Reading an interesting book about George Foreman and the business of boxing ... much more about how Foreman's career was built up strategically ... I find it fascinating at the time that after Zaire , after the rebuilding of Foreman took place that Jimmy Young was looked at as a push over coming into their bout .. considering that Young went the distance w Ali and diced up Ron Lyle I find it fascinating Young would be so over looked as a bad match up for Foreman .. King blew it, Clancy blew it , Foreman blew it ..
Archie Moore’s handlers scheduled him a fight w Bobo Olson a month after winning a HW eliminator against Nino to meet Marciano for the HW title. He had to drop almost 30 pounds in a month to meet Bobo then three months later met Marciano. But I wouldn’t doubt if it drained him some.
I wonder why, after his experiences with Foreman (could have been a fluke) and Shavers (nope, not a fluke), Ken Norton took a fight against Gerry Cooney. I wonder the same thing about Michael Moorer being put in with David Tua. Marvis Frazier vs. Mike Tyson, too.
Well yeah in hindsight but most people underestimated Young at the time. The loss to Ali really damaged George's psyche.
One bad matchup that comes to mind is when Jackie Kallen put James Toney in with a guy Montell Griffin tight after Toney lost to Roy Jones. Montell was a well schooled slick fighter that was trained by the great Eddie Futch. Toney had just been exposed by the speedy and elusive Jones and instead of putting a weight drained Toney in against a slow footed guy that comes at him they put him in with a tricky dude. If you watch the rest of Toney's career, he never really fought another guy like Griffin or Jones. He moved up and weight and preferred to fight guys that came at him like Jirov, Ruiz, Peter etc.
I thought Griffin dropped Futch after the first RJJ fight. Maybe I misremember or maybe they made up.
I can see how it happened but Eddie (Gregory) Mustafa Muhammad took what looked like probably a fairly easy payday to do an HBO gimmick fight and walk into Rahway prison to face an unknown James Scott and got battered from bell to bell. Don’t take a fight against an opponent (who had a good pre-prison win over Jesse Burnett) that you probably know nothing about and can’t scout for.
Fighters absolutely killed themselves back in the day. Dropping weight or gaining weight within ludicrous time frames. Taking fights on super short notice. Taking fights while still mending bad injuries, etc, etc...
I heard somewhere that Norton didn’t even want to fight cooney. I believe he had a book that someone cited a number of years ago on one of these forums. Not sure why he even took the match. Could have been one last check
Futch was with Griffin when he fought Toney. Futch started training Montell when Montell got the best of Mike McCallum in a sparring session. Futch new exactly how to beat a counter puncher like Toney and laid out a solid game plan for Griffin.
Norton had taken a year off and come back to beat Tex Cobb. He was ranked No. 6 by the WBC and Cooney was ranked No. 1 by the WBC and WBA. The winner, per UPI, was expected to challenge either Holmes or Mike Weaver for the title. Norton’s preflight comments were about how he came back because he wasn’t satisfied with how he went into retirement off the KO to Shavers and the bad draw against LeDoux. He said he was rejuvenated and talked about how much better his stamina was against Cobb. Didn’t sound like a guy who had been led to the ring at gunpoint. I’m sure it was not only the best payday available for Norton but also the shortest path to a title shot for an aging fighter. Cooney was fairly suspect with his wins over Ron Lyle and a past-it Jimmy Young being his big wins. He was definitely favored but if Norton had shown him to be a fraud the boxing world wouldn’t have been shocked because Gerry was unproven. I don’t think it was a terrible match for Kenny to take. If he doesn’t fight Cooney here he gets taken out by a lesser contender for less money.
