Booth and Groves split.

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Hasn't really been spoken about, anyone know why they split? Anyone think the influence of Hearn might have something to do with it? Booth likes to be the one in complete control, and maybe he wasn't happy with Hearn's plans/influence? Just can't see why they'd split to be honest though.

Under Booth who can get Groves fighting intelligently and with discipline, I thought he'd beat Froch, now I just think he'll get into a tear up which will be disastrous for him.

Hope Groves does win, find Froch quite a loathsome character, you'd think by the way he speaks he's the best fighter the world has ever seen. Saw an interview where he calls himself a world superstar the other day. The way he talks that Groves shouldn't possibly say a bad world about him because he's a respected world champion is very irritating. Oh, and the way he always calls himself a warrior is annoying also.

Az Ali had a better landing percentage than Norton in one round, he entire fight... He was outlanded in ten rounds... The stats aren't a red-herring. Norton didn't have one round that unbalanced the cheque book...

kingraf wrote:

One of my favorite quotes on 606 comes from Azania when he was asked why he stopped riding the Sugar Ray Robinson train

"Then I used my eyes"

Pretty much the same with me and Ali

Interesting favourite quote. The problem for az being, when your head is up your a*se it doesn't make much difference if you open your eyes or not. 

Anyway, glad you've spotted that Ali was rubbish. The rest of us blindfolded lemmings will catch on eventually.

One day Milky! Haha, of course Ali wasn't rubbish mate, he just had a glaring flaw. Norton was blessed with very few boxing-related gifts (by his own admission) and he gave Ali the fits. Not because "styles make fights" (they do, of course), but because Futch spotted a weakness, and Norton had the gift of timing.

Never said Ali was rubbish, it's all relative. Ali is still great, and could still well be the greatest heavy of all time, I just don't understand why Vitali gets called limited for winning at a canter, while Ali's Bermuda triangle sized gap in defence gets a free pass...

Same with people who critique K2s title defences, but can, with a straight face, tell me Ali beating a literally shot Williams was his Magnum opus

The gulf in quality they faced is huge; Liston, Frazier, Foreman, Patterson, Chuvalo, Shavers, Young, Lyle, Norton, Quarry, Terrell amongst others are better than anything Vitali or Wlad has beaten.

kingraf wrote:One day Milky! Haha, of course Ali wasn't rubbish mate, he just had a glaring flaw. Norton was blessed with very few boxing-related gifts (by his own admission) and he gave Ali the fits. Not because "styles make fights" (they do, of course), but because Futch spotted a weakness, and Norton had the gift of timing.

Never said Ali was rubbish, it's all relative. Ali is still great, and could still well be the greatest heavy of all time, I just don't understand why Vitali gets called limited for winning at a canter, while Ali's Bermuda triangle sized gap in defence gets a free pass...

Same with people who critique K2s title defences, but can, with a straight face, tell me Ali beating a literally shot Williams was his Magnum opus

Physically it was, or at least appears to be. Ali has wins over ATG's on either side of Williams, whereas Wlad just has different variatons of Williams's.

I'm guessing you're a massive Norton fan to see the second fight as in his favour my more than a round.

kingraf wrote:One day Milky! Haha, of course Ali wasn't rubbish mate, he just had a glaring flaw. Norton was blessed with very few boxing-related gifts (by his own admission) and he gave Ali the fits. Not because "styles make fights" (they do, of course), but because Futch spotted a weakness, and Norton had the gift of timing.

Never said Ali was rubbish, it's all relative. Ali is still great, and could still well be the greatest heavy of all time, I just don't understand why Vitali gets called limited for winning at a canter, while Ali's Bermuda triangle sized gap in defence gets a free pass...

Same with people who critique K2s title defences, but can, with a straight face, tell me Ali beating a literally shot Williams was his Magnum opus

I was teasing you mate, I think Ali's technical flaws are fairly well documented. Pre Vietnam Ali still got caught out from time to time, but was so quick for a big man that he got away with it. He was so much more of a static target in the 70's.

Would Norton, with the same tactics have had the same success against late 60's Ali? It's all very well timing a jab down the pipe against a static target. When Norton did fight Ali, Futch reckons it was a simple adjustment for Ali to make but he was too old to change. You can certainly argue that the greatest, should have been able to make adjustments.

My take on Ali's greatness has always been based on what he looked like pre Vietnam, and how brave he was post Vietnam. His was a style that suited a younger man. So the fact that he probably should have lost the Norton trilogy 2-1, when the first one was a none title fight when Norton was largely unknown and the last one was when ali was borderline fossilized, doesn't really detract too much for me.

That said, I empathize with your view that there can be rose tinting of old timers and some modern guys get unfair gip... you can, after all, only beat your contemporaries.