January 2002 - July 2006 - The Jerry Quarry Foundation

fights than boxers from a more recent era like Lewis. Ali fought regularly,
whereas the modern fighter doesn't. Some also forget that title fights used to
be 15 rounds, now they're 12. Ali's fights were more ferocious, too.If
we listen to Cooper, Ali wasn't the greatest, he was the worst. He cheated
against Henry Cooper, fixed the fights with Liston who was better than him, beat
the enormously overrated Foreman which doesn't count, and was bashed senseless
in all his fights against Frazier and Norton. Oh, and that wasn't Frazier who
didn't come out for the last round in Manilla, it was actually Ali. We all need
to get our eyes checked.Thanks for setting us all straight, Henri.|
|11/28/05 08:55:43 AM|Angelo|Washington, DC||funktron@yahoo.com||||10|Noam: As
an Ali fan, maybe I'm guilty of some hero worship of some sort---maybe I dismiss
some of his questionable performances now and then, and tend to dwell on his
highlight films against Liston, Frazier in Manilla, Foreman, etc. But alas, the
Ali haters have shown a capacity to be a lot more blind than I'll ever be. I'm
blind to a couple mediocre Ali performances---while this guy using Henry
Cooper's name is apparently blind to boxing history, 1960-1980. Ali's wins over
Liston, Patterson, Quarry, Foreman, Frazier, Lyle, Shavers (he gutted out
getting cold cocked at least 2-3 times by Shavers and finished strong, winning
about 9 rounds in, yes, a 15 round fight, not a 12 rounder). The list goes on.
Ali did get the benefit of the doubt in close fights against Young and Norton,
1976. To this day, I believe the decisions could have gone either way---but you
don't take the title from a long standing Champion by sticking your head through
the ropes as Young did, or swinging for the fences and missing, as Norton did.
The 10 point must system was in effect and many of the rounds were even in these
fights---Ali stole a few, lost a few and in the end, the Champion usually gets
the nod unless the Challenger wins it more clearly, with no doubt. Anyway, the
Ali hater responsible for that post has a familiar writing style and uses
familiar buzz words. I haven't gone through the archives to compare verbiage
and analyze it---and who really cares? Suffice to say, the guy hates Ali so
badly, he isn't capable of reasoning things out and seeing another point of
view. |
|11/28/05 08:58:24 AM|Kent|Murrieta, Ca||kentallenent@aol.com||||10|Whoever this
guy Cooper is he is obviously very biased agaisnt Ali.Rather than think
Ali's performance while a shell of his former self verse Berbick shows that Ali
wasn't great, this fight, which by the way was close, shows that Ali with most
of his skills gone could still be competitive with a ranked contender and future
WBC champion.Watch the tape, Ali is in the fight until the end and while
a verdict for Berbick was fair, Ali gave a good account of
himself.Others on the board have pointed out other holes in Cooper's
arguments.|
|11/28/05 09:45:09 AM|Henry Cooper|France||Noam aka Naomi||||10|I'm right. If
you disagree, then you are an uncle tom.|
|11/28/05 10:24:48 AM|Angelo|Washington, DC||funktron@yahoo.com||||10|Kent:
Yes, Ali's loss to Berbick was fair and square. In fact, I probably gave
Berbick a stronger win than you did--but you're correct in that Ali, while no
where near the fighter he once was, was competitive for most of the fight and
didn't embarass himself. I have no idea why he took that fight though---Larry
Holmes thrashed Ali and was still the top dog. What did Ali hope to accomplish
by fighting Berbick? Anyway, I doubt that this Cooper ever even saw that fight
or most of the bouts he wrote about. |
|11/28/05 10:27:14 AM|Noam|same||same||||10|Angelo, I agree entirely. Everyone
wears rose coloured glasses when viewing the career of boxers they most admire.
No boxing fan comes without bias in some shape or form.However, Cooper's
argument against Ali goes further than mere bias. Some of his arguments are so
fallacious that there must be hatred involved. For instance, Cooper ridicules
Ali's win over Foreman by arguing that Foreman was a nothing. But later Cooper
declares that Frazier was the best all round fighter Ali ever faced. While that