Quote Originally Posted by johnsebastianmiran View Post
We all know the stories,the draft, the exile, the religion and on and on. I admired Ali even though I was a Marine grunt during Vietnam. There is one question I have to ask all of you. Let's just say that all was resolved and forgiven, how much of his prime would really shock us as far as his ability was supposed to be? Many people say that he was in his prime when this mess started with the draft but I am not wondering if he was in his prime because I believed he never reached it. How much better could he have been and those of you with a boxing background know exactly what I mean. For what he accomplished, he intrigued many but he was deprived so what if he was allowed to reach his prime how much better than those all time greats could he have become or not.

Two things to derive from the bolded statement:

1. You're fairly up there in age.
2. You of all people could've been forgiven for holding Ali's beliefs against him, but you don't. Good for you for being an open-minded person.

As for the rest of the post, that is a very good and interesting question. Just yesterday they had a segment on ESPN where they were theorizing on just how many more stats baseball players like Ted Williams and Willie Mays would've amassed had they not lost years of peak performance while serving in the Armed Forces. Part of the Veterans Day coverage, I guess. Personally, I think the Ali that resumed his career after serving his time away from boxing was noticeably different than the Ali previous to that. You're right... he was never allowed to reach his peak. He was still developing as a professional fighter when his career was abruptly interrupted. Once he came back, he was a different fighter.

He had less of the movement that had served him well against Liston. He also became more dependent on his "moving the head back" defense. I think he actually overdid it at times, because # 1 it didn't always work, and # 2 because it left him open for all kinds of body shots. When younger he could spring back mongoose-like and convert the "move the head back" into an offensive shot of his own. When older, he couldn't do that as much. He was bigger when he came back, so there was a tendency to sit more on his punches and rely on his power, which was never all that much to begin with.

There's no telling either way, but it's not far-fetched to think he could've handled Joe Frazier with relative ease, even in their first fight, had he not had that time off from boxing.