Muhammed Ali - The Greatest

[RohanKnight]

mmm, Ali kind of started his championship career in the deep end, and thats an understatement.

At 22 he was facing Sonny Liston, and remember this Liston guy was seen as invincible and had twice destroyed THE legitimate UNDISPUTED world champion (Patterson, who won the title younger than even Tyson!), and from whom Rocky Marciano had run shitscared from.

NOW - Think about that for a moment, Marciano is a pretty much an ATG and is tough as nails as BrocktonBusterBloodvessel has gone to great lengths to point out... and he was shitscared of the guy that Ali (barely a modern day adult as 22) EASILY beat!

This was not even Alis best, he just got better in the next few years. Those early defences were just as amazing - destroying legit world champions Ellis, Patterson and Terrell, and making monkeys of the hardest hitters or toughest fighters of the time (Cleveland Williams, George Chuvalo). He went literally whole fights where his opponent never landed a solid blow on him, and we are talking about legit number one challengers, not fighting bums for ten years like some fighters do these days - Ali wouldnt spend more than one fight with a bum (there was only one 'bum' british champion Brian London, in that early reign, who later pointed out that he was sure he never contributed to Ali's Parkinsons, since he never actually hit Ali in their fight!) , let alone ten years of them to pad out an 'undefeated record'.