And let's ignore Ali's trademark illegal tactic of holding Young behind the neck, trying to forearm Young and going long spells without even throwing a punch...
Young tried to leave the ring on a half dozen occasions. No challenger wins the hwt championship in this manner unless he also scores a ko.
Silly and idiotic. No fighter get praised by attempting to leave the ring 7 times during a hwt championship bout. Crazy talk.
A great sound bite- he tried to leave the ring during championship fight. To bad its not true, it gives the impression to someone who never saw the fight that Jimmy actually wanted to leave the ring on several occasions during the fight. Hey Perry, why do you keep repeating this load of ****? Young schooled ali that night. He took what Shavers, Lyle, ****ey, Foreman and others could dish out, do you think ali could bother him? Are you kidding me? He fought what he thought was a smart fight. ali had a way of coming from behind and stealing or KOing a guy late in a fight. I think jimmy knew he was ahead and was being safe as far as not being careless and going for broke. I know that's what a lot of guys want to see, a guy just being dumb and exchanging needlessly when he's ahead in a fight. He did more than enough to win that night, he hit and did not get hit! only a select few boxers had or have that capability
He lost the fight due to that tactic which was the most graphic illustration of his refusal to engage the champion.
he did engage ali all night long, landed much more than credited for, constantly counterpunching after making ali miss. the ducking out of the ropes thing, I don't think its a big deal, just an odd tactic, I don't think its bad or good either, a complete non issue. it doesn't illustrate anything except a kind of odd move during a fight.
Yeah, all very "champion-like" tactics....but of course, to the Perrys of the world, all brilliant and innovative moves.
This is stupid logic Fight are scored on a round by round basis. Judge: "Gee, Ali landed nothing that round and Young landed some good shots, but Young struck his head through the ropes so I have to give the round to Ali." Maybe, that is what happened, but judging shouldn't really work that way.
If you know the sport you SHOULD KNOW that history shows that Young was not the first or the last challenger to lose a championship fight because of non aggression. A champion constantly coming forward trying to engage a challenger who then does everything he can to NOT engage including trying to leave the ring a half dozen times is not going to win many rounds. That's typically how pro boxing at the championship level works.
But, that's not really what happened in Ali/Young. Apparently, You and the judges didn't notice all the counterpunching Young did. A good example of a situation where a guy did everything not to engage would be Camacho/Trinidad or Camacho/De La Hoya. Camacho held, ran and stalled - and rightly lost just about every round. I agree that sometimes judges don't correctly interpret the criteria "effective aggression." Sometimes they favor the aggressive guy even if he wasn't effective. Examples are Ali/Young Chavez/Whitaker Ramirez/Whitaker I
Trying not to engage??? Jimmy engaged with every forward step ali made with crisp counterpunching. It was ali who went to the hospital after the fight, not Young.
The leader post may 1 1976 When asked why he ducked his head outside the ropes at least five times Young said: "To keep the pressure off of me. It was part of my strategy"