Ali post Manila to 1978

He ducked George Foreman.
He refused to give Foreman a rematch.

 

how was Spinks viewed at the time the first time he faced him, a throwaway opponent supposed to lose or more legitimate?

 

All things considered, he played us like trained bears after Manilla.
Probably lost to Norton in the third one.
Showed his age and could have lost against Young.
Never gave Foreman a rematch.
Bums upon bums of the month.
Showed a champs heart against Shavers but, I think, he thought Earnie would punch himself out within 5 which didn't happen.
I'm (again) sorry but tanked against a green (totally undeserving contender) Spinks, knowing the kid would give him an immediate $$$ rematch so he could trumpet his 3-time 'champ' moniker.
Other examples. I think he was the greatest HW but he had fans, judges, sportwriters, big bucks, etc. all on his side his last few years.

 

There. Fixed

But, seriously, Ali post Manila was a horror episode that should never happen.

I feel that, all things considered, Ali post Manila's career was an aberration and should be considered for boxing fans like a sad and useless undertaking, particularly when you consider how devastating were those last bouts for his body and mind :think

Ali already had a rock solid legacy as an ATG after Manila, second to none. With the pummeling he took from Frazier, he should call it a day and ride after the sunset... he didn't have anything left to prove.

He didn't need the senseless victories against Coopman or Evangelista. He didn't need the embarrasing gift against Norton III. He didn't need the circurs against Inoke. And sure he didn't need the vicious beating he took from Holmes.

Ali post Manila is a cautionary horror tale on how easily the sweet science can be perverted and turned into a shameful carnage and how the boxer's wellbeing must always come first. Perhaps Ali would be today a functional person had he stopped after Manila.

 

You wrote: "and did not duck absolutely anybody."

Ali ducked Foreman. Foreman begged him for a rematch and Ali refused.

 

Rematches are usually given after close fights or contenscious outcomes....NOT 8 Round spankings

 

Surfing the internet came across this article, worth reading:


September 23, 1984

For Ali, What Price the Thrilla in Manila?
By DAVE ANDERSON

When that epic in brutality ended in the Philippine Coliseum nearly nine years ago, Joe Frazier had lost. His manager, Eddie Futch, had surrendered for him after the 14th round. Muhammad Ali had retained his world heavyweight title. About 15 minutes later, Joe Frazier, his left eye closed below the towel over his battered head, trudged into the interview room to answer a few quick questions. But even after Joe Frazier departed, Muhammad Ali did not appear.

"The champ's too tired," one of his aides explained. "He's just layin' on a couch in his dressing room."

More than half an hour later, Muhammad Ali finally arrived, worn and weary. For once, he had little to say, even as the victor in what will be remembered as perhaps his noblest hour as a gladiator.

"What you saw," he said slowly, "was next to death."

During his 14 fights in the six years that followed, Muhammad Ali was never the same after that Thrilla in Manila, as he had titled it. And in retrospect now, with Ali on medication for what one of his doctors calls "Parkinson's syndrome, very possibly" as a result of blows to the head, the question is obvious - for Ali, what was the eventual price of the Thrilla in Manila?

No answer is possible, but to someone who was with him during those years, the memories linger of Ali in the hours after that Manila fight and also of him in his later fights.

Over his 21-year career, Muhammad Ali had a 61-5 record, with 37 knockouts. But that career had three phases - one, from when he turned pro in 1960 to when his three-and- a-half-year exile began in 1967 for refusing to be inducted into the Army; two, from his comeback in 1970 to when he regained the title in Zaire; three, from 1975 until his eventual surrender to himself in 1981.

In examining his total of 552 rounds, not counting exhibitions and training sessions, Ali took the most punishment when his body could least afford it - in phase three.

Over 20 bouts in phase one, Ali fought only 110 rounds - an average of 5.5 rounds. In his 27 bouts in phase two, he had 266 rounds, a 9.9 average. But during his final 14 bouts in phase three, he went 176 rounds for a 12.6 average.

Of all of Ali's talents, one of his best was his ability to take a punch, an ability that may have betrayed him. Beginning in Manila, the punches multiplied quickly.

To appreciate the extent of Ali's weariness in Manila, it is necessary to know that he usually recovered quickly after a hard fight. The year before Manila, for example, Ali had dethroned George Foreman in Zaire with an eighth-round knockout after his body had absorbed dozens of hard punches with his "rope- a-dope" style. Less than five hours later, Ali was twirling an ivory-inlaid mahogany cane as he clowned outside his villa along the Congo River.

"For weeks I kept hollerin' 'Be ready to dance,' " he said, his eyes wide. "But I didn't dance. That was the surprise, that was the trick."

About eight hours after the Manila fight, in contrast, Ali appeared at a reception arranged by President Ferdinand Marcos, but he resembled someone who had been mugged. The skin on his face was drawn tightly, as if it were a mask. His narrowed eyes appeared to be underlined in purple crayon. He had lumps on his forehead. His nose was scraped pink. He moved stiffly, almost in a limp.

When he shook hands with a softly folded right fist, he winced. When he sat, he was hunched in soreness.

"Death is so near," he wrote in a visitor's book for . Marcos, "and time for friendly action is so limited. Love and peace always."

Perhaps an hour later, Ali was more like himself, joking and laughing. But not when he talked about the fight.

"This'll kill you," he said. "This is next to death. I'm a super human. So when I'm that tired, it's dangerous."

He hinted that "you may have seen the last of Ali" and if he had it to do over now, he might agree that he should have retired from boxing then. But early in 1975 he resumed his career against Jean Pierre Coopman, a harmless Belgian who disintegrated with the first good punch. Ali didn't even bother to take a shower after that appearance but two months later, he struggled through a disputed 15-round decision over Jimmy Young.

Ali's trainer, Angelo Dundee, acknowledged, "This was my guy's worst fight." His boxing physician, Dr. Ferdie Pacheco, who literally had been in his corner for years, was more explicit.

"Ali was missing, he had no timing, although the other guy was making him miss," Dr. Pacheco said. "He was getting tired a lot sooner than usual. His reflexes were only 25 to 30 percent of what they should be."

After a fifth-round knockout of Richard Dunn in Munich, another gift payday, Ali struggled by Ken Norton in another disputed 15-round decision. But in May of 1977, he was in the ring again, this time with Alfredo Evangelista.

"Ali is now at the dangerous mental point where his heart and his mind are no longer in it," Dr. Ferdie Pacheco said even before that fight. "In his last fight with Norton, that's the night I thought Ali stepped onto the last downhill phase of his career.

"Physically, he does not look that much different than three or four years ago. His reflexes you can't really measure except in a laboratory. But at his age, repetitive punishment usually has taken its toll on a boxer. His speech is slurred. He walks with a shuffle. But not him."

Even so, Dr. Pacheco believed then that Muhammad Ali should box no longer. For that honest medical opinion, he was banned from the entourage by Herbert Muhammad, the champion's manager.

Ali kept fighting, surviving a 15- round pounding from Earnie Shavers but then, slow and soft, he lost the title to Leon Spinks on Feb. 15, 1978. Seven months later he regained the crown that, perhaps more than anything, was too difficult for Leon Spinks to wear. By now Ali's words occasionally were a little slurred. Not much, but to those who remembered the speeches of his youth, it was there.

Perhaps he heard it, too. On June 26, 1979, he announced he would box no more.

"My toughest fight?" he said a few days later. "The toughest was Manila, feeling so dead, so tired, a hard brutal fight, taking a lot of punishment from Joe Frazier, giving a lot, an endurance test."

But 15 months later, Ali returned, only to be embarrassed by Larry Holmes in a charade that was stopped after 10 rounds. The next morning, his eyes shielded by rose- colored glasses, he tried to pretend he wasn't 38 years old.

"I felt worse after the Manila fight," he said. "I couldn't get out of bed after that fight."

More than a year later, Ali would fight for the last time, losing sadly to Trevor Berbick in another 10-round bout that finally convinced him of his age. Asked the next day what it was like to know that his reflexes may have gone, Ali looked up quickly.

"They have gone, not may have gone," he said. "They have gone. I could tell I was 40."

For more than two years now, Ali has been talking like a man who was 80, his words clinging together like cobwebs of dust. After saying for too long that "there's nothin' wrong with me, I'm still the greatest," he has agreed to medical supervision, prompting the inevitable question - should boxing be banned?

Ideally, yes. Practically, no.

Even if boxing were banned in the United States and other large nations, its popularity would maintain it in some other countries. Boxers would travel wherever they were accepted, just as Ali did. When he couldn't get a license to fight Trevor Berbick except in South Carolina, he went to the Bahamas to learn he was 40.

Boxing needs to be governed better, much better. But boxing is like sin. It's too popular to be abolished.

 

I wasn't very impressed with alis fights after 1975. Many of the wins against Spinks and Norton were given to him unfairly. He had badly deteriorated and he should have quit while ahead

 

Larry Holmes was highly rated during the latter part of Ali's reign, yet Ali fought guys like Coopman, Dunn, and Evangelista instead. And then Ali fights a guy like Leon Spinks, barely above amateur status. Ali should have lost to more deserving guys, guys like Norton or Holmes or Foreman.

 

Huh? I think he got a gift for Norton 3 only. But it is an unusual opinion to say that Ali got a gift vs. Spinks. Why?

Maybe you are confusing this with his Brother Michael, who likely got a gift against Holmes in their 2nd fight. Because Holmes was the anti-Ali in popularity.

 

The Foreman rematch would have been much bigger and more in demand than defences against Wepner, Coopman, Dunn, Evangelista, Spinks... undeserving challengers and fights no one was interested in. Ali tried his damnedest to add Alfio Righetti and Lorenzo Zanon to that list too.

 

Agree. The "fight" (let's call it that) with Inoki was one of the most grotesque and ridiculous spectacles I've ever seen. Ali did not need it ... :roll:

 

What was Foreman going to do differently in the rematch?

And last time i checked, Foreman lost to Young, had a panic attack, couldnt hack another loss because he was mentally weakened and retired.