If I'd picked up a fiver each time I heard an 'Ali got flattened by Thingy in sparring' story, I'd be on a private yacht cruising the world....!! The Bob Foster one is a new one on ME. Nothing's impossible,but I find it incredible that the man who survived bombs from the likes of George Foreman and Earnie Shavers would get flattened by a light heavy. I actually knocked out Mike Tyson in a sparring session a few years ago. Then my alarm clock went off and I had to get up for work
I think the fact Ali beat the **** out of Bob in a real fight cancels this sparring session out if in fact it even happened. Ali by all accounts didn't go too hard in sparring anyway and mainly used sparring session to work on his fitness, footwork and defense but on a couple of occasions when a sparring partner got a little uppity he emphatically put them in their place (see Larry Holmes in the lead up to Zaire).
Don't know if it's been mentioned but Burley apparently KO'd Elmer Ray and was ruined by a body shot via Curtis Sheppard. For a Middleweight to get into the ring with Sheppard....**** that for a joke.
I have the footage of Monzon dropping Frazier. I have agreed not to let it out to the public, lest it loses its value on the trade circuit.
Naseem Hamed was Koed by a rugby player in sparring in the rugby players first ever sparring session! Ok the rugby player was 230lbs and Naz stuck his chin out, as he did, and the rugby player caught him flush!
Vicente Saldivar and Love Alloteys sparring session in London had to be broken up when things got a bit heavy and it turned into a real fight. Saldivar was training for the first Winstone fight.
I read somewhere that a young Chris Eubank decked Herol Graham in a session once. Herol,by all accounts,got up and gave Chris a bit of a beating.
I recall the Ali-Holmes one. Apparently word got back to Ali that Holmes was shooting his mouth off about being able to beat Ali,Frazier,Foreman and Norton given the oppurtunity.
He didnt knock him out but he did knock him down,Hamed then got up and broke the guys nose. This was about 1995.
How the hell have I not heard of this story??? Is it true? So did Naz beat the rugby player up afterwards?