"Ali-Young" of '76 was iffy at best in action, yet Ali did edge Young.

I've scored it two times. The first time I had it a draw, the second time I had Young winning by a point. But I just don't get this "robbery" thing. There were many close rounds, and if everyone round where Young uses the slick defensive manouver of sticking his head through the ropes is given to Ali (which I certainly can see judges doing in a fight for the undisputed HW title) he wins it.

Even worse is saying Young got robbed against Norton. I scored that one for Norton without the slightest hesitation.

 

You're talking about the Ali that gets constantly critisised for his holding tacticts, right?:huh A tactic that Young employed frequently as well.

 

I don't think Muhammad landed 10 good clean punches the whole fight. He sure did get hit a lot more than that and any clean punches were from Young. Jimmy took away the Ali jab and that left hook swipe follow up of his. The jab hit air and he could not even land it anywhere on his torso.

And why was Ali throwing a right uppercut from way on the outside against this guy? It was a punch he hardly ever threw and here he is winging away with it from like the 4th round on. And that was an Ali ref in there as well--no warnings for those forearms to the face Ali was doing during clinches.

One judge had Ali winning 13 rounds and actually the scoring itself was lopsided. They just announced the wrong name.

But anyone who followed the sport back then was looking forward to big heavyweight bouts and we got the Norton decision. Coopman approved as a challenger. Young was supposed to be an easy fight. Shavers was picked because of his gas tank and was supposed to be stopped late. Evangelista and the bout goes 15. And because these guys provided way too stiff of competition, they dug up Leon Spinks.

And the other guys considered for title shots and rumored were even worse. That era tends to be looked at with rose colored glasses, but it really was a bad time for fans of the sport.

 

I always try to avoid giving a drawn verdict to fights,but it's the only route I can go with this bout. Very boring to watch with little red blooded action from either man. Muhammad was under trained and sluggish while Jimmy sticking his head out of the ring got him a standing count on one occasion,which could have cost him the bout. On my card,anyway.

 

Yep ! I scored Norton the winner by two to three points in his bout with Jimmy.

 

Here comes the Ali excuse train again. Bill, I really respect you as a poster, although VK at 7 is one thing I really disagree on, but it shouldn't matter if 'Young showed you nothing in terms of seeking to be the champ' because at the end of the day Young clearly won more rounds than Ali.

When scoring a fight you don't look at the whole fight and say, oh well Ali did more
offensively and Young just sat on the back foot being awkward all night. You score it on a round by round basis and like I've already expressed, Young won more rounds than Ali.

Ali had it all his own way throughout his career and could have got away with shooting someone in the ring if he really wanted to. The only remotely respectable scorecard that one of the three judges gave that night was 70-68 Ali and it's still way off the actual score.

 

See the thing with this post is, you've expressed your feelings that Young one, yet you are still defending Ali and the judges more than your defending the fact that Young won. I don't see how you can't see it as a robbery when you look at the scores the judges gave. 72-65 is an absolute disgrace for this fight.

I'll take your word for the Norton fight for now. Not working today so I may check it out a bit later :good

 

Common bro, be serious. Anytime someone hints at the idea of criticising Ali the backlash they receive is normally twice as bad if not worse.

 

Great post ETM. The same excuses are made for Pac in every Marquez fight and whether it be the judges being paid off or they simply can't give a decision against manny because of all his achievements something is definitely not right and I feel the same way for plenty of fights Ali had. If you picked 3 qualified judges at random to score Norton-Ali III, Young-Ali and the Pac-Marquez trilogy with no strings attached, there's no way Ali would win both and Pac takes all 3 against Juan.

 

If I remember correctly I had the fight scored for Young but it was such a stinker of a fight I'm not gonna bother watching it again to prove myself otherwise. I agree with some sentiments posted already, Championships rarely change hands by descision and when it does it usually has to be a dominant performance, if you want to be the champ you gotta beat the champ and all that and Young didn't really 'beat' Ali.

 

I've scored 3 total rounds for Ali. Horrible decision and a really generous gift.

 

When I scored it I had it 8-7 for Young (143-142). It was a close fight and like Mr.Bill says I don't think Young really went and took it. The scoring was utterly ridiculous though, I mean, one judge had it 10-3 with 2 even for Ali? Seriously? The others had it 7-5 and 9-4. I know Young pulled some crap like basically leaning out of the ropes when under fire, but he won more rounds than some of those judges had it.

 

How many times did he do that, though? I remember seeing him like 2 or 3 times hiding between the ropes, and I believe it happened into one single round.

However, I'm pretty sure if Ali would have done it, we'd be talking about how brilliant and what a boxing genius he is for coming up with such a tactic.

 

I was about to add that in my post but wasn't sure! Yeah, think it was 1 round. I wouldn't have called it genius no matter who did it though, I remember giving Ali that round and Young's "tactics" played a huge part in that.

Nonetheless, it doesn't excuse the scoring.