Ali.... debatable decisions

After the third fight in Yankee Stadium in 1976 with Kenny Norton...one of the New York papers said....
"If Ali won that fight last night...then the Japanese won World War II". Ali "won" lots of those fights because of who he was...not for what he did in the ring!!!

 

I can accept people calling Ali the Greatest, but in all fairness his record should be more like 53-8. Still a fine record, but much more accurate.

If we watched a number of Ali fights in silhouette, not knowing who the fighters were (Boxer A vs. Boxer B), there is no way in hell that Norton lost the third fight, and in my opinion Shavers's bombs took that fight, too. People don't want to accept it, but it's out of loyalty not truth. And you know, I don't really understand it. Who wants to see the New York Yankees win every time, buying the title as they did many times? I like fair competition, and if one guy is given every advantage, then it's no longer interesting to me.

 

I think Ali has a fair argument for winning each of the fights listed. All either way affairs really apart from Ali-Frazier 2.

 

I never saw why the Jones fight was controversial. He clearly beat Jones. I had it 7-3 Clay.

I had Norton winning the rubber match 9-6, and never saw the Young fight. Read too many bad things about it and never bothered.

I watched the Shavers fight but didn't score it.

I had him beating Frazier in the seconf fight 8-4. Again, can't see how there could be controversy there unless you just hate the guy so much as to cloud judgement.

 

I had Ali defeat jones 6-4
Also had him winning Frazier 2
Had him win Norton 2
Had him down a round in Norton 3 - bad deciscion not a robbery
Had young up two rounds and scored the fight leniently for Ali- thought it was robbery. Ali was in terrible shape did nothing but look like a fat doofus that clowned around and didn't start punching til late.
Also henry cooper fight he should of been dq'd for using smelling salts.
Ali was in many strange fights over the years. He has some debatable wins no question.

 

McGrain, on your scoring the Ali-Norton 15th for Ken, and the win for him, you and Mercante would have had a lot of good debates over the years had you been friends. Arthur scored rounds in threes, one score for each minute and then the total. With Ali landing what he did over the first two and a half minutes to two jabs thrown and one landed by Kenny, for Mercante to give the last round to Ken for the punches landed at the very end the first 4-5ths of the round would have to be erased. Anyways this fight will debated for many years and probably for the best ya know.

 

Out of these I only consider 2,3 vs Norton debatable and the fight vs Young the rest I thought Ali clearly won. The fight with Shavers, Shavers may have done more damage but I felt it was clear Ali won more of the rounds.

 

Thanks for the namecheck :good


Makes you wonder,though,whether sometime in the near future we'll learn of Rudi Lubbers' sensational claims that he clearly outboxed Muhammad Ali over the entire twelve rounds and was scandalously robbed of the decision as the fight was held in a predominantly Muslim country !

 

Yeah. Getting pretty surreal,is n't it ? :huh

 

Pretty much names them …

Jones was very close but he took it by a shade
Frazier was a ref's fight .. Perez let him hold all night so he won that that way
Norton 2 was razor close but Ken dominated the entire second half of the fight.
Norton was robbed in the third … he won that 9-6 at least.
Shavers was more of Ali looking old .. very close.
Young was too boring to watch for me ..

 

LOL, at jimmy young, every time Jimmy young stuck his head out the ropes and turned his back on ali I took off 2 points. Frankly he should have been disqualified for doing that.