Muhammad Ali vs Jimmy Young: who really won?

So should they have given the 2nd Ali - Frazier fight to JF? Just to even out what the ref wasn’t doing of course.

 

Ali was soundly outboxed in this fight. He was out of shape, and forced to lead, he looked like a fish out of water. As for all the hoopla about Young sticking his head out of the ropes, Ali clearly crowded him and rather than clinch Young did the ill advised move of sticking his out of the ropes. The ref didn’t call it early on, had he, I bet Jimmy doesn’t do it anymore and goes on to win just like the actual fight. The ref didn’t make the call, until Young did it too many times, then he was rightly penalized. Ali apologists cling to this infraction to justify a bad decision.

 

Ali won.
The judges' decisions aren't always good but they are part of boxing. Two men agreed to fight and agreed to let the judges decide the winner. They couldn't or wouldn't knock the other out, so it went to the judges.

 

Let Young have the win. Ali was physically old, fat, and disinterested. All the attributes that made Ali Ali except his heart and guts had abandoned him. He was literally throwing and not caring what was coming back. That's why Young stuck his head out of the ring. He could have been like Sonny Liston, Roberto Duran, and Mike Tyson and just quit.

 

He could also have taken the opportunity of a lifetime ,which was handed to him on a plate, and seized it with both hands.
Taking the heavyweight title from a fat, disinterested ,complacent ,aging champion,but he didn't have it in him to do so.

Some of his close losses could have been wins,but imo ,he did not have the mentality of a Champion,and on his biggest night,he failed to step up to the plate and put the matter beyond doubt.

That's why he will always be just another, "nearly man," instead of a Champion.

 

That’s basically it… he beat Ali but it wasn’t a spirited effort, he fought in his usual “scared” sort of way with enough room for doubt which is all a spoiler like JY needs to have a decision taken from them, it’s a business nobody wanted the 2nd fight and giving it to MA appealed to the masses even if it was a bit of a robbery so they screwed Jim.

 

Clinching is a actually a legal part of boxing, and what’s considered ‘excessive clinching’ is subjective depending on the referee, so Ali was acting within the rules, and it’s up to the ref to call whether he thinks it’s excessive or not.

What Young was doing was flat out illegal, or at the very least, he was ‘legally’ taking a count, which he should’ve been given by the rules, each and every time he stuck his head through the ropes.

 

lol can you watch Frazier vs Ali 2 and explain how that was “legal” ? - they both committed crimes against boxing with there performances.

 

You’re not wrong Swag - Young threw plenty of deliberate shots below the belt - and he also initiated his own fair share of clinching and holding.

Young was no angel in there but he was very good at playing the aggrieved victim even while being guilty of his own, obvious infractions.

I don’t want to put myself through watching that again - lol - but from last viewing I felt that a well below par Ali still won a close fight.

 

Perfect. This cannot be argued against.

 

Posters can believe what they want but if you count every time Young ducked out of the ring as a knockdown, six times, it's virtually mathematically impossible to score the fight for him on a five point must system.

 

The judges can`t rule it a KD if the ref doesn't, but effective aggression and defence are scoring criteria just as clean punching is, so they are within their rights to give all of those rounds to Ali because of his effective aggression, and perhaps even Young's lack of proper defence, I suppose.

I can understand that take, since it's such an anomoly to act like that.

Maybe the ref really hurt Young by not giving him a count the first time. If that would have kept him from repeating it, maybe he would have won the decision.

 

Ali left all his fight at the dining room table.

 

I rescored it, using the 5 point must system, they used, and scored the fight for Muhammad Ali 68-65. On my card, for better or worse, Jimmy Young lost a lot of points for sticking his head out of the ring. If Jimmy had never done that, I would have had him the winner easily. But he did it repeatedly and I penalized him every time he did it.

 

It should have been a draw..
And they should have had to fight another 3 times at least.