Word: fraziers
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Floyd Patterson was there in Ali's body, as Muthammad played peekaboo with Holmes in the early going. Kenny Norton was there when Ali would hold his arms horizontally across his face and lean back to avoid Holmes's blows. Even Joe Frazier entered Ali when, for a very strange few minutes, Muhammad bent at the waist and bobbed and weaved as if he were a left-hook-throwing slugger...
...challenger tipped the scales at 217. That's an amazingly low weight for Ali, who entered the ring at 225 pounds in his third fight with Joe Frazier, and 230 pounds in his mistake against Jimmy Young. Not since 1974, when he defeated George Foreman in Zaire weighting 216 1/2 pounds, has Ali been so light...
...fight with Foreman and his challenge to Holmes go far beyond his excellent condition, however. Foreman, like Holmes, was undefeated when Ali maneuvered him to a humiliating eighth round knock out. At 32 Ali was considered too old to defeat the man who had destroyed the same Joe Frazier who had given Ali two tough battles. Nearing 39, Ali is again marked as a strong underdog to the much younger Holmes, who twice easily defeated Earnie Shavers after Shavers had given Ali a real scare in September...
...never had a stamina problem; he actually seems to get stronger in the later rounds. In the "Thrilla in Manilla" against Joe Frazier, he took a terrible beating in the middle rounds, only to pull himself together and score a 14th round TKO. Against Shavers, too, he entered the last third of the fight behind in the scoring and "went down to the well," as he says, for that extra reserve...
...only hope for Holmes, then, is an early knock out. That's just what he and many experts predict. But Ali has been hit by far harder punchers than Holmes--Frazier, Liston, Foreman, Shavers--and while he's been down, he's never been in danger of being knocked out. I don't think he can be knocked out--not even at 38. Ali's greatest strength is his ability to take a punch; Holmes's blows will pose no problem...