like example George Foreman with Jod Ballard & Joe Louis with Pat Valentino & others ? This content is protected This content is protected
Louis KO 6 Toles was a real fight only called an exhibition due to some BS policy regarding scheduling prior to Carnera fight I give Louis full credit for knocking out Toles
Those two fights above (Foreman-Ballard and Louis-Valentino) were real fights (meaning they were all trying to win). But, before the fight, the fighters agreed the bout would be an exhibition. That meant the fighters could agree beforehand to come up with their own rules regarding how many rounds they could go, if one or both wanted to use headgear, the type of boxing gloves they wanted to use (bigger gloves or smaller), whether or not a decision would be rendered, whether or not they agreed to NOT KO each other ... basically the fighters create the rules for the bout. The Foreman-Ballard fight was also for charity to raise money for the US Olympic Fund. There were no judges. It was also George's first fight with Gil Clancy in his corner. Foreman donated his pay to the charity and used it to prepare for his upcoming fight with Ron Lyle. Caesars Palace in Las Vegas (which was going to host Foreman-Lyle) paid Ballard $6,000 for the exhibition. If Ballard thought George was just going to go through the motions, he was sadly mistaken. Same with Pat Valentino. His exhibition with Joe Louis was scheduled for 10 rounds. After Joe hurt Valentino in the second, he sort of backed off and used the fight to work off the ring rust. When the eighth round began, Joe turned it up and stopped Valentino in the same round Charles did when he defended against Valentino two months earlier. Apparently, Joe also had an exhibition scheduled with Lee Oma, who was on a bit of a run at the time and would later challenge Charles for the title. But Oma's manager pulled Oma out. Oma's manager said "These aren't exhibitions. Joe is back."
These were exhibition bouts. Thats why they were called exhibitions. Louis had tons of exhibitions where he was really trying to knock guys out but they were still unsanctioned bouts without judges, usually with shorter roundsm less round, and/or larger gloves.
If it was promoted as an exhibition, with shorter rounds, non regulation gloves, etc then yes. If it was promoted as a real fight during the no decision era with 3min rounds, regulation gloves, and whatever length was accepted in that state or city then no. In the no decision era the only difference between a fight with an official decision and one without was state law prohibiting said decision. The fights were fought on their merit, wages were placed on the outcomes, title fights were handed out based on the success of the fighters in those fights, fighters were injured, bled, and died in those bouts and they werent promoted merely as exhibitions. This has been done to death. I recall decades ago a debate carried on through the letters section of magazines whereby it was argued that Dempsey's KO record should be much higher because of all of the knockouts he scored in exhibitions. Luckily wiser heads saw through the attempts to pad his record and understood that an exhibition is just that and very often, regardless of how hard Dempsey was trying to knock his opponent out, his opponent was either not qualified to be in a sanctioned bout or himself went into the exhibition with the expectation that it was merely entertainment for the fans and not a competitive sporting event, which is often the case in exhibitions. If an exhibition is promoted as an exhibition, with the possibility of one or both fighters just putting on a show for the fans and not giving their best, and the rounds are shortened, the gloves are bigger, its unsanctioned by a state athletic commission, etc. then why should it be fall on the record as a legitimate bout regardless of the outcome?
December 7th 1949 man Louis really let the right hand go vs Valentino. Louis still looks plenty dangerous here I wonder if Louis went into some abrupt physical decline from December 1949 to September of 1950 when he fought Charles, because he wasn’t letting loose those fast heavy right hands vs Charles like he was in Valentino fight
In the 19th century they sometimes did real boxing/pugilism matches as exhibitions in an effort to avoid the authorities. Today, in some cases, that's still done in real (outcome not determined in advance) Submission Wrestling Club Matches, especially in Male vs. Female affairs.
Most fights of the Sullivan era. Titles changed hands based on exhibitions back then. It was either an exhibition or an illegal prize fight.
