“Ali Went Against the Conventional Wisdom…”: GSP’s Coach Hails Muhammad Ali for Defying All the Rules in Boxing

Even though many days have passed since UFC 284, fans and MMA fighters find it hard to get over it. It was indeed one of the greatest bouts in the history of the promotion. The fight between featherweight champion Alexander Volkanovski and lightweight champion Islam Makhachev was special for a number of reasons. One major reason being, Volkanovski moved up to lightweight while he was a featherweight champion to fight against Makhachev. If he won, he would have been a two-divisional champion. However, after fighting hard in the close battle, “The Great” lost the fight via unanimous decision.

It indeed created an uproar among the fans and other UFC fighters. Many observed how close the bout was and believed that Volkanovski should have been the winner. Nonetheless, the GSP’s coach Firas Zahabi has a different outlook to the whole fight. To justify his points, he gave the strategy of the boxing legend Muhammad Ali as an example.

The reason why Muhammad Ali is the greatest of all

According to the GSP coach, Volkanovski has made a grave mistake by not recognizing the advantage he has over Makhachev. He says how easily the Australian fighter could have won within the first four rounds. The advantage he was talking about was Volkanovski being the lighter and shorter one among the two. The lighter fighter always tends to move more quicker, consequently giving the bigger fighter a tough time catching up. As the conversation progressed, Zahabi said how Muhammad Ali became a boxing legend by breaking all the conventional rules.

The coach said “Muhammad Ali used to do six rounds with lighter Fighters and then six rounds with heavyweights. He wouldn’t do 12 rounds with a heavyweight. He was very very smart. Muhammad Ali’s trainers was very smart. “

READ MORE: Islam Makhachev Admits He Got Overwhelmed by “Short” Alexander Volkanovski’s Physical Strength at UFC 284(Video): “Big Experience for Me”

He said “look we do six rounds with a lightweight fighter why because the light weights move around a lot more so what Muhammad Ali developed he moved he learned to develop more movement constant movement. You guys don’t know the history of Muhammad Ali”

Zahabi point out that being smarter is better than being an obeyer

Zahabi emphasized that it is important to be smart than just being an obeyer of the rules. He further added how “The Greatest” was the only heavyweight boxer in history who fought like a lightweight. The coach points out how Ali used to jump on his toes and move around. Back in the 20th century no heavyweight boxer did so as it may make them easily tired.

He further explained “Muhammad Ali went against the conventional wisdom of boxing at that time. He went totally against the conventional boxing. They tell you never Circle towards the power side. Ali only circled towards the power side, He at least circled 99 of the time towards the power side.”

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