Wow. Hadn’t read about this before. Of course exhibitions are one thing…but still…I’m sure Ali was that much more improved and, of course, that bit bigger and more physically developed since 63. Even from Cooper to the first Liston fight Ali appeared to improve exponentially. Could we be lucky enough for this to have been filmed - who knows? Yet again, thanks for your usual, high quality and on point info.
I think you are correct. Lewis certainly negotiated for the best possible contract..and it took two Olympic Games to get to that point
Graham wins every minute of every round v the Hagler who faced Mugabi and Leonard. Then tires comes the 7th and gets stopped in the 8th.
He'd be slippy and frustrate Marvin. At his best he was a defensive genius. Giving McCallum an hard, close fight and almost stopping Jackson. But I agree with your comment. He'd be in the lead but Hagler hunts him down, Herol slips up and maybe gets a bit too confident. Something that Marv takes advantage of.
Sadly I'm reasonably sure there's no film. As you say, there's a big difference between an exhibition with big gloves and headguards and a real fight, but Jones had every reason to give it his all since a strong showing could have been a gateway to a title shot. I think it's fair to say that Ali was vastly improved from the fighter he had been three and a half years before, and Jones - though he wasn't particularly old and he'd won some rounds in his WBA title shot at Terrell a few months earlier - was slipping.
Interestingly I found an old copy of KO magazine a few months back which had their fighters rankings from January 1987 which was just a month or two after Tyson won the WBC title. 1. Mike Tyson (wbc champ) 2. Michael Spinks (ibf champ) 3. Bonecrusher Smith (wba champ) 4. Pinklon Thomas 5. Trevor Berbick 6. Tim Witherspoon 7. Tony Tucker 8. Tyrell Biggs 9. Tony Tubbs 10. Frank Bruno 11. Carl Williams 12. Jose Ribalta Now if you were going solely by those rankings you could make a good case that Tyson did effectively, in the next couple of years, clean out the division as he would beat or had beaten every other fighter on that ranking list with the exception of Witherspoon who messed up a scheduled unification fight with Tyson by losing his WBA title to Bonecrusher Smith a month after Tyson won the WBC title.
This is what I love about the reign of Fighting Harada. Look at his his top 5 contenders. He defended his title against Jofre, Medel, Caraballo and Rudkin and was signed to defend against Pimental before Pimental's manager pulled him out and Lionel Rose substituted. Man, you can't get much better than that. Defending against all your top opposition. Bantamweights Fighting Harada, Champion Eder Jofre Jesus Pimentel Jose Medel Bernardo Caraballo Alan Rudkin Manny Elias Tommaso Galli Mimoun Ben Ali Manuel Barrios Baby Lorona
There is always more boxers to fight so not even greatest champ can clear up whole boxing division. there always be some new up and coming prospective or some good veterans doing a comeback. even when boxing is low point there is always some contender who champ did not face yet for one reason or some other. when champ says there no one else to fight he just means he needs paying more and no motivation. getting bored of challengers or wants big purse superfight only.
You make it sound like he ducked Graham. He was threatening retirement for awhile and even took awhile to decide to fight Leonard where he made BIG money. Hagler was not quaking in his boots about fighting Graham. He most certainly did not duck him. He probably wasn't even thinking about Graham.
Mugabi was rated at middleweight because he beat both Fletcher and Parker (at middleweight) who were actually top 10 rated middleweights when he beat them. That will get you rated at middleweight. What top 10 middleweight had McCallum beat at that time HG?
