Nelson, Froch, Watt, McCrory and Moore reflect
Wednesday 8 June 2016 16:08, UK
Muhammad Ali's career in and out of the ring is now part of sporting folklore, but which one of his magical performances stands out?
We put five of our pundits on the spot to see which one of his fights stand out - and why. And while none of them - or us - will forget Rumble in the Jungle, not all of The Panel picked that famous fight against George Foreman...
My dad was a massive Ali and Pele fan, so I got to see them all on VHS. I would watch them over and over again, and would fall asleep watching them. My dad later told me that he thought Sonny Liston would smash Ali to bits, but even after all of those massive fights he won, Ali beating Cleveland 'Big Cat' Williams is still my favourite.
I think Williams was the No 1 heavyweight in the world at the time, he'd been avoided like the plague and Ali just bamboozled him. He absolutely smashed him.
'Big Cat' was a big unit and he overshadowed Ali but he had the speed, body shots and lightning fast combinations and he even dropped that famous shuffle into one of the best, most clinical fights that this sport has ever seen. Ali showed his movement, his speed, his defensive work and just finished him off with his speed and accuracy.
Physically and technically and given the opponent he was up against, you will do well to watch a better performance than that - especially at heavyweight. Of course, the best story came with the Foreman fight, but performance-wise, this one stands out. It just showed how good Ali was.
The Foreman fight was just incredible. Forget anything else, this cannot be beaten when it comes to what he did in the ring. Before the fight we weren't asking who was going to win or who was going to lose, we were just hoping Ali was going to survive.
He was past his best, Foreman had bounced Ken Norton and Joe Frazier around and he had been annihilating people, he was huge and powerful, so we were genuinely worried.
I was sitting down watching it and round-by-round I thought he had nothing left to offer, he was practically a punchbag for the first seven rounds. Was it a masterplan? Well, I didn't think so, and I defy anyone else who thinks it was.
There he was on the ropes, taking so, so many punches it just can't have been comfortable. Foreman's body shots were bad enough but even without that, we did not think Ali had the speed required to outbox Foreman, so there was no way he could just stand there and take all that.
No one came up with that plan, except Muhammad Ali. Anyone who backed him did it because they liked to be different because honestly, most of us thought he didn't have a chance. But then, he not only beat him, he knocked him out.
It was incredible and I can't think of anything he did in the ring that comes close to that. The way he finished it was like something out of a movie. And I am not sure even Rocky could have taken that punishment.
I was 10 years of age for the Rumble in the Jungle and it's what got me into boxing. Before that, I was a massive George Best fan and all I wanted to do was play for Ireland. Then Ali came along and it was the George Foreman fight that did it for me.
There was this guy who was bigger than anybody. He was just a huge personality and yet everyone said he was going to get beaten. Everyone apart from him of course; he was saying he's going to shock the world all over again, destroy Foreman and all this sort of stuff.
Not only was Ali supposed to get destroyed but people feared for his life. Zaire was amazing and bizarre and Ali won. He let Foreman beat him up and then came through it all to destroy him. It was just amazing.
The other one I'd mention, which I saw much later, was the Cleveland Williams fight. That was Ali at his best - I do not think there'll ever be a heavyweight as fast, accurate, dashing and daring as the Ali that beat Williams.
The first time I remember seeing him was watching the clip when he beat Sonny Liston in the first round. If you're going to think of a picture in your mind to epitomise Ali, it would probably be the one of him stood over Liston after the so-called 'Phantom Punch'. We have seen that image so many times over the years.
For me, though, the defining fight has to be the one against Foreman. That fight was the one in which nobody gave him a chance and some people even thought he could get killed.
The tactics he put into that fight were unreal and I love that clip where they talk about him having a moment at the end of the first where his face looked beaten but by the start of the second, the belief had returned and he got the crowd chanting for him.
That was the sort of thing he did - produced a level you didn't think he had in him. The Foreman fight is the perfect example of that, for me.
I hadn't even been born when it happened but in the early 80s when I was five or six, I remember watching it on a VHS, in black and white - probably due to our telly at the time! Because of my age I didn't know too much about Ali but I remember sitting down and watching the Rumble in the Jungle.
I was there wondering what he was doing. There he was, sitting back on the ropes, taking so many shots, being hit by so many shots, he was just doing everything you weren't supposed to do!
Even back then, I remember wondering why he was doing that. Then the rope-a-dope came in as it went on and somehow he was taking it all from Foreman, a big power-puncher, to the body and the head - and those shots would have taken most fighters out. Even at that age, I just couldn't believe what I was seeing.
The knockout came and it was over in a flash and it pretty much came from nowhere. The rope-a-dope and then that knockout will always stick in my mind.
Yes, I probably knew the result before I sat down and watched it but the way he went about it was something I couldn't work out. Looking back at it now, Foreman was clearly exhausted by the eighth but watching it for the first time it was amazing - and it still is.
