Why did Lyle get a title fight against Ali & not Jimmy Young considering Lyle had just lost to him?

I am a great admirer of Jimmy Young who arguably beat Ali and Norton and did beat Foreman and Lyle. But his fighting style and persona weren't that marketable with the masses.

 

You answered your own question.

 

The champion doesn't have to fight the most qualified person every time. This false expectation led to the whole mandatory mess.

But going back to 1975 Lyle was 30-2 and Jimmy Young was 14-4. If you take the H2H out of it Lyles resume was much better at this point.

 

Lyle already had a contract to fight Ali even before his team decided to match him against Young as a stay busy fight, but taking the fight and losing to Young wasn’t without consequences.

Both Ali and his manager Herbert were pissed that Young completely embarrassed Lyle at the HIC in Hawaii, which was a very popular venue and the fight was widely broadcasted in both Hawaii and California, so Lyle was forced to take a huge purse reduction of more than half to keep the fight.

Lyle was originally guaranteed $300,000 for the fight, but after the Young loss Ali and Herbert reduced the purse to $100,000 or no fight.

Here is a piece talking a little about Lyle having to take a purse reduction to keep the fight.


Ron Lyle woke up yesterday to discover he had lost $300,000.

That's how much money Madison Square. Garden had guaranteed him to fight Muhammad Ali on June 2.

There were only two “ifs” about the deal: Ali had to defeat Chuck Wepner next month in Cleveland, and Lyle had to defeat one Jimmy Young in Honolulu last Tuesday.

Lyle didn't—in fact he suffered a unanimous 10‐round loss and one judge, Wilbert Minn, gave every round to Young.

The defeat moved Mike Burke of Madison Square Garden to ask yesterday, “Who's Ron Lyle?”

Burke added, “I think being knocked out changed a good deal for Ron Lyle.”
https://www.nytimes.com/1975/02/13/archives/loss-costs-lyle-300000-bout.html

 

Didn't help that Young was still relatively unknown, unranked, and was coming off a draw where had to get off the floor in his previous fight. Even today, it's still a massively embarrassing loss along with their second bout that hurts Lyle's H2H standing severely imo.

Exposed his lack of ring IQ, adaptability, and his utter inability to deal with a cutie.