The most unjust victory ever given to Ali

Ali—Liston II

 

The fixed fights with Liston. The decisions over Norton, Shavers and Young.

 

The phantom punch.

 

A win by Ali that I thought was handled terribly by the referee was the Jerry Quarry rematch.

I've seen all of Ali's fights so many times, none of them rarely elicit a reaction anymore.

But any time I see the Ali-Quarry rematch, the fact that the referee just let Ali punch away with all that tape hanging from his gloves always makes me angry.

I've never seen anything like that ever again. No fighter is allowed to punch away at a fighter's eyes with tape flying around like that, particularly because all of Ali's shots were head punches.

It's not like he was throwing to the body the whole time, with tape coming off.

I don't think Quarry should've won. Not at all. It's just how Ali was allowed to throw so many punches with a yard of tape hanging from his gloves.

Just absolutely ridiculous. And unjust. It wasn't right or fair.

 

Jones is not controversial. Shavers not very much so either.

Norton 3 and Young are the controversial ones.

 

It's a bit like refs with Messi at the world cup - Ali was infamous, refs seldom enforced the rules against Ali as much as they should have.

Against Quarry and Lyle - he signalled the ref to stop the fight and threw enough punches that the refs complied. Both fighters didn't help themselves either and TBF, the last combination that Ali hit Jerry with snapped his head.

The Shavers and Jones fights aren't controversial - he won both fights by winning more rounds than his opponent.

 

A bit off topic, but the Messi thing is just a myth. Did it start with his tackle in the first game that some wanted him to get a red card for? He himself has received numerous worse than that this WC without any card being given, An elbow to the neck yesterday for example, If he was so favoured that would have been a red. Should have been a yellow. Don't think even a free kick was given.

Yamal also received a tackle yesterday every bit as bad as the one Messi gave. No card given.

 

As for Ali, refs were lenient with him in the 70's, The tape should have been removed against Quarry. The stoppage was good, though. As was the one against Lyle.

 

Yes and no, Messi didn't cover himself in glory yesterday.

I saw him trying to get a man sent off and yes, he's probably put in two red card tackles during the tournament. That it happens to others, or that he himself is the victim (and always has been) of horrible tackles doesn't detract from some of his tackle execution. It's a contact sport and there will always be spirited 50/50 tackles where someone gets there a bit late, but studs raked down an achilles and nowhere near the ball - I would love it, just love if VAR did what it's supposed to do and highlight a clear and obvious ref error.

RIP King Kev.

 

It does show that he gets no special treatement. That other players get away with the same tackles. That invalidates the whole claim that he is favoured.

But I'll leave it at that and stop derailing the therad now.

 

Hmmm, so is it bad refereeing all around?

I think both can be true at the same time. I will temper the statement - I think the 'big nations' and 'big players' have been somewhat favoured with some questionable decisions. There have blatantly been some contentious moments that didn't even receive the dignity of a replay and a question about reffing standards or VAR intervention - meh, the only thing that matters is that Arsenal won the final and beat PSG in the Bronze medal play off.

 

France certainly got no favours from the ref against Parguay, Paraguay should have two guys sent off, apart from all the other **** they did.

Spain received no favours, For Argentina it was that penalty shout for Salah. Just saw one replay and couldn't really draw a firm conclusion.

I'll end this segway with just stating that attacking players received very little protection. Blatant fouls went unpnusihed all the time. But as soon as a defender fell to the floor a foul was given. Very negative approach from the refs.

 

I thought both Norton 3rd and Young bested him by a point in both cases.

But what was baffling is how Ali won by that much a margin against Young on the cards.

 

This is a Hanlon’s Razor thing — do not attribute to malice (or bias) that which is adequately explained by stupidity (or incompetence or simple lax refereeing).

Should the tape have been snipped? Sure. But did it happen to Quarry’s tape and the ref jumped in immediately so we could see it wasn’t evenly officiated? I probably wouldn’t have to look very long to find an instance of Quarry committing a foul that wasn’t called.

There is no sport in the entire history of mankind where you cannot find instances of officials getting it wrong — and in many of those cases, there is fair disagreement over whether they even got it wrong at all.

A referee makes a mistake and people are up in arms. In the same fight, both fighters also made mistakes … but that’s ‘just part of the game.’ Well, humans err. That’s just part of life.

Let me also add that anyone who complains about officiating owes it to the sport and to the game (whatever game that is) to go officiate for a few years and show us how to do it right.