Rating: 
Summary: An excellent dvd for any sports fan!
Review: Muhammad Ali is arguably the greatest athlete of the century, but he is undoubtably the most charismatic. This dvd is entertaining, funny, exciting, and it captures the essence of a great athlete, and a great man. It's honestly very easy to watch this dvd for hours without getting bored.
Rating:
Summary: Ali's most memorable fights in "The Greatest collection".
Review: There's no video or DVD that've covered these three fights better than "The Greatest Collection". Only minus for die-hard boxing fans is that you don't get the post fight interview in his dresssing room in "The Thrilla in Manila". The DVD "Ali The Whole Story" does. Otherwise an excellent DVD.
Rating:
Summary: Kevin - Amazing for all boxing fans
Review: This has three fights; Liston I, Foreman and Frazier III along with a documentary. The fights are all complete(very rare these days) and the documentary is great. If you love/hate or indifferent on Ali - get this DVD, it will change your mind!
Rating:
Summary: Great content, but problems with DVD playing properly
Review: This is a great DVD for any Ali fan. Rather than just seeing highlights, it is fun to see these fights in their entirety, and there is plenty of supplementary material. One problem though: this DVD does not play properly in my player (a Panasonic 110). Many of the chapters will not play at all. Does anyone know if or how I can get a copy that works correctly?
Rating:
Summary: Very Good
Review: This is a great DVD. Any fans of Ali that want to see his fights in high quality should consider purchasing this DVD. Great to anaylize fights and punches landed with the slow motion feature on most DVD players.
Rating:
Summary: Muhammad Ali: The Greatest Collection DVD
Review: This is a must have for boxing fans, really.All three fights are supurb quality even for there shown dates, and unlike the Ali fight videos you normally buy, which might show you a recording of the fight as it was on TV. It shows almost every single bit of camera that was filmed at the time, joined together in order. It even showed the complete Ali-Liston fight which I already have a video off, and it has MUCH more footage. The extra DVD is also great taking you step by step through almost every single of Ali's professional fights. The commontry and sound in general is also awsome! Supurb- If you love Boxing like me you are a real fool not to buy this, really.
Rating:
Summary: Fantastic
Review: This is a wonderful DVD if you've ever felt cheated by documentaries on Ali where you don't really see the entire fight. This DVD provides 3 of Ali's greatest fights from the very start of each fight to the post-fight banter that he always engaged in. What is particularly great about these 3 fights is that you see a slightly different phase of Ali's boxing style. From his young days with Liston to one of the infamous slugfests with Frazier to the incredible upset over Foreman. The thing that struck me most was that by seeing the entire fight I ended up with a much different vision of the fight than I had gleaned from documentaries. His defeat of Foreman I felt was much more overwhelming than the impression I got from When We Were Kings for example. I never felt he was in trouble in this fight. Magical stuff. There is also a nice 1 hr documentary that looks 80s-ish that follows him from his career start to his more dubious fights towards the end. The quality is good visually given the limitations of the camera back when the fights were fought. I've seen clips that were in a horrible state but these were very clean. The audio is also bad at times (again limitations on the technology) but you can switch on the subtitles which help out.
Rating:
Summary: Why Don't They Make Boxing DVD Sets?!
Review: This is an okay dvd set, containing 3 of Ali's greatest fights, but I don't understand why they don't make complete sets of fights, including all of the fighter's bouts, undercards, pre and post fight coverage, everything. They continue to release redundant television shows in "season" box sets, so classic boxing matches should at least deserve the same treatment. All you can find are chopped up, terrible quality sets on auction sites. I'm not saying they should do this for every boxer who ever lived, but the greatest fighters of all time such as Joe Louis, Rocky Marciano, George Foreman, Ali of course, Tyson, and Holyfield should make more than enough money to make it worth their while. A Tyson set especially would sell like hot cakes. I think that many people would love to see these fights brought back to their former glory, and it would be especially nice to see the harder to find fights, when these fighters were just starting their professional careers, in dvd quality to boot. Maybe one day they will come to their senses and give the public what it wants.
Rating:
Summary: "I must be the greatest!"
Review: This is the genuine Muhammad Ali. I was hesitant to purchase this DVD at first, because with its flimsy cardboard box it seemed a quickie release. What tipped the balance for me was the HBO logo on the box -- produced to their boxing division's highest quality, this is a real winner. The 1964 Liston-Clay fight in Miami has already become legend, even though the fight itself lasts just six rounds. Here on disc, with every second preserved, is Clay's taunting the champ, then momentarily losing his vision (did Liston rub liniment on his gloves?). Shockingly, Liston quits on his stool before Round 7, and Clay shouting into the camera, "I'm a bad man! I shook up the world! I shook up the world!". No actor sincehas been able to recreate the rawness of this moment. Presented on DVD is the closed-circuit theater version of the fight, called by Steve Ellis, with color commentary by Joe Louis in between rounds. This is, of course, not Louis's finest hour. Next is Foreman-Ali in Zaire in October, 1974. Notable here are the color commentators: Ali friend and former football star Jim Brown, and longtime Ali rival (and, they say, bitter enemy) Joe Frazier, along with the obnoxious David Frost. The fight itself is also the stuff of legend (and an Oscar-winning documentary). Ali invents the "rope-a-dope" seemingly on the fly, and wins the fight without ever seeming hurt by massive George Foreman's punches. The fact that 20 years later, Foreman would be champ and Ali would be seriously impaired, adds only a bittersweet irony to the finale. The final fight is Ali-Frazier III in Manila, the Thrilla in its entirety. Along for the commentary ride are entertainers Hugh "Wyatt Earp" O'Brian, and Flip Wilson -- whose presence at ringside is revealed only by his repeated assertion that "Frazier is starting to smoke now!". Most interesting, former Ali rival Ken Norton delivers an excellent blow-by-blow analysis for lead man Don Dunphy. If you know Ali, you've seen these fights already, but the DVD presents a unique digital opportunity to examine them again, punch by punch, word by word, from ringside ceremonies to Ali's impromptu post-bout conferences (the world has missed his repeated use of the word "Moose-lim"). I could question the decision to remove most of the original TV graphics and impose a running clock over every second of every round of every fight, but these digital additions help more than they harm. The menus are simple and easy to navigate. The key extras here are the fighter biographies (of Ali, Foreman, Frazier, Liston, and also Archie Moore and Larry Holmes), and subtitles. This latter addition makes it easier to make out what the analysts are shouting over the action, particularly Louis and Dunphy. The final feature is a 1981 documentary, produced by HBO in the days before they were famous for that sort of thing. It's a walk through Louisville, Kentucky, illustrated by some footage, but mostly still photos of, Ali's matches from pro debut to brutal beating at the hands of Larry Holmes. The hour seems more a space-filler on an already packed DVD, and predates both Ali's final defeat at the hands of Trevor Berbick, and ascendancy to global icon status in the '90s. However, you'll enjoy the dated '81 graphics and soundtrack.
Rating:
Summary: "I must be the greatest!"
Review: This is the genuine Muhammad Ali. I was hesitant to purchase this DVD at first, because with its flimsy cardboard box it seemed a quickie release. What tipped the balance for me was the HBO logo on the box -- produced to their boxing division's highest quality, this is a real winner. The 1964 Liston-Clay fight in Miami has already become legend, even though the fight itself lasts just six rounds. Here on disc, with every second preserved, is Clay's taunting the champ, then momentarily losing his vision (did Liston rub liniment on his gloves?). Shockingly, Liston quits on his stool before Round 7, and Clay shouting into the camera, "I'm a bad man! I shook up the world! I shook up the world!". No actor sincehas been able to recreate the rawness of this moment. Presented on DVD is the closed-circuit theater version of the fight, called by Steve Ellis, with color commentary by Joe Louis in between rounds. This is, of course, not Louis's finest hour. Next is Foreman-Ali in Zaire in October, 1974. Notable here are the color commentators: Ali friend and former football star Jim Brown, and longtime Ali rival (and, they say, bitter enemy) Joe Frazier, along with the obnoxious David Frost. The fight itself is also the stuff of legend (and an Oscar-winning documentary). Ali invents the "rope-a-dope" seemingly on the fly, and wins the fight without ever seeming hurt by massive George Foreman's punches. The fact that 20 years later, Foreman would be champ and Ali would be seriously impaired, adds only a bittersweet irony to the finale. The final fight is Ali-Frazier III in Manila, the Thrilla in its entirety. Along for the commentary ride are entertainers Hugh "Wyatt Earp" O'Brian, and Flip Wilson -- whose presence at ringside is revealed only by his repeated assertion that "Frazier is starting to smoke now!". Most interesting, former Ali rival Ken Norton delivers an excellent blow-by-blow analysis for lead man Don Dunphy. If you know Ali, you've seen these fights already, but the DVD presents a unique digital opportunity to examine them again, punch by punch, word by word, from ringside ceremonies to Ali's impromptu post-bout conferences (the world has missed his repeated use of the word "Moose-lim"). I could question the decision to remove most of the original TV graphics and impose a running clock over every second of every round of every fight, but these digital additions help more than they harm. The menus are simple and easy to navigate. The key extras here are the fighter biographies (of Ali, Foreman, Frazier, Liston, and also Archie Moore and Larry Holmes), and subtitles. This latter addition makes it easier to make out what the analysts are shouting over the action, particularly Louis and Dunphy. The final feature is a 1981 documentary, produced by HBO in the days before they were famous for that sort of thing. It's a walk through Louisville, Kentucky, illustrated by some footage, but mostly still photos of, Ali's matches from pro debut to brutal beating at the hands of Larry Holmes. The hour seems more a space-filler on an already packed DVD, and predates both Ali's final defeat at the hands of Trevor Berbick, and ascendancy to global icon status in the '90s. However, you'll enjoy the dated '81 graphics and soundtrack.
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