Did Ali cheat against Foreman?

That is very measured & intelligent, & it is also quite fine to neutrally disagree with anything I say!
Yes we see things not that differently-such as the hips shots that if not effecting an outcome may benefit the violator for enforcing, if correct yes "let them fight". Maybe warn the offender between rounds informally...

I would still call it (milder) cheating to keep trying to do things that are technically against the rules.
How bad or if it matters much depends on the severity & impact of this "rule bending".
But far better to feel honor-bound *not* to perhaps get an undeserved win because you want to do the right thing, as an example to others & as a matter of personal pride.
To me it is not brilliant or commendable to keep trying to get away with something dicey.

 

It is likely an unintentional falsehood that I said anyone was becoming upset-again I very peaceably commented I hoped nobody was minding disagreements, & with the history of this place & some folks here this was a positive, encouraging humble & unobjectionable sentiment.

How some see boxing has no bearing on disqualifying critiques of bad conduct-we all draw the line differently but almost everyone is decent & rational enough not to say everything gotten away with is A-OK-as an example to others, youths, shaping future fights-& just how it effect the outcome of the bout in question. Liking the sport or not, we should & do render arguable moral judgements.

I have explained how I both agreed Foreman was cuckoo in his paranoid complaints-& throughout his history, including when crazily gracious & over-praising when "old & jolly"...He was just not a good judge of some things.
It is really reasonable to think he both did not consider how much frequent pulling & whole body leaning wore him out...
And if he did he had no shyness about complaining.
Also I said the shoving he did would have prevented him from getting at a fast out-boxer, nor thwarted offense & set up his own via distance for power shots.

Ali could not complain about Frazier's hip shots because they almost always came not just in mild retaliation, but to be able to get off any offense himself when illegally denied same! Ali was not some stoic tough guy *because* he said nothing-getting away with his illegal tactics was a far greater benefit to him, highlighting Frazier's would make it less likely he could unfairly frustrate a fair result for a whole fight-like in their second fight.

I love Ali, but we must be rigorously fair, & many clearly let affection, identification, mild hero worship interfere with the assessment of some of his sins-in & out of the ring.

We are all "arguing", as is anyone who contests what or how ba a foul is, what is subjective or how much so-nobody should be implied to be anything but maturely & carefully adding to the ongoing debate when they state the clear difference between fouls, serverity, intent, muse when the official should step in...

Clayton & all are not perfect; he certainly should have warned & thus very likely stopped all the holding & hard pulling of hea down early.
If Ali was somehow misinformed that this was OK, then that would not in a meaningful sense be cheating, since intent is not there-but nothing like this ever happened.
Many

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cited this illegal & excessive tactic throughout the years.
A commentator even mentioned how Ali was getting away with it during the broadcast.

That a survival instinct is present & often overrides intent-or sometimes awareness of committing fouls-is one reason to cut some slack.
But reminding a fighter OF what is legal & right is the ref's job.
As is discretion-since Frazier overwhelmingly hit low-& not in the cojones-to be able to fight at all against totally invalid faux-wrestling tactics is why-like those who preach a direct retaliation for say low blows-this lesser infraction SHOULD be tolerated if the rules are not properly enforced.

Obviously we all are applying our own subjective interpretations of what is how wrong & why.
This is Good & Proper: that if we do not want every minuscule, trivial &/or incidental infraction constantly stopping the action (& perchance also making things unfair) then it is untenable & irrational to critique anyone for making an assessment of what is right, when & why.

Now saying just why you impose your own subjective, different opinion-that is completely kosher.

 

He punched the hip when Ali wasn't holding him as well.

 

Hey if he did that often & intentionally, he deserves some condemnation too.
But I am not convinced this is the case.
And a hip shot seems lesser than stopping a fighter's potentially game changing assault illegally & pulling him is exhausting.

Someone said all great fighters have done whatever they needed to do to win.
No-besides times when some may have been less motivated, many fighters could have done more if they pulled effective illegal tactics more often-some never do many of these & other infractions, & often as a matter of Pride & Principle.

Including to feel good about their win & know it could be attained sportingly.

 

I think we view someone as a cheater rather than a rule bender when they do something unnatural to the game. You aren't supposed to be modifying gloves at all, or adding anything to an opponent's food and drink, whereas everyone holds sometimes.

Of course there are rabbit punches and late hits that happen accidentally but can be just as egregious as removing padding, but that's the exception.

Regarding Foreman and Ali, I believe that we underestimate the problem of the location. Even today, international travel can be very disorienting. Going to a place like 1970s Zaire is going to take it out of you. Obviously that affected Ali too but perhaps he was better prepared (I believe he also took more time in the country beforehand?).

 

Ali clearly believed there was a tactic to it, without condemning Frazier for it in any way. From memory he said that his hips felt like someone had taken a tire iron to them and that Frazier targeted them to lessen his mobility.

But I don't think either he or Frazier considered it to be cheating. I don't think Ali considered holding cheating either.

And tbf, holding has always been accepted to some extent in pro boxing. At some point refs will find it excessive, of course, but I can't remember seeing a pro fight with zero tolerance for holding.

 

Excellent distinctions made.

Holding/clinching is allowable to an arbitrarily judged degree - after which it is deemed excessive.

There is no allowance of low blows - no bandwidth for tolerance of same. Period.

Of course you are also correct that Frazier punched at Ali’s hips often enough when he wasn’t being held.

It presented as a deliberate tactic, part of an overall strategy.

To uphold the damage further, after the fight, Dundee also described the nasty hematomas on both sides of Ali’s hips.

And, deliberately punching to the hips to impair mobility can have no mean influence and impact on a fight - attempting to dilute the effects reflects bias.

And, if punching to the hips was seen as an “in kind” leveller to Ali’s holding, then there you go, no reason to complain - which NEITHER Ali or Frazier did.

Illogical to maintain and indulge in Ali’s alleged cheating and Frazier’s right to complain about same but forbid Ali the same right.

Atop all that, Ali wasn’t scored for holding but more than likely Joe scored points for every hip shot landed - compound advantage.

If one claims that many complained through the years - it would be a good idea to actually cite examples.

Further, IF there was A commentator who noted that Ali was holding excessively and/or cheating, packaged as “getting away with it” then it would actually be a good idea, again, to name that commentator and the context.

I’ll make it easy. It was Bob Bob Sheridan. Round 8, just prior to the KO. Ali held for a second or two. Sheridan said “Ali hanging on, getting away with it”.

One reference throughout a whole fight - and it wasn’t applicable to excessive holding in that moment and even it was, it was only observation of that moment. An absolute straw clutch.

And, in that moment and one reference., Sheridan more likely meant getting away with it in so far as Ali being able to hold on to Foreman and not getting destroyed in the meantime.

There was no direct statement or implication then or prior to that Ali was holding excessively or cheating,

If one opens both eyes they will see Foreman employed the forearm on several occasions, he also attempted to push, including trying to leave the outstretched arm in Ali’s face and he also initiated a number of attempts to grab onto Ali himself - Ali simply did it better than George.

Comments from Joe Frazier during the fight: Zack Clayton is doing a very good (perhaps verbatim he said excellent) job. George is fighting foolish. Ali is fighting smart.
No more, no less.

Again, attempts persist in trying impose finite, heavy moralisations within an arguably immoral sport - thereby walking oneself into a world of contradictions that they will spend forever trying to extricate themselves from.

Suggesting flatly that it is irrational to highlight the obvious paradoxical nature of the argument is,well,…highly irrational in itself.

It is also irrational to introduce the question/possibility of anyone being “upset” when there is no indication that anyone is.

That’s a completely off point address and normal comprehension interprets the author to be indicating that he/she believes someone maybe upset. It’s that simple. Just stick to the subject.

And, it isn’t absurd to allow for the use of a tactic meant to short circuit similar tactics your opponent is KNOWN to uniformly employ.

It’s actually foolish not to understand and appreciate the employment of such an anticipatory strategy - and as stated above, look at what Foreman tried to do - don’t just watch Ali.

Some people are simply unable to move on from an exchange of opinions on the subject that leaves nothing more to say - instead, they repeat themselves, over and over, with nothing new to add.

 

I think you'r point about scoring is a good one. In FOTC Dunphy repeatedly says that Ali holding/initiating the clinches might cost him in the scoring. And it likely did in close rounds, of which there were several. As it should, I might add. The judges have good reason to see Ali's holding as proof of effective aggressiveness on Frazier's part and thus include it in the scoring.

There's is nothing suggesting Frazier's hip shots hurt him in the scoring, though. As you say, they might instead have been viewed as scoring punches since the ref never warned Frazier about them.

 

Good points from you and @Pugguy — by design, a judge cannot deduct points for perceived infractions that the referee does not.

A judge is not allowed, for instance, to dock a guy points for hip shots or other low blows that the ref doesn’t penalize. He or she can, however, choose not to count those as scoring blows (same with rabbit punches, etc.).

And I’ve seen posts here and there from members of our forums judging fights where they disagreed with a referee scoring or not scoring a knockdown and disregarding it — a judge cannot say ‘well I think he was knocked down so I’m going to score it as such even if the ref ruled it a slip,’ nor can he say ‘I thought it was a slip/push so I’m going to score this as if there was no knockdown even though the ref called it a knockdown and counted.’ Doesn’t mean he can’t score a one-sided round 10-8 regardless of no knockdown or 10-9 instead of 10-8 if it’s a flash knockdown, etc., but he cannot apply his own refereeing to his judging, so to speak.

So a judge may decide that Ali’s holding in the second Frazier fight in certain rounds is an indicator that Joe is getting the better of that round and give it to Frazier, but he can’t then deduct a point from Ali on his own volition.

Nearly every fight sees some infraction that the ref doesn’t warn for or just issues a slight warning without stopping the action — a blow on the beltline may get a mere ‘keep ‘em up’ but not an actual warning, or ‘watch your heads’ instead of a warning for butting, etc. It’s a fight. Things happen.

 

I agree that Clayton should have been harder on Ali's holding and pushing on Foreman's head, but cheating is not the word I'd use. Fighters, especially fighting for the biggest prize in sports, will push the envelope a bit and see where the ref draws the line. Foreman, one of the most physical fighters ever, certainly did.

Should the ref been firmer against Foreman's pushing of Frazier? Probably. Was it cheating? No, I wouldn't call it that. Almost all pro fights allow for some pushing or holding, it's the refs job to draw the line of exactly how much is ok, not the fighter's.

Then you have plasters of Paris etc that are meant to go unnoticed by officials when they're used and where there is no grey areas, and also are dangerous for the other fighter in a wholly different way. That's definitely cheating.

 

Spot on and old Don made sure we didn’t miss his point by repeating it sooo many times. LOL. And true, excessive holding/clinching should hurt in the scoring but again we return to first base first (sorry, Abbott and Costello reference) as to varying interpretations of the term “excessive” due to lack of a rigid, finite limit for same (= holding). .

 

Good post. That’s pretty much how I interpret scoring, penalising etc. and the authorities that different officials are invested with.

 

Agreed.

And when one does address and focus in on one particular tactic they interpret as a foul (and possibly cheating by extension), it will naturally call in and should be expected to call in numerous other practices to compare it against - opening up a Pandora’s Box, so to speak which then highlights that there a lot of things done in boxing that aren’t done by the book which might then lead to further subjective disagreements as to what technical infractions are worse or more okay than others.

For the sake of categorisation and further distinction, I suppose you could put plaster of Paris or removing the fill from gloves etc.under fouls pertaining to hardware and or tampering of the hardware. At the very least, both fighters should only be availed of the same prescribed accessories to do their job.

 

That Darn Muhammad Ali, Ali should have not hidden under the ring when the ref's back was turned. maybe the Warren Commission should investigate Zaire too. George is just sour grapes, a lot of Ali haters out there. Ha Ha.