What if Futch had let Frazier go one more?

Frazier was getting battered. He would no doubt have been pulled out during the fifteenth.

 

We must have seen different fights.:huh Frazier had a real chance of being stopped in the 15th , he was getting hit clean with right hands.

 

Frazier would've wound up like like Benny Paret against Emile Griffith

 

I had Ali ahead at the time of the stoppage. If Ali said to cut the gloves off, I tend to think it was histrionics. I can't imagine Ali quitting. He's one of those guys who would rather die than lose. It was a good stoppage. I think the TKO of Frazier would have come in the 15th.

 

I fully agree. Ali's 'wanting to quit' was nothing more than a wistful yearning for respite. Ali and Frazier were warriors. Quitting was totally an alien concept for them.


If Dundee HAD actually started to cut Muhammad's gloves off,I can imagine something from Ali like "What are you doing,fool" ?

 

I remember Gil Clancy saying that he would've let frazier go out for the 15th if he was Joe's manager only because Ali was so exhausted that one good punch could've won it for Joe. While this was certainly possible, I think Futch made the right call.

 

Ali quitting.. this is a myth that I just don't believe. If that was said.. it was more to illustrate that he's fing tired.. not that he would actually quit

 

Futch made the right call... As much as I love Smokin Joe, he was battered badly in the 14th, and was unsteady walking back to his corner... Ali would have sucked it up, and really could have hurt Frazier who had one bad blinker. Frazier, I feel did not have enough strength left to lauch one more FOTC left hook...

 

Just so you all know....

The adrenaline dump from suddenly winning a good, tough fight is huge. I've scored a stoppage late in a difficult fight when I was completely gassed? I celebrated briefly, then had no desire to stand up anymore. Just left me.

Would I have collapsed during the round? Hell ****ing no. But the fight was over, I had won, and I had the freedom to be tired.

The folks that suggest Ali WOULD have fallen over DURING the round aren't pro athletes with experience working while tired. Ali wasn't going anywhere. I don't think Frazier was, either, but he was blind and getting mugged. Padilla probably stops the fight, he's said in interviews he was on the verge of doing it anyway.

Ali was winning that fight by a handful of points. He almost certainly wins by TKO, and if it goes the distance, he wins a wide decision. Big whup.

 

Good,and accurate,post :good

 

Ali fell to the ring canvas in exhaustion after the match, and said it was the closest he was to death, yet you are quite convinced he could have done another six rounds? Good one McGrain!

Regarding the stoppage, Fraizer didn't seem to protest it to much. His eyes had some swelling on them, but we have all seen much worse. Futch as the trainer could have thrown in the towel at any time in round 15.

 

Exactly, Ali was talking ****. Basically going, "This man is crazy. Eff this." But he was exhausted, but he would've went back out there and battered a near-blind Frazier, perhaps even stopping him considering how close the ref had considerations about stopping it. Futch did the right thing and took it in his own hands.

 

This can only be amplified in an actual combat sport. This is true of all sports, actually. So people who point to that have been away from competition far too long or something.

 

Exactly. When is the last time a professional athlete has literally collapsed from pure exhaustion at the end of a game or a fight?

It sure doesn't happen often. And Frazier was just about a dead man walking, doing nothing by getting hit for two straight rounds. He sure wasn't gonna do anything.