he did ease up, from the 8th round, but theres truth also in what you say that his corner urged him to knock him out later, and he responded with that uppercut that put ali on the ropes. Truth is he could have landed that blow at any time from round 6 onwards. I have seen the fight.
ali ripped cooperman's face to bits at will both times they fought, inside half the scheduled rounds. The only time copper landed on ali effectively was that one time when ali was waving to someone in the crowd and then BOP! he paid for it. Every other minute of both fights , he was clowning Coop. Anyone trying to argue that ONE PUNCH out of two fights was some kind of indicator of the direction in the fight and an indicator of their comparative talents, but ignoring that practically every other punch and hussle was won by Clay easily, is mor.onic way beyond tko6 denial.
He weighed under 190 for at least 30 of his 55 pro fights and he was only above 14st once. Ali had over 20lbs on him in their first fight ie. the one Cooper dropped him. Cooper would've been perfectly suited to CW when the limit was 13st 8lbs.
"WOULD have been stopped"? He may have been dazed, but he was up immediately after the knockdown. And he was known for his tremendous recuperative powers.
As he was he was by far the best heavyweight Champ EVER!! Dont forget he was banned for THREE & A HALF YEARS in his prime years too Imagine what he could have been
Finally a sensible and knowledgeable post...who are these Morons that get on here and make insane Post's they can not be true Boxing Fan's surely....
Why would I assume that you haven't seen the fight while offering opinions on it? That would be totally idiotic. There are plenty of instances where people see the same fight event and totally disagree on many points. Nothing unusual.