Well, you got a cool click from me for these remarks because I basically agree. Ali was 1 of the finest pure athletes ever to lace on a pair of gloves, who punched accurately, had incredible handspeed and footspeed and great coordination, but he was very far from being a complete fighter. On the contrary, Ali actually set back basic boxing technique by neglecting to learn the art of inside fighting. Ali hardly ever used body punches. Angelo Dundee said this very thing when he was interviewed years after Ali had retired. He said that Ali was so fast that he never bothered to teach him how to fight in close. To Ali's credit, he started to learn to do it late in his career when he had slowed down and began fighting flat-footed, but by then he had deteriorated noticeably in terms of speed. He showed a little bit of infighting skills in his 3rd fight with Norton and in his fight with Ron Lyle but by then it was too late for it to be of much help.

You forgot to mention that Ali had the habit of holding guys behind their head. It was Ali's unique brand of holding. He really didn't like to tie up the arms of an opponent, but preferred to hold them behind their head or give them a bear hug occasionally. Ali had so much charisma and such a huge fan following that referees and judges were intimidated by him to the point of allowing Ali to dictate his own rules inside the ring to some extent. Even Arthur Mercante gave up warning Ali for holding behind the head in the 3rd fight with Norton. Mercante was probably simply afraid of the repercussions for his career as a referee if he had started taking points away. To my knowledge, Ali never lost any points in his fights for holding. That in itself is significant.

Anyway, his career is long over and there's not much point in constantly harping on Ali's flaws inside and outside the ring. He seems like a genuinely warm and decent man today, whatever he did years ago. However, most boxing fans are not as old as I am and don't know what it was like in the 60s, 70s and early 80s when Ali was fighting. The man was bigger than life! He was held in complete awe by so many people in boxing, especially after his defeat of George Foreman. People lose their objectivity about him because of his stature in boxing history and his charisma.