I mean, Lewis has a chance. But do I think he would win? No. I think Ali wins a competitive, yet clear decision.
If you watch Ali vs Terrel and London, yes. If you watch Ali vs Mildenberger and Chuvalo, Lewis by decision is the only possibility. I really don't know
Because Lewis is the puncher here, I think there's a misconception to assume Ali's the one who needs to extra cautious here. But prime Ali had more than enough pop to hurt Lewis, and thus keep him honest.
Terrel fight is probably the better gauge due to the similar heights. Remember Lewis barely got past an aging Holyfield....and a useless Mercer.
Ali also has ton of duds and horrible performances. I fail to see why these are relevants. As most say, fight would be a bore. Ali would move a lit, and that would prevent Lewis from tetting into a grove, and he would try to stalk ali with the jab. I think that ali would land a few straight right hands here there, and that it would nudge him the win. Very close fight, tenseful but without much action
The "Struggle" with Mavrovic is astonishingly overrated myth kept alive mostly by LOK. Lewis won ten rounds and only Mavrovic's super-human chin kept him alive, he took much worse beating than Tyson. Also, I don't think Terrel resembled Lewis at all. He was about the same height but without any strength, power and jab, all tools that would be Lewis' main weapons here. It is a very close and dull fight but I think I lean towards Lewis
Yeah I don't know why the Mavrovic fight gets brought up all the time. Lewis win convincingly and was never in any danger of losing. He didn't look great but shitloads of great fighters have had similar nights.
Couldn't we just as easily go the whole "if Banks and Cooper were able to knock Ali down the Lewis knocks him OUT!!!1!" route? It's a really basic and annoying way to judge these mythical match ups. Why does one guy get a pass but not the other?
I think we should all just pick who makes us happy. Lewis is boring and joyless. He has shite patter. There's no aesthetic appeal to watching that geezer lumber around calculatedly using his mass to spoil fights. It's better for all of us if Ali wins easily I think. Only Finns with their weird Martian language and suicidal tendancies would quarrel with that
While Ali is the greatest hw of all time on the strength of his resume. I feel he's very overrated in head to head matchup. I'd lean toward Lewis in a close awful fight with a lot of clinching.
Ignoring all the gay "but Lewis got knocked out by a BUM!" and "Ali looked unspectacular against a guy that time in the 60s" and looking at the fighters at their respective BESTS, I think it ultimately comes down to Ali's speed being the difference as he wins by decision
People today say Ali was overrated, in terms of head to head matchup, but remember this guy beat both Foreman and Liston when they were at the height of their powers....and did so against Foreman when he was past his own peak. Once Ali fully matured (1965 onwards) he had a solid chin, great stamina, handspeed, elusiveness. Only thing he lacks was one punch power...but he had decent pop, make no mistake. He wasn't the featherfist people try to make him out to be. Frazier never hurt Bonavena...Ali uncorked a serious left hand against him late in that fight and finished him off there an then. Ali is still teh only man to have ever stopped Foreman. The punches that Ali landed on Williams and Foley were not soft punches. Shit look at Frazier's face after the first and 3rd fights. A featherfist doesn't do that to his opponent's face. Make no mistake...Ali wasn't just about his resume, head to head he was formidable.
Not to mention he essentially beat the fuck out of both of them... Cooper had one great moment and got sliced up like fucking cold cuts... Sonny Banks, fuck's sake, wasn't that like his 6th pro fight or some shit like that??? That'd be like holding the teenage Alexis Arguello's loss to some random central American nobody's heard of before against him
I'm not even an Ali guy, but he's fucking obviously the best heavyweight ever and in his prime years, he dominated... In his later years, he answered every possible question a man can answer in the realm of sport
WHat do you mean by that? Resume-wise, historically-wise, or ability wise ? If it's the 2 former, I definitively agree, if it's the latter, I'd say that it is possible, but far from obvious.
He's overrated when people pick him to easily beat almost all of the other great hw. For as great as he was, his fluidity and coordination were without equals, the guy had also a ton of faults, that other great hw would surely exploit. Not to say that he would lose these fights, but they would be very interesting and competitive. And i would say that it is arguable that Liston was truly at the height of his power. A lot of people claims (retroactively) that he was past his prime, and by pretty much all acounts, he was a lot older than his official age. But I agree that Ali power is underrated by most. While the guy wasn't a dynamite puncher, he was far from a pitty patter
