How I Scored All Of Muhammad Ali's Controversial Decisions

Yes. As was Mercante. Final scoring was:

Judge 1. 8-7
Lederman. 8-7
Mercante. 8-6-1

 

Yeah, both now and then most seem to have it as a very close fight. Ali himself said he thought he lost, though.

 

I'll haveto rewatch all those fights myself, but Shavers clearly beat Ali, I scored it too.
I even made a thread about how I scored the fight, youcan search for it.
I remember I clearly gave the last round to Shavers. And during the fight, most of Ali's punches did little to no damage, or just landed in Shavers's guard.
I also made a survey thread about who won that last round.

 

Here's how I scored it:
https://www.boxingforum24.com/threads/earnie-shavers-vs-muhammad-ali-1080p.681800/

 

Agreed re the worst advice ever, at every level.

I personally don’t think that Norton needed the 15th to win. It was already in the bag for Ken imo.

BUT Norton and his team should’ve accounted for the “Ali Sway” = biased scoring by judges in favour of Ali.

Maybe Norton and his team did account for it - maybe they thought there’s “no way” you can take this one from us - the margin is already far too wide - but somehow the judges still managed to score the fight for Ali and frame it as if it ALL came down to the final round.

BUT the warning to “not take any chances” truly made absolutely no senses.

Prior to the 15th round at Yankee Stadium, when was Norton ever in trouble, let alone serious trouble, in the total 38 rounds previously fought against Ali?

Never as far I can see - and especially not so in the Rubber Match. It was Norton in fact who hurt Ali badly on several occasions during the fight - not least being a body shot that doubled Ali right over - I’ve never seen anyone do that to Ali.

 

Are you referring to the supposed “quote” from an interview that never occurred? Or the highly edited snippet that’s an obvious fake?

 

I agree. Them telling Norton to take it easy in the 15th was the dumbest advice ever. But to be fair, aside from the Young bout, their wasn't much controversy regarding the Young bout and honestly, I don't think Young deserved to win anything after his pitful performance, ducking outside through the ropes when the pressure was on. An absolutely cowardly move, but one unseen by the ref (and virtually anyone else) so he didn't know how to react. It was FINALLY counted as a knockdown in the 12th but even as Young continued to do it after, the ref began ignoring him again.

Also one thing that is seldom mentioned is, Young would frequently counter Ali's flurries with combos, but many of them went below the belt, so maybe the judges chose to (not) factor that in as well.

 

This was new to me. You mean he never said it?

 

Agreed

 

Re the Young fight, I agree.

I haven’t tried to formally score it but I didn’t see it as necessarily controversial.

One thing I noticed re Young, he didn’t do everything by the rule book himself but made a hue and cry to alert the ref and spectators to anytime he felt his opponent had broken the rules.

Young did same several times during the Foreman fight - even though he himself was guilty of holding behind the head and shoving the opponent off. George was the apparent villain as at that time so Young’s infractions received a pass.

I won’t go so far as to label Young a whiner but he often advertised that he felt he was hard done by.

 

One thing about Ali-Norton III - there tends to be an assumption that Norton could definitely have won the 15th round if he'd simply chosen to do so. Norton tried to win the 14th but lost it on two out of three cards. Not that he got beaten up or anything, but he did take a couple of solid right hands and was actually backing up for part of the round. It's understandable that his corner had nightmare visions of the old man pulling out a final round miracle.

 

Interesting. I guess it’s a catch 22 referencing the scorecards of the very judges who many feel unduly favoured Ali.

I’m definitely going to rewatch the 14th round based on your observation.

It doesn’t constitute as evidence nor would I try to play it off as same bufor whatever it’s worth, a quick scan of scorecards on EOTR, , indicate an overwhelming majority awarding the 14th to Norton.

I won’t pretend that I have agreed with scorecards on EOTR across all fights, I certainly haven’t and I have see the 14th again to judge with my own eyes.

Anyway, if one believes Norton actually win the 14th, I guess they could flip the fact of the 14th being awarded to Ali by 2/3 judges as an argument against the judges.

Also, from a different perspective, one could perhaps even agree that even if Norton tried and did win the 15th, he still may well have not been awarded the round either, anyway.

I assume Norton and his team likely thought they won the 14th - it would be even more crazy if they thought they’d lost that round and then told Ken to play it safe and coast for the 15th - thereby giving the round away, effectively losing the last 2 rounds of the fight.

The observation of Norton possibly being hurt or reasonably shook in the 14th interests me the most - I never noticed that and if true, it may well have given Ken and his team cause to not take any risks in the final 3 minutes of a fight they felt was already well won.

 

True. Muhammad's face at the end told the story when the scores were being read out. An embarassed half smile crossed his face at the end of the announcement. If I had to select just one man whom I regard to be Muhammad's toughest opponent (post 1976 does n't count as our man was way....way over the hill at that point) I would pick Norton - even over Frazier. Joe was a heavier puncher and put more pressure on Ali but only a small minority really questioned the verdict in the second Frazier bout,and Manila,as tough as it was for both combatants,speaks for itself due to the stoppage. Whereas the second Ali-Norton bout could have gone either way,although I've consistently seen it as being 7 - 5 in rounds to Muhammad. And the third bout's verdict was controversial,as well we all know.

 

I don’t know about the first part. I don’t think Norton beats FOTC Ali. In fact I think it’s very possible he gets stopped. Futch himself said Norton wouldn’t have beat the Ali of “say two three years ago” when asked after their first fight.