I loved the Ring piece. I am a list guy myself I love reading ranking list…
I honestly wish Floyd would be more humble when it comes to fighters of yesteryear. I understand where he ranks himself and he has a right to do so. But while doing so he may not want to nitpick other great fighter’s resumes. He should leave that up to the list makers and just be humble.
I saw a facebook post a few months ago where an interviewer asked Mike Tyson was he better than Ali. Tyson simply said no. Then he started crying and told the interviewer there is no one like Ali.
Floyd did make the comment that Ali never beat Ken Norton, he lost to a guy with 7 fights and he laid on the ropes when he lost his legs. I thought it was a little tasteless but he did have some true points. But maybe he shouldn’t say those things, I don’t know. Floyd does have a right to his opinion….
But in a debate I guess you could say Ali did beat Ken Norton. Regardless of how controversial the fights were he beat him. They were no more controversial than Floyd’s fights with Castillo and Maidana. And yes Ali did lose his legs but he was the toughest SOB in the history of the game. And yes he did lose to Leon Spinks who was 7-0 but he beat 4 Olympic Gold Medalist in Floyd Patterson, Joe Frazier, George Foreman and Leon Spinks, no one history has done that in the pro ranks. He also beat Archie Moore, Bob Foster, Sonny Liston, Joe Frazier, Ken Norton, George Foreman and Floyd Patterson. Which makes him the only heavyweight in history to beat 7 HOF fighters. 5 of them were all time greats.
The biggest statement that can be made about Ali that can’t about Floyd is that Ali fought his most threatening contemporaries and Floyd did not. Anyone can make the glass half full or half empty when it comes to a fighter’s resume that’s why fighters have to be careful when picking apart the resumes of their fellow fighters. But no one not even Ali’s biggest detractors can nitpick his competition. Ali fought everybody.
Even the guys who gave him trouble like Ken Norton he often fought them 2 or 3 times. He was the GUN of all Guns. People don’t realize this but Henry Cooper who dropped Ali early in his career got a rematch with Ali, he also gave Floyd Patterson and Sonny Liston rematches. He fought Joe Bugner twice and Bugner scored a knockdown against him. He fought George Chuvalo twice who was insanely tough. The kicker is Ali fought Chuvalo in his home country of Canada, twice!!! Did I mention he fought Ken Norton 2 of those times in Southern California and that is where Norton was from!
We all talk about his rematches with Frazier but we forget how many fighters he fought more than once to clear up any doubts as to who was the best. Muhammad Ali is revered by the historians for a reason. He was absolutely insane as to who he would fight, where he would fight them and when he would fight them. I get choked up thinking about him in that way. He looked pretty but he was truly an animal. I have never seen a competitive streak like his. I’m literally freestyling off the top of my head and I have another great Ali stat.
In his first 2 title tries against Sonny Liston and George Foreman he had to go up against all time great fighters where he was more than a 4 to 1 underdog in both fights. Think about that for a second when you look at his resume. There has not been a fighter as special as Ali, who has had the odds against him by as much as he had and succeeded so often.
When a critic brings up a shortcoming of a great fighter I always think did this short coming stop him from coming up big in his big fights. For example people like to say Ali didn’t have technical skills, he couldn’t body punch and once he got old his defense was poor. So I say did his lack of technical skills allowed him to beat superior technical fighters like Bob Foster, Floyd Patterson and Sonny Liston. He didn’t body punch but he scored late stoppages over Sonny Liston, George Foreman, Joe Frazier and Floyd Patterson. His defense suffered as he got older but he was only stopped once and that was a corner stoppage in his next to last fight. How ironic?
If we were applauding Floyd Mayweather or Bernard Hopkins as great fighters in this era and someone said well they never score kos. That comment would only be relevant if we said Mayweather and Hopkins was the best ko artist of this era. Maybe I view things differently than others….
By the way Ali was 3rd on that list you are talking about in the Ring. In my opinion that’s about right.
http://boxingtalk.com/pag/article.php?aid=26889
