Gentleman Toughguy,
In my opinion the Greatest Ali fight would have to be the one he lost against Frazier. From the opening round, which Ali won, the action was back and forth two undefeated heavyweights going to war. Ali had his rounds Frazier had his. "The Fight" as it was called was just that a fight. Two guys doing what they did best.
Madison Square Garden was the place to be on March, 8th 1971 all the eyes of the world watched "The Fight of The Century" it was truly the hottest ticket around. Never was the country more divided in a sporting contest than this fight. Militant, young charismatic, handsome man against a throw back fighter from a working class back ground.
Ali showed all his best stuff in that fight and showed that he could take tremendous punishment and rise to the platform of greatness even in defeat. Frazier won "The Fight" unleashing one of the prettiest left hooks ever, but Ali won the hearts.
All the trash talking Ali did before "The Fight" can be thrown away in garbage can for all I care. I lost a lot for him as a fan because of his antics leading up to the event, but "The Fight' was a thing of beauty. Ali's best performance in my opinion.
In a career like Ali's every fight is irrelevant. You could take the Thriller in Manila or the Rumble in the Jungle out of his career and he still had the best career in boxing history. The Rumble was probably his greatest with the first Sonny Liston fight. Going into both fights people are worried what these monsters were going to do to this arrogant little ****. Obviously what they did was get destroyed.
i actually think the foreman fight was one of Ali's worse performances , i don't think Ali had this master plan going in to the fight rather that ali got a little lucky that foreman fought so bad that night and punched himself out ..
my opinion is that Ali thought he better cover up for the first few rounds while george was at his most dangerous , then foreman fought like a 3 fight novice throwing wild punches and missing ,he got tired very quickly and Ali took advantage of an exhausted foreman ..
Ali thinks it was, but it's almost impossible to not consider the third Frazier fight in Manilla as his best. It's one or the other, both were superior to the Liston and Norton fights/
From a strategic standpoint, yes, it was Ali's greatest fight. I mean, the smarts and ring savvy that Ali showed that night was unprecedented.
Clay vs Liston I think FIRST FIGHT
Ali had that stragegy and it worked!
