
Originally Posted by
zhubin
I'm not going to go into the whole "is ali the greatest" debate. It's all personal opinion. Bottom line...Ali's politics and outside of the ring personality will always make him unpopular with certain people. As far as a fighter with 10 losses should not be considered the greatest...that is pure bs to me. Ali, like almost every great champion (ray robinson included), fought WAY past his prime. So there will simply be more losses on his record...even against fighters he shouldn't have lost to. Which leads me to the Larry Holmes comment. So Larry fought a shot Ali and wins...and questions his skills

Ali would have tortured Larry Holmes in his prime.
But thats different SRR had over 200 fights, so 10+ losses on his record is still an amazing record. Muhammad Ali didn't even have a quarter of the amount of fights SRR did.
So of course if the decision's hadn't gone Muhammad Ali's way he would nowhere be considered the greatest. He should of lost to Henry Cooper by DQ because smelling salts wern't allowed in the UK at that time.
He should have atleast lost 2 out of 3 with Ken Norton, although you could make an argument he lost all 3. He got a draw against Doug Jones although it very easily could of gone Doug Jones's way. And the 2 fights with Henry Cooper/Doug Jones, Muhammad Ali wasn't that far from his peak, considering he won the title off Sonny Liston not long after these 2 fights, in arguably one of his best performances.
And he for certain lost to Jimmy Young, Earnie Shavers. Your telling me if Muhammad Ali hadn't got all of these gift decision's, you would still consider him the greatest ?
As for your last comment thats ridiculous, Larry Holmes could compete with any version of Muhammad Ali. He is a better technical fighter than Muhammad Ali, he had a better jab. And he is pretty equal with Muhammad Ali in most attributes.
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