45 Years Ago Today, Ali's Last Hurrah......

The fight that should never have happened, but unfortunately had to happen.

 

A horrible.....horrible event,Fergy. A fight that,even after all this time,I have never been able to bring myself to watch. With the exception of one or two snippets on the Champions Forever film.

 

I never watched it live or near enough the time it happened, it wasn't til years later on YouTube.
I'll tell you what mate, I only watched a couple of the first round,that was enough for me.
How the hell it went as far as it did with Holmes just jabbing away and Ali covering up on the ropes, I'll never know.
Like you said Stevie, horrible fight.

 

An absolute nightmare,Fergy. The Berbick-Ali fight was n't QUITE as painful to watch. After hearing the result on the radio the morning after the fight and hearing that Muhammad was at least competitive with Berbick,I watched it on TV later on that day. Once was enough. Same applies to Joe Frazier in that comeback fight with Floyd Cummings. I never felt the need to watch it again.

 

Yes mate, the Berbick fight wasn't quite as awful to watch.
The Frazier fight was another Husk of a once great fighter going through the motions.
But at least they ended up hearing the last bell, unlike poor Kenny Norton getting blasted out in one round.

 

Yeah,I really felt for Ken in that fight with Cooney.

 

Was bad mate.

 

His last hurrah was 14 months after the Holmes debacle, in a very underrated performance against Trevor Berbick. I scored it a draw, a draw against a guy who just had fought for a belt and would later claim a belt. This performance was far more indicative of Ali's state than the Holmes bout. And judging by what is seen, with proper training camps and adequate matchmaking he could have captured a belt in the 1980's and fought on to the doorstep of the Tyson era, nay, the Lewis era. He was not yet even 40 when he turned in that sterling performance against Berbick.

 

... is this a troll post? he was battling a horrible combo of early onset Parkinsons and CTE.

 

Don't watch it. Starts with Holmes throwing jabs and 1-2's, and Ali mostly blocking them with his face. And Holmes being cautious, wondering wtf is going on with Ali, is he playing possum or something. Then it turns into Ali struggling to hold his hands up in a corner while Holmes tries to knock him out. In the last round or so, Holmes gives up trying for the KO and just pops jabs.

There's a point where at the end of a round, Holmes walks back to his corner with his hands held up in an expression of "you guys seeing this ****? what's going on?"

At least that's my memory from the time I forced myself to watch it.

 

One columnist (can't remember who) said that the Ali-Holmes bout-"wasn't a fight, but an execution."

That pretty much nailed it! (I watched it back in 1980 and felt sickened by it-haven't watched it since nor will I ever!!)

 

Pretty much all your fighters, favorites and unknown, are battling cognitive issues. If that's your bar you should not watch the sport. Many of the most successful ones go directly into speech therapy once their career is over, to hide the effects for as long as possible. But pretty much anyone who has exchanged punches in a ring for a limited duration is dinged up.

That said, his performance against Berbick was far better than that against Holmes, not a revelation but a revelation might have come in the next fight or one after that. It's no secret he continued to spar throughout the 80's. From a purely fighting point of view, accepting that it is up to the man to make his own decisions on the future, he had something left in the tank.

 

I think Seamus messes around sometimes.