The Brown Bomber vs Big George.

I agree this is the fairest way of looking at it.

It is certainly going to take a pretty impressive, sustained beating to keep prime Louis down.

One thing, in the head-to-head fantasy matchups the prime ATGs are normally unbeaten, which gives them a great psychological edge. Louis is one of the few who would have a devastating loss already on his record.

To his great credit, his career shows he responded brilliantly to this setback, but I wonder whether it would sow some seeds of doubt against a wrecker like Foreman?

 

I found this post ages ago elsewhere from a guy that seemed to know what he was on about

After 7 rounds the official scorecards read: 69-66, 70-65, and 70-61 (not a mistake) All in favour of Ali.

I've emailed the guy in hope of getting his source.

 

Will do mate, i'm sure the guy is still active. 70-61 is 7 rounds to Ali, two by 10-8. Freaky score buy hey, we've all seen this stuff before hahaha. Chuck Hassett 118-111 Holmes - Witherspoon.

 

Well what Foreman did to Frazier who was undefeated was probably one of the best performances of all time. I rate is far greater than what Tyson did to Berbick. Frazier was great, Berbick wasn't. That Foreman then went on to destroy Norton, another very good fighter who had a win over Ali. That Foreman has a great chance in the first 4 rounds against any Heavy in history. Frazier had been down before in fights but always got back up to win. Unfortunately for Frazier, when he went down against Foreman he kept going down. The look on Frazier face tells it's own story. He had never felt that kind of power before in a ring. He was shocked to the core. If Louis can survive 4 rounds then i believe he will win. Louis' slow feet is bad in this match-up. The kind of fighters that gave Foreman trouble were the ones that moved. If Louis tries to slug it out early i think Foreman's greater power will prevail. The uppercut would be the important punch. If Louis get to close Foreman will just push him away and will be looking to score that uppercut as he did so effectively against Frazier and Norton. Ali leaning back and using rope-a-dope helped him as Foreman couldn't use his uppercut effectively. That's why he was hitting Ali in the ribs. Ali was protecting his middle from any uppercuts.

 

:rofl atsch :spliff

 

You know i don't think i go for this theory, on both fronts. Frazier won the fight vs Ali and was the harder hitter. Frazier went on to get wiped by Foreman where'as Ali beat the man convincingly. Ali took more punishment than Frazier in their fight, obviously. He also started fighting 5 years earlier and was certainly no younger. Yeah Ali could take phenomenal punishment but so could some other greats. Hearn's, Duran and numerous others came back from debilitating ko's let alone a gruelling decision loss. If Joe had some other heath stuff going on then so be it, everyone's got their probs. As for taking him too easy, well that's part of being a great champ. No chance whatsoever of a Hagler doing something like this. Bottom line for me - Joe was made for George.

 

I don't think these are legit. I've actually read that Foreman was ahead somewhere but again no official cards. 70-61 is an embarrassment. 4-2-1 to Ali is about right.

 

That's not the point. I have more material on Ali then possibly anyone on this forum, yet cannot find anything with the scorecards included- or even who the judges were that night.

 

It isn't.

 

I don't think Frazier thought he'd breeze it at all. Foreman was always touted as the 'man most likely'. Indeed, just a week after the FOTC, George was featured on the cover of Boxing New with the headline 'The face that haunts Frazier'. Almost two years before his title shot.

 

Hmmmmmm. Given the competition that Foreman was fighting at this time I have a hard time imagining Frazier being particularly haunted.

Everybody who called the fight for Foreman did so with the benefit of hindsight.

 

That's as maybe but they still regarded him as the next heavyweight champ (other than if Ali retained it). The general feeling was that he wasn't ready at that time- and of course punters are going to pick an undefeated champ who'd recently beaten Ali, that was logical.