And don't forget, he fought Trevor Berbick 18 months or so AFTER the Holmes fight.
Agreed. He speech was already slurred....his coordination was beginning to slip...and he blasted himself with thyroid medication before the fight. In spite of all of that Holmes couldn't put him away...which truly screwed with Holmes' mind. He had to keep beating on a guy he loved. Once Ali truly learned he could take a punch as well as anyone in history, it became his style to fight like that. The irony was, before the layoff he used to say that he made it so that the heavy punchers couldn't find anything to hit...when he came back, his philosophy was to let guys hit him until the got tired...bad idea against the likes of Foreman, Frazier, Norton, Shavers, etc...
I'm amazed that Holmes fight was stopped. I think the ref was Richard Greene?