Henry Clark 'The West Coast Cassius Clay'

Henry would have made a good opponent for Muhammad Ali in the Summer of '76,instead of Muhammad taking part in that Inoki mess in Tokyo. I see Clark,at that point,giving the champ a good workout,and maybe Muhammad would have been a bit sharper against Ken Norton at Yankee Stadium.

 

Lyle was fighting proven, rated fighters. Clark was not. Why should Clark have gotten a shot?

 

Nobody cared about Clark. He wasnt rated by anyone who cared. Lyle was.

How did an unranked guy get jobbed because the champion defended against a top ten contender? Lyle lost to Young but he didnt get bumped out of the ratings, he was still in the top ten.

In fact, every fighter Ali defended against in 1975 was rated in the top ten including 10th ranked Chuck Wepner. Clark briefly made an appearance in the top ten in 1974 (ranked 10th) when he stopped Jeff Merritt. But by the time Ali defended against Lyle Clark was gone.

You can criticise the Lyle fight, because he lost to Young (who was a lot better than Clark) but Ali also fought Young and also fought Shavers, the guy who twice beat your guy.

So dont act like Ali was ducking anyone because at every stage of his career he was facing men who were more threatening than Clark at that point in time.

 

According to the Ring magazine, Clark was rated the 9th heavyweight a couple of months before Ali-Lyle. I believe Pepe was saying that Clark had the style to give Ali trouble. Now I only watched Henry's bout with Liston, so I can't say whether or not Pepe is right.

 

Stay with the time frame:

Jeff Merritt was a fringe contender at the time. Clark got an upset nod which got him ranked in the lower tier of the top ten. How does that equate ducking?

Ron Lyle was ranked HIGHER than Clark when Ali defended against him.

Ron Lyle had fought and defeated better opposition.

Ali would face and defeat better opposition than several times within the year and the next year than Clark.

Thats not ducking.

Its up to Clark to make a name for himself and one win over a fringe contender does not do that.

Merritts biggest win to date had been against Ernie Terrell. That might have been impressive in 1966/1967 but in 1974 thats a pretty thin resume.

So, only in the sad little world view of Pepe/Duce does a win over Merritt warrant an automatic title shot.

Why dont you quote someone other than Henry Clark's manager who thought Clark should fight Ali or that Ali was ducking Clark.

There was no conspiracy by Don King to keep Clark from a title shot. Had Clark actually kept up his momentum he may have gotten one but instead he got an 8 round draw against Jimmy Richards and then went to Paris and was easily beaten by Earnie Shavers for a higher ranking on the undercard of Valdez-Cohen. Clark was then given an opportunity at redemption and blew it, getting stopped in two. Pretty hard to argue that Ali ducked him.

 

Lyle was clearly the better fighter than Henry Clark. How can you dispute that with a straight face?

You say Don King shut Clark out, King didnt control Ali. Clark's next big fight was against a King fighter: Earnie Shavers.

Your argument simply doesnt work.

Stick with the time line: Clark was unranked when Lyle fought Ali. Lyle was not. Clark was very briefly ranked 9/10 depending on who you look at after defeating Merritt in 1974, who at the time was only ranked ten in the few rankings generous enough to place his name in the top ten.

Ron Lyle had defeated Boone Kirkman, Jimmy Ellis, and Oscar Bonavena within a year of signing to fight Ali. All of those contenders had also carried a higher ranking than either Merritt or Clark. Outside of the low rated and unproven Merritt Clark had not defeated a top ten fighter in years.

There is no scenario you can come up with that illustrates Clark being a better challenge than Ron Lyle in 1975, regardless of Lyles loss to Young, who Clark wouldnt have beaten either.

 

Actually you said Ali wanted no part of Clark or his style. Thats a direct quote from you. So yeah, you did say Ali ducked Clark. You can argue semantics but Im sure most of the people paying attention are bright enough to know you better than that by now.

Clark, and his style, were so slick that they got outboxed by that master boxer Earnie Shavers who was huffing and puffing like a steam engine by midway through the fight.

You are now back tracking and saying that Lyle deserved his shot, so when exactly should Ali have given Clark a title shot, why, and who was going to promote it and for how much? Stick with the time frame.

You always ignore the financial side of this which in boxing in general, and heavyweight boxing especially is like trying to make a milk shake without ice cream.

Ali won the title back in October of 1974. After a very strenuous campaign one can hardly fault the guy for taking an easy fight with Wepner, especially when he was guaranteed $1.5 million. Clark could not have brought in that much money.

Then there is the Lyle fight. As established, Lyle was rated higher and had a better record and was drawing down big gates. Ali had been offered over $2 million by three promoters to fight Lyle, although he ultimately got only $1 million.

Then he fought Bugner for $2 million, Bugner as well was a top ten fighter.

Joe Frazier, I hope you arent going to fault him for fighting Joe Frazier? I guess as a boxing fan you would have us robbed of the Thrilla and not want Ali to make the minimum $4.5 million he was guaranteed for that fight?

Its academic though because by that time Clark had drawn with totally unknown Jimmy Richards who would never win a fight, and then got an elimination fight with Earnie Shavers. Clark had every advantage: height, weight (20 pounds), reach. Yet, this master boxer was outjabbed by Shavers who ran out of gas early and still managed to win.

That was it for Clark, so when could or should this fight have happened realistically?

The one thing in common all of these heros of yours have is that none could draw, none were rated very highly, and when they were rated their window of opportunity was so short that there was no realistic opportunity for them to fight for a title. Had they kept winning against top fighters (or in most cases even fought top fighters) the argument might be there.

But thats too much to ask of your heros isnt it? To fight top fighters and be consistent?

 

Lyle was definitley a more accomplished fighter than Clark.