Would you consider Ali an embarrassment to boxing after manilla

Anyone who actually watched Ali-Spinks 1 knows Ali didn't "throw" the fight. The 15th round won Round of the Year in 1978. Ali tried to close the show against Spinks in the final round, like he closed the show against Shavers the fight previously, and Leon just matched him punch for punch.

 

No, it isn't. Ali's was in very poor shape, but he tried to win the fight. The embarrassment was Young sticking his upper body through the ropes repeatedly.

 

And no rematch with foreman

 

He stopped George Foreman, Joe Frazier, Jerry Quarry (twice), Ron Lyle, Jimmy Ellis, Oscar Bonavena, Floyd Patterson, Bob Foster (the dominant light heavy champ) and had Earnie Shavers out on his feet ... won lopsided decisions over Joe Bugner (twice), Mac Foster and George Chuvalo.

Who else stopped or dominated all those guys?

Genius.

 

Foreman took off ALL of 1975 to recover mentally from his beatdown by Ali.

He returned to action in 1976 and barely beat Lyle (who Ali had already stopped).

Then he lost at the start of 1977 (to someone Ali had already beaten) and quit.

 

Yes yes blahblahblah... Ali fought a rematch with norton in 1976 and foreman ranked above norton every day and twice the sunday... He gave fights to complete bums post 1975.
And your argument "he barely did lyle" is laughable, ali "barely did beat frazier in 1975 "and norton did deat him (robbed)and foreman killed both them

 

He was not impressive because he often entered the ring in less than good condition .. Coopman an Dunn were two fo the least qualified men he ever fought. He looked terrible against Young and could have lost. He should have lost to Norton. He was clearly on a downhill slide.

 

My "argument he barely did lyle"? What and who are you talking about? Who is "he?"

Ali beat all the top fighters of the 1970s, stopping nearly all of them. The moment he opened up on Lyle, the fight was over.

He was the dominant heavyweight that era. And in many of his title fights in the 70s, he didn't train all that hard, while they trained for the fight of their lives. And they still didn't beat him.

Foreman didn't beat or stop Ali, Quarry, Bonavena, Ellis, Shavers, Young, Bugner or most of the contenders of the 1970s.

 

He was on the downhill slide. They fought their absolute best. And they still lost.

Just shows how much better than them he actually was. His bad performances against their very best and those fights are still toss-ups.

When they had bad fights, and their opponents were at their best, like Norton against Shavers and Young against even ordinary guys like Ocasio, Norton and Young weren't great enough to fight on near-equal terms with their opponents.

 

No he was just an aging great fighter. But I don't think he ever looked embarrassing. I don't recall any fighters looking embarrassing. I think sometimes Floyd handpicking guys at the right time and winning rather boring fights was more embarrassing if anything than someone like Ali who came to fight.

 

Actually Berbic

I actually think Berbick vs Ali was quite close. I suspect that Berbick somehow knew that if he did just enough to avoid any credible outcry that Ali was robbed, he could count on the judges giving him the decision anyway. I'm not saying necessarily that Berbick verbally communicated with the judges directly, but I have a strong hunch that there was somehow a silent agreement that he could afford to go easy on Ali without risk of losing the decision, and humanely did so.

My alternate hypotheses, considerably less likely, is that a new medication (or something) temporarily eased Ali's Parkinson's symptoms just enough to make room for one last decent performance.

I don't know how else to make sense of what I actually saw when I watched the fight.

 

Ali an embarrassment No No No.

That is unless you count a lot of other former Heavyweight Champs as embarrassments, be that Dempsey not facing number one challenger and putting the title on ice for long period, Louis defending against fighters who were sometimes coming off one or more losses, Jack Johnson defending title when totally out of shape, Patterson making Liston wait 2 yrs as number one contender before giving him his title fight opportunity, the list can go on.

Alis place in the annals of boxing history is totally safe and regarding embarrassment well he was no more than any other.

 

first of all don't change the topic , here we are talking about post 1974, quarry ,ellis and bonavena were in their primes before of 1974, they would not be rivals for foreman in the mid/late 70s bugner and shavers should not be allowed even being sparring partners of foreman. young?lol Young exposed ali badly. Foreman stopped badly frazier and norton, 2 guys that were better and ranked higher than all the bunch that you mentioned and ali struggled and lost to both.you can make the excuses that you want ali 76 would not beat foreman at that time

 

Being in poor shape for a fight and clowning for a round is perhaps an embarrassing performance, but it doesn't equate "embarassament to boxing" for me.

The main champion from the 20's drew the color line and didn't defend at all for three years. If Dempsey had defended against Greb and Wills during the same year but been in poor shape and not really comitted for Greb, I'd consider that a huuuuuuuuge step up from his actual reign.

And Dempsey in turn won it from a champion who had gone inactive for years and who himself won it from a champion who... You get the drift.

The 30's was better than the preceding decades, but Braddock cutting a deal with Louis people to side step Schmeling wasn't the nicest of moves.

EDIT: Our debate had perhaps evolved to how embarrassing and seemingly fake that fight was rather than if Ali was an embarrassement to boxing. I don't think the fight seemed fake, but Ali clearly wasn't in shape and he had underestimated Young and Young did some embarrassing stuff himself, so, yes, the fight can be seen as an embarrassement in itself and for Ali. No shame in having a close fight with a peak Young at that stage in his career, but he clearly should have come in more motivated and better prepared. It didn't seem fake or fixed to me, though.

 

I do think Ali's after the Norton rubber was bad

Yeah, as you say, there are several ATGs up for "The Embarrassement to Boxing Award" if we're going to hand it to Ali.

Frazier going out on a music tour after FOTC instead of defending against live contenders then coming in in **** shape against Foreman certainly qualifies in that case, as do Holmes's years after Cooney. Bowe, Old Foreman... The list goes on.