i think ali deserved the decision in the FOTC.

I really am curious what people think of this. Also we must account for lopsided scoring rounds like 11 & 15, & add up the total points per round, not just the # of rounds, this is basic detail for scoring a fight.

I recall Ali saying he landed more blows & thought he should have won.
But aggressiveness, power punches, ring generaliship & knockdowns also mean something.

WAS there the reverse of the later, pro=Ali bias operating?
Is it really fair to call the kd essentially a lucky punch?
You could say Ali was lucky Frazier bought his 11th round jive about not being hurt.

I do not think I score fights very effectively, & this one is The Mother of All interesting contests. Whddya Thunk about who won, addressing all the above concerns, & why?

 

There's no way you can give Ali all of the first five rounds. At least one or two of those were Frazier's.

The difference is: when Ali was landing, Frazier walked through it. When Frazier landed his hook, he hurt Ali over and over.

If you score this fight as an amateur fight, maybe Ali gets the nod. Under professional rules, Frazier takes it comfortably.

 

Pretty much agree with this. Usually scores it something like 9-6 to Frazier.

 

Watched this fight about 10 times and NEVER thought Ali came close to winning it.

 

With Ali waving to the crowd...shaking his head "NO" every time Frazier hit him...and lying on the ropes because he couldn't do anything with Frazier...hardly spells victory for Ali.
Frazier did most of the fighting that night...Ali couldn't dictate the tempo of the fight that night in '71...went to see it on closed circuit TV...nobody thought that Ali won the fight.It's all hindsight now.

 

Frazier won this fight clearly

 

As most on here will already know,I'm an out and out Ali fan but there's no way I reckon he won the FOTC. It was a brutal battle for both men and,physically,Frazier came off the worst. He declined afterwards while Muhammad made up some lost ground until he started HIS decline after the Foreman fight three years later. Now while Muhammad may have won the war it was Frazier who won that particular battle.

I made it a close but clear decision for Joe. 9 - 6 in rounds.


Bizarrely,I once knew someone else who claimed that Muhammad won this fight but scored the second one for Joe :huh which Ali won beyond all doubt in my opinion.

 

I'm glad someone else saw Ali winning too. I thought he won enough rounds to take it on points. A prime Ali would have torn Frazier a new *******. If compubox stats could be generated for that fight, the numbers would be heavily in Ali's favor. Just look at Frazier's face after the fight, the guy was a walking punching bag.

Ali just didn't have the punching power to put his lights out.

 

You can make a case for Ali based upon the round scoring system. Though the 10 point must system seems much fairer-how is it right that regardless of degree of domination or knockdowns all rounds are scored even? But if the system IS round by round, that is how it must be decided.

Ali scored more blows. Though for anyone familiar with pro boxing, it is disingenuous to use this argument alone, since aggressiveness, effectiveness/impact of blows, & ring generalship mean a lot too. Ali could at best be arguably credited with the latter.

Ali's face was "grotesquely swollen" from the KO blow. And apparently while he denied he loist, he admitted so privately. [url]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fight_of_the_Century[/url].

It is not relevant for judging the fight, but Ali showed shameful, personally mocking behavior towards Frazier, playing upon vicious racism & humiliating him cruelly. Not only unethical, but a hypocritical BETRAYAL after Frazier gave Ali money no questions asked when Ali was hurting during exile, & repeatedly tried to intercede at the highest levels including with president Nixon to get Ali reinstated. He should have crawled to Frazier on his knees after the bout proclaiming he was The Greatest: because he promised to do so if he lost.

To say Frazier WAS A "WALKING PUNCHING BAG" IS ABSURD. oops on the caps, but it is a good accidental expression. That phrase implies Frazier was not hitting back & helpless. Those are what the actual words mean. While Frazier hurt Ali more than vice versa, & only his playing possum in the 11th round saved an early kd or ko.

Now again there is a CASE to be made with the round scoring system, since Ali more often shaded the rounds he won rather than dominated. And you would have to throw out the normal bias that close fights go to the champion. AND you would have to argue that the official scoring for the bout was wrong & likely biased: 9-6, 8-6-1 (refree Mercante) & 11-4.

I can see rejecting the outliar score. I seriously wonder though IF the round system could have reasonably given the decision to Ali.
Not that this would be the fairest way to score a fight, BUT if it is in place it must be followed.

The best argument i can see to add in Ali's favor could be looking at the official scoring of the the 1st 5 rounds. Did you know that ALL judges gave Frazier 3 of them? If that is changed to 1 round for Frazier, Ali takes it.

So that could be bias for Frazier, & if so, this would likely be because the establishment & judges sympathized with Frazier's plight, & the pro-war folks sided with him. As per the link above:

"The fight became an extension of the strife that existed within the country, as Ali had become a symbol of the left-wing anti-establishment movement during his government-imposed exile from the ring,[7] while Frazier, as a matter of convenience, was adopted by the conservative, pro-war movement. According to the 2009 documentary Thriller in Manila, the match, which had been dubbed "The Fight", "gripped the nation, but also split it down the middle. If you were rooting for Ali you were black, liberal or young, against Vietnam and for the Civil Rights movement. If you backed Joe Frazier you were a representative of white, conservative America."[8] The Fight was one of the most anticipated events of the 20th century, and transcended boxing.[5]"

So I am left with thinking that Frazier should have won the fight under the most reasonable & fairest scoring system, but Ali might well have deserved it under the rules in effect, which just awarded rounds absent any accounting for dominance during them.

How many can look again at these issues absent any bias even decades after the cultural war has faded? If only due to personal preferences & conditioned & solidified conclusions.

SINCE all judges gave Frazier most of the 1sr 5 rounds, were they not wrong there & in all likelihood biased?

 

Arthur mercante, once said if ali fought a bit harder, he would of won. That shows joes abilities against a guy who was out for 43 months, with 2 tune ups!!

 

Yes he did and Mercante was generous towards Ali imo.
Ali clearly won the second fight, and the third.Enough said!

 

I have Frazier winning 11 rounds. Larry Merchant, who was a Philly sportswriter said in his book that he felt Ali was robbed.