January 2002 - October 2006 - The Jerry Quarry Foundation

carried his arms low, never went to the body, and wandered around the ropes far
too often in the second part of his career. He often was arrogant and didn't
train properly, and seemed to want to make a fool out of an opponent ("See how
great I am?), more than he wanted to win. Many of his blinding combinations were
nice to look at, but in a lot of cases (proven via slo mo), many if not most
missed, or were glancing blows. While they confused many opponents, the really
smart ones launched an attack immediately after, when he often left himself
split second vulnerable.However! He compensated with superb craftiness,
extraordinary speed, was largely able to govern pace (except with Frazier), and
was superb at tying his opponent up, eye thumbing, and opening cuts. Great jab
(though I think Holmes's was better), could throw a decent uppercut when he
wanted to, a super straight right and right cross, and even a hook, when he
really set himself. Sadly, when his speed, reflexes and stamina were leaving
him, he demonstrated his biggest gift of all, unequaled, I believe, by any other
fighter ever - the ability to take a punch. When he commented that "Joe Frazier
made me what I am today," he didn't know how right he was, though that wasn't
what he meant.|
|8/24/03 08:24:48 PM|Tubby Breslin|Fullerton, CA||bearstubastanchu||||10|Good
observations, Roadscholarette. These are examples of how Ali never learned how
to box, by doing so many things wrong, beginning with leaning away from punches.
He invented his own style and made it fantastically successful. Another great
strength of his was his twisting or torquing punches that cut opponents. He also
capitalized on pulling down the necks and shoulders of opponents in clinches,
even the briefest clinches, for a cumulative effect of exhaustion on them. Some
people tend to think of Ali as smaller than he was, 6'4" and 220 or more. Boxers
and former boxers know that even glancing punches can hurt a lot, because of the
mental scoring that goes aloong and the embarrassment of being hit. Ali kept his
hitting your face and it humiliated and discouraged opponents, even making them
mad and distracted from their business of fighting. besides, when it comes to
knockout damage, it's not the power itself of a punch, but the snapping on a
precise target to cause unconsciousness. (Sean O'Grady explains this well.)
Clubbing a man into submission is a much longer and more difficult process than
snapping him on the button or along the jaw. Anyway, Ali's greatest strength of
all, and something he practically invented or rather reinvented for the
contemporary age of boxing, was the psychological game. Many of us feel this
part of the game, at least among two more or less equal opponents, is 90% of the
whole contest. At least from the moment an opponent signed a contract to fight
Ali, this hapless person was subject to trash-talking, shaming (even on Uncle
Tom grounds, like Patterson and Frazier), and even weird behavior and threats
(which rattled even Sonny Liston). By the time the opponent enters the ring to
fight, he's likely to be a nervous wreck and intimidated. Against Ali, no one
fought a man but rather a legend and an international symbol. Intimidation,
verbal or otherwise, is as old as sports, but Ali magnified it almost to a
cosmic level, bringing in archetypes of race, manhood, destiny, the underdog,
and various elements of culture. This in part is why I call him a thinking
fighter. Jerry Quarry, like most ranked fighters of that day, had some of
his own mystique going for him. He was the rough, tough Irish brawler with
killer instinct and a mean streak in the ring, the kind of guy who won't stop
coming even when you break a 2x4 over his head. No one stepped in against Jerry
without fear. Jerry delivered, too, even in the bouts he lost. He is one fighter
who never had anything to be ashamed of, and that was part of his huge
popularity. There was indeed no dog in any of the Quarrys. This gamesmanship
and trash-talking and psyching out have grown way out of proportion now, so that
a lot of boxing promotion is close to WW Wrestling. We see kids with only 5
fights threatening to kill champions, and we see whole fights based on BS like
"Redemption" in the upcoming Mosely-De La Hoya fight -- excessive machismo, and
laughable. Ali made his head-gaming absolutely convincing, and often funny as