were a ways into that filming, and if you've seen him speak about Marciano after that, you know Ali himself wouldn't honestly predict an easy win over Marciano.
Swarmers always gave Ali problems. Doug Jones, Henry Cooper, Sonny Banks, Joe Frazier, Ken Norton, and, in Ali's twilight years, Leon Spinks, all, to varying degrees, fit the proto-type of an aggressive, crowding, volume-punching swarmer with a lot of stamina and resilience, just like Marciano.
Now, of course, equally compelling arguments could be made in Ali's favor. This post is really directed at the people who are being dismissive of Marciano and just saying Ali would have a field day on him. I'm not claiming that Marciano would necessarily beat Ali, but this would be a very, very competitive fight, not some kind of a stomping. Personally, I think this would be a dramatic war of a fight, whichever way it went.
