What if: Muhammad Ali had faced Duane Bobick instead of Leon Spinks?

I like exploring plausible scenarios, and this one actually could have possibly happened.

Leon Spinks was put in position for a non-mandatory defense by Muhammad Ali mostly by virtue of winning a gold medal at the 1976 Olympics in Montreal. He started out 5-0-1 on a fairly accelerated curriculum, beating useful Pedro Agosto and drawing with useful trial horse Scott LeDoux.

Then he beat undefeated Italian Alfio Righetti over 10 rounds in November 1977, with the winner stipulated to get a shot at Ali. Leon won 46-44 on all cards on the 5-point must system, so it was competitive. Ali was going to fight one or the other (imagine the field day Muhammad would have had calling his Italian challenger ‘Spaghetti’ lol, but he made use of Leon’s lost front teeth by dubbing him Dracula) … let’s suppose for sake of discussion that Spinks and Righetti had instead fought to a draw.

The WBC would rule in early December (in reality) that Ali would be allowed the Spinks defense before having to face mandatory challenger Ken Norton, who had narrowly beaten Jimmy Young in an eliminator. Let’s further assume that the WBC would have allowed any reasonable defense for Ali before a fourth match with Ken (lest you think Leon wasn’t a reasonable defense, note that The Ring had Spinks No. 9 in its annual ratings for 1977, which reflect his year-end position).

So who could Ali have fought if Spinks-Righetti didn’t produce a winner?

Looking at those Ring rankings, we can rule out No. 1 contender Norton, since he has to wait, and Young, who is No. 2 but lost the eliminator.

Larry Holmes is sitting pretty at No. 3, but in a holding pattern until the Ali/Norton stuff is sorted. And if Muhammad is going to fight a perceived tough defense, he’d have fought Norton right away.

Of the other ranked guys, Ali has beaten Ron Lyle, Earnie Shavers and Alfredo Evangelista (in addition to Norton and Young). That leaves South Africans Gerrie Coetzee and Kallie Knoetze … and Duane Bobick.

The SA duo has no recognition outside their own country and are probably a little too high-risk for the reward.

Which brings us to Duane. At this juncture, the Minnesotan is 40-1, with the one loss coming by KO 1 to Norton.

That overturned Bobick’s applecart for sure — as much by how quickly he lost as the fact that he did — but the spin on that fight left some still believing. Because there was some argument that it was a fluke as Norton had managed to hit Duane in the Adam’s apple with a throat-punch uppercut that spelled his demise. Not illegal, but kind of flukey. Bobick’s voice was a croak after the fight, lending credence to the idea that this one was maybe, just maybe, an odd roll of the dice and Duane a purely unfortunate victim of circumstance.

Since that fight, he had stopped Agosto and LeDoux as a bit of a rehab project, was ranked and still viable.

So let’s say Muhammad calls upon Duane for his February 1978 defense (rather than fighting Spinks then, as he did in reality) … and that the same version of Ali shows up.

I think Muhammad takes him. Duane plods away and wastes himself banging away at the rope-a-dope, and Ali throws just enough flashy combinations to steal just enough rounds. He waited too long with Leon, but the 15th round war that broke out (Ring’s round of the year) showed there was some spark, albeit not a full gas tank.

In this scenario, I think either (a) Muhammad goes on to lose to Ken rather than retire, then Ken loses to Larry in his first defense; or (b) Ali hangs up the gloves after Bobick, Ken is proclaimed champ by the WBC as he was in our real-life timeline … and loses immediately to Holmes.

Either way, I see the timeline restored.

What do you make of it? Are there unseen butterflies flapping away for untold butterfly effects emerging from this scenario? Does Bobick pull off the upset, same as Leon … and, if so, what follows?

So I would not only be interested in how everyone sees this Ali against that Bobick, but also the aftermath.

 

I want to say Bobick was working with Joe Frazier at this point?

Probably got him some good Philly sparring but Joe was no Georgie (or Futch) as a trainer.

 

Bobick, I should have mentioned, was ranked No. 5 by Ring at end of 1977.

So the Norton loss wasn’t devastating to how he was perceived at the time, or at least his two bounce-back wins erased some of the damage.