Could Jimmy Young have beaten Muhammad Ali in a rematch?

I doubt it. Ali wasn't going to make the same mistakes twice. I think he would have beaten Jimmy on a close decision.

 

Probably not.
Ali was 230 pounds, fat and sloppy.
If they'd rematched I'd expect Ali to be in better shape and sharper.
Young couldn't really deal with Ali when Ali applied the pressure. He ducked out of the ropes a few times in desperate retreat. I imagine a conditioned Ali would have outworked him.

 

I can see ur thinking on that but I think it’s jimmy who wouldn’t make the same mistake again, not that I think he made one the first time. He didn’t take into account crooked judging. I know Ali would be in better shape but so would jimmy, and also having beaten him already his confidence would be up. He really wasn’t being pressed hard when stuck his head out the ropes, I think he was screwing with Ali really

 

At that point quite possibly yes. Muhammad Ali had shown considerable decline between 1976-1978 and in fact arguably lost his actual meeting with Jimmy Young and rubber match with Ken Norton. As much as I love “ The Greatest “ the only thing that was keeping his reign afloat at this point was partial judging and careful match making.

 

I dont think so, Ali didn’t train properly came in at 230lbs During the fight, a championship fight, on six separate occasions, Young ducked outside of the ropes when he was being pressured by Ali. These six occasions occurred in the seventh round, the eighth, the 12th, twice in the 13th and once more in the 15th. When he did it in the 12th round, the referee ruled it a knockdown and began a count.I personally think young should have been disqualified, disgraceful behaviour in a championship fight just because you are under pressure, also Ali was 11-0 in rematches, he would have learned by his mistakes and trained better.

 

Jimmy was and is pitifully underrated. Yes he certainly could have beaten Ali in a rematch because he was a cerebral fighter and would have had as many or more tricks up his sleeve to screw with, frustrate and negate Ali. The question is though, how much of a fight would there be between Jimmy Young and his ever present enemies...namely the officials scoring the fight?

 

• "The reason I kept ducking through the ropes, seriously, was to take some of the pressure off me." - Jimmy Young.

https://boxrec.com/media/index.php/Muhammad_Ali_vs._Jimmy_Young

 

I actually think Young might be the most overrated fighter on this board. Reading some posters you'd think he was an overlooked ATG. He wasn't.

 

Yes

 

In answer to the original question, Ali would've won the rematch.

I disagree with this post that the only thing keeping his reign alive was careful matchmaking.

He fought everyone in the Ring top 10 in 1976 except for Duane Bobick and Randy Neumann.

I highly doubt he skipped them because they were the ones who were going to beat him.

He fought top 10 heavys Foreman, Lyle, Frazier, Bugner, Wepner, Norton, Young and Shavers. That's eight of the top 10 in 1976.

He stopped four of the eight. And he nearly had Shavers out in the final round in their bout in 77. The Bugner bout was a clear win.

The only reason the Young fight was close was Ali was in the absolute worst shape of his career for any fight other than Holmes and Berbick.

I don't think he was carefully matched at all. It's not like 8 of the Ring top 10 heavyweights were garbage at that time.

Ali threw a few easy paydays in there with Dunn and Coopman and Evagelista, but I doubt Bobick or Newmann (who were ranked by Ring) would've done much better than that lot.

Even when Ali showed up in his absolute worst shape - like he did against Young - or whether he wasn't nearly as good as he used to be - in Norton III - the fights were razor close.

If Ali was just winning because of biased judges and careful matchmaking you think one of these top contenders in their prime and in their best shape could've dominated him. They weren't exactly bad fighters, either. Most were at their peaks.

And the top eight couldn't do much against him except, at best, two of the eight could argue (on their best nights) they barely edged the clearly declining champ.

 

No need for a rematch he beat him in the first fight

 

Yeah, that's something that seems to go completely unacknowledged by the Jimmy Young idolaters.

 

I rate Leon Spinks' showing against Ali to be far better than Young's anyway.

It's embarrassing for Young that he needed to stick his head out of the ring whenever the fat old Ali mustered an attack against him.

 

No, doesn't rhyme well with Young being the HW version of Benitez.