How was this Ali allowed in ring?

Hilarious Ali like usually. Obviously not in the best condition. Early signs of Parkinson Syndrome setting in as we see. The fight was awful, and the fact that he was on dieretics pills really put him over the edge. Dried him up.

 

god he looks old and weak.

 

Damn. This needs to stop. They stop James Toney from entering the ring as well.

 

Damn his speech was a lot worse than I thought it would be. Its sick that they went on with that fight.

Also he was taking some kind of prescription thyroid drug to loose weight to look reasonable for that fight.

 

I disagree, pro boxing isnt a right, you must have a license and pass a physical. I dont see how everyone involved would let him to have a license to fight when he was sluring his speech that bad and his coordination was noticeably bad while he is doing nothing but standing there.

 

Try not to watch this, it was hard to watch the doc let alone the fight. Upsetting

 

must be from 1980. does someone know after what holmes-fight this was taped?

how was this ali allowed in the ring?
it is very easy to be clever afterwards. but to judge this video correctly, one should consider the time-frame when this was recorded.

1. ali was allowed in the ring, because he wanted it. period.
his wife veronica told this in a documentary, also availabe via youtube.com - against her will, against his doctor´s and his mother´s will.

2. ali was on top-of-the-game these days.
"the greatest" had retired just the year before as world heavyweight champion after a strong win against young and hungry leon spinks.
his last performance had been the 1979 show-fight during his "farewell to a legend"-appearance in providence, rhode island.
muhammad was omnipresent on tv (and even cinema) for years.

not just the man himself wanted the showdown, but his fans wanted it (and they were many).
sure, he had gotten slower and softer. sometimes he was slurring his words (not so much in this interview), but he had done this occasionally for years. his worldwide fandom may have feared for his health in 1980, but more than this, they hoped, their man would do it just one more time!
the media had feared for his life in 1974 before the "rumble in the djungle" (he proved them wrong), feared for this health before the 2nd spinks-match (he proved them wrong again). if ali didn´t make them believing, he at least made them hoping! and in such a convincing way, that he even made himself believe he had his chance!
shortly before fighttime, even the popular german news-magazine "der spiegel" wrote: who knows? ali may pull the rabbit out of his hat just one more time. (paraphrasing)

so no one wanted to see the real shape he was in.
the audience couldn´t.
what i still don´t understand is, why his entourage, first of all, bundini brown, didn´t see this during sparring hours? maybe they were under ali´s spell, too ... ?

unfortunately ali was right in one thing during this interview.
"this will be NO CONTEST!"

it wasn´t.

 

sigh :-(

 

Watch the recent ESPN 30 for 30 documentary, Muhammad and Larry. That tells you the story around the fight and how it was ever allowed to happen.

 

damn man even his eyes arent straight:-(

 

It would be cool if some promoters would take a stand and choose not to promote a fighter due to they heath sorta like Lou Dibella did the first time, but unfortunately he's allowing Taylor to fight again :-(

 

Seeimg him in the interview with Cosell the night of the 2nd Spinks fight was enough for anbody to know that he shouldnt have been allowed to fight. The fact that he went on to fight a couple more times was inexcusable. Many people were at fault imo, including Dundee, Brown, King, and Ali himself

 

part of the reason why the muhammad ali act came into affect!

 

that is bad.

 

looks like james toney in the elie seckbach vids.