Foreman in Zaire

The Zaire fight has always consider to be "shaky"....being that was the fight that Don King was able to grab ahold of the Heavyweight title thru Ali's victory.

 

The fight is not shaky at all in actuality.

First Foreman was counted out. Ten and out and the ref waved his arms in classic fashion. The count was timed on WW of Sports a few weeks after it occurred and the count was a very valid 10 seconds.

George has admitted that he was so distraught after losing he made every excuse possible.....loose ropes, being drugged etc. He admitted that Ali was a big 215 pound hwt and "their was just so many right hands he could take".

The bout was one of the greatest victories in boxing history. George was considered invincible and many felt Ali would get seriously injured. Instead after finding adverse ring conditions and a faster and better opponent than he expected in round one he altered his tactics and found a way to win and win in spectacular fashion.

 

No way was the fight shaky. Foreman was legit trying to take his head off with those swings. If one of those landed flush he could of killed Ali.

 

Let's be honest, if we strip away the love of the legend, there's A LOT wrong with that fight.

Imagine a mad dictator like Mobutu buying boxing's biggest fight. Political prisoners and other 'undesirables' actually rounded up and held captive under the stadium that night.
Who exactly was supervising the fight ?

 

D!ck Sadler was very possibly a shady character.
No one knows if Foreman was drugged in that fight or not but it's not completely out of the question.

 

If Mbutu and Don King is enough evidence of something fishy, then the same is true for much of boxing history. Of the 40's and 50's when the mob had a steady grip of boxing and 80's and 90's when Don King had, for starters. So should we start with dismissing all results during these years?

Hell, you could as well say that we can't rule out that LaMotta was drugged in his last fight with Robinson. Or that the fan man wasn't hired by Holyfield. Didn't DeJesus fade very quickly in his rematch with Duran - which was held on Duran's home ground? Hell, Wlad has looked like he was drugged in every fight he has been KO'd.

With that reasoning you can cast doubt on most results and most careers.

 

So what do you think of all the fights during the time when King had managed this hold? During the times of Holmes, Tyson and Holyfield? Should we consider all those fights "shaky"? We know that we have some damn shaky scores, like Tyson-Douglas and Holyfield-Lewis...

 

I can't recall another major fight being staged by Mobutu's regime.
I don't have much information on the Zaire boxing commission of that time, but have reason to doubt they were even up to boxing's normal low standards of integrity.

No, shouldn't dismiss any results without reason.
There are known fixes.
Difference is, the mob problem in boxing was well-documented and investigated through the era, and yes, there were fishy results and proven corruption. American politicians and the freedom of the press, and the NY boxing commission - while nowhere near 100% clean themselves, by any means - did in fact at times expose fixes and other criminal corruption.

It's a bit different to doubt an entire era based on the existence of criminal organizations, and to question the supervision and regulation of a single fight based on the obvious totalitarian criminality of the regime. A regime that would allow very little investigation.
It's just a different thing.

If you can prove that this fight was supervised and regulated even to the low common standard expected in the USA at the time, that would settle some of the doubts.

Nobody has brought specific allegations about being drugged in those fights.
Foreman seems to keep coming back to a story where he believes D!ck Sadler drugged him.
I have no idea whether that was true or not. Nor do you.

I do however believe boxers have been drugged in fights before, and it's not just something out of the movies.
Yes, boxing is full of unscrupulous characters.

We can cast doubt on quite a lot.
It often makes sense to.

 

Again Foreman admitted all his excuses for losing this fight were just that excuses. He stated "Ali was a big 215 pound hwt and their were just so many right hands I could take".

There was no fast count, the ref did not "stop" the fight, Foreman was counted out and Dundee did not loosen the ropes.

Instead the reality is Ali in round one found Foreman to be better than expected. He was exhausting himself because of the pressure from Foreman and the ring canvas being to heavily padded. (VERY difficult to move side to side with a thickly padded canvas). Ali indeed altered his fight plan in between rounds one and two because of what he saw in round one. The ropeadope was born and Ali regained his title.

 

this could not be more irrelevant, foreman overpowered bigger and stronger guys than ali, norton,frazier looked far stronger than ali in 1971, ali looked a fragile guy next to joe running away around the ring, mel turnbow,jack o'halloran, ron lyle etc
ali won because stylistically he matched well with foreman plus the circunstances of the weather, the place etc favored ali. i have no excuse for his win, ali is the greatest, but ali had no intention of a rematch with foreman because the same tactic would not work twice and he is not outboxing foreman in the late 70s

 

Foreman never stated anything about Ali being a big 215 pounds or anything about Ali's power. Ali didn't alter his attacks and find a way to win. According to Ali his plan was to outbox Foreman, but when he got in the ring he realized Foreman was to quick at cutting off the ring. According to Ali he could do nothing as long as Foreman had this strength so his only plan was he hoped he didn't get knocked out and he hope Foreman got tired. Not much of a plan.

It is funny when people like you keep saying Ali planed the rope a dope when he stated he didn't. Ali got lucky and avoided Foreman in a rematch.

 

Foreman's legs sure did look shaky pretty soon in that fight. I don't believe there was no foul play, heat exhaustion or possibly him just getting his a$$ kicked could be the reason.

Big George did indeed take some shots from Ali, just watch the fight and count how many jabs and right hand leads Ali hit him with. With the exception of Frazier not many guys gonna take shots like that all night.

Please guys correct me if I'm wrong but I believe late in the fight (Round 5 or 6) that Foreman did connect with one of those thunderous blows and Ali took it well.

 

Where did I write Ali planned the ropeadope tactic? He planned to move and box but the slow ring and an opponent that was better than expected forced him to abandon his original plan and instead work off the ropes.

Foreman did in fact state "Ali was a big 215 pound hwt and there was just so many right hands I could take". He stated this at the start of his comeback during a several hour conversation with Art Rust on his NY based radio program back in the late 80's.

Ali would have beaten Foreman at any time from 74 to 76. Past this time Ali was too far gone physically.

I watched ALL of these bouts live and lived through all the build ups leading up to and post fight.