Ali Ducking Foreman and Young?

Dempsey wanted the fight...he said so publicly and told my father that personally.

You did not live through the 20s but neither did I but I did live through the 70s. I know what was going on at that time.

 

Wills could have fought anyone he wanted to fight....except for the championship. Firpo was not the hwt champion by the way.

Yes Louis became champion in 1937 but that has nothing to do.....nothing....with what was going on in the mid 20s. 10-15 years is a long time and things constantly change. In 1899 Jim Jeffries like all hwt champions before him declared he would never allow a black man to fight for the title. Ten years later Jack Johnson was the champion. Like I stated 10 years is a long time.

 

No, there continues 'controversy' in the Zaire fight. IMO Ali is the greatest HW in the history of boxing but, in retrospect, his 'second reign' was filled with staged bouts, knowing the opponent, and knowing if he didn't 'lay an egg' he would win. No Foreman rematch (don't think he wanted to **** blood a second time) Lyle had already been schooled by a smaller Young and simply had to stay away from a bomb from Lyle. Young hit stride after the Ali fight (although a short stride) Ali wanted NO part of him in a rematch. Shavers? Wound up in a puddle against Lyle in the fall of '76. Again, avoid the bomb and you come out on top tho Earnie proved a bit of a more formidable opponent that night. He lost to Norton in the 3rd fight (or almost in ANY debate on that one) His 'bums of the month' bouts circa 76-78 were worse than anything Joe Louis engaged in. Although this is difficult for me to say, perhaps Ali's second 'reign' was the beginning of boxing's downfall to the levels of multi-champs, 30-40 "top ten contenders". I still love him but IMO he played the boxing public like fools during 75-78. My $0.02 Feel free to disagree.

 

Who created the rule that you have to beat someone twice for it to count?

Ducking is avoiding someone. It is not choosing not to fight them a SECOND time.

 

A duck is a duck. Ali blatantly avoided a second bout with the man he beat to win the championship. A bout that many at that time felt was a clouded win. Why is it that Foreman is the only hwt champion that did not get not only a rematch but an immediate rematch from the 50s to the 80s?

Jow....I think you are taking things a bit too far. Ali did in fact ko Foreman and he was the only fighter ever to do so. He went on to fight a who's who of great contenders....Lyle, Frazier, Norton, Young, Shavers, Bugner....my God what a line up! He stopped Lyle and Frazier, beat Bugner like a drum over 15 rounds, beat Shavers in a close battle that was not really disputed, yes his wins over Norton and Young were disputed but both were close. Usually in championship bouts the champion needs to be beaten convincingly to lose. Both young and Norton fought too laid back to win a decision over an undisputed champion.

 

Anyone who says Foreman didn't deserve a rematch is crazy. Foreman mopped the floor in '76, doing away with two dangerous contenders in Lyle and Frazier, ruining a couple of prospects in Dennis and LeDoux, plus beating Pedro Agosto. Meanwhile Ali was retaining the title via very dubious means. Norton deserved a title shot, but Foreman deserved it even more. Ali clearly ducked Foreman. There was no one more deserving and George shouldn't have even had to face Young.
Speaking of, Young deserved a rematch but not as much as George. Ali's second reign, after Frazier, was mostly a joke and anyone who goes around saying he "beat Norton, Shavers, Young" etc. is a bona fide "nuthugger", as they are called on this site, in the first degree.

 

Vince...as mentioned I lived through those times and was intimate with all the major hwt bouts from 74 onward. The shavers bout was an open scoring bout and the fight was shown live from MSG on NBC TV. After every round the scoring, the official scoring was revealed to the TV audience. There was no controversy concerning that scoring. It was a reasonably close bout but Ali won 8 rounds before shavers started coming on in the 12th round. By that time shavers had to score a ko to win. He hurt Ali very badly in those last 4 rounds and won three out of the four but no ko. Ali won by a 9-6 score on my card. Reasonably close but no controversy. Norton and Young were very close bouts but since when is an all time great champions title reign negated by two close wins? Louis had Walcott...a far more controversial bout. Alis second reign although he certainly should have fought Foreman is a who's who of all time great contenders....a line up hard to match by any past hwt champion.

 

Foreman didn't give Frazier a rematch after he won the title: he took an easy defense over Roman, what turned out to be an easy fight against Norton then lost it to Ali.

The key here is that he took 14 months off after losing to Ali. In doing so, he voluntarily went to the back of the line.

While some thought Young should have gotten the verdict against Ali, he lost a lot of credibility by ducking his head outside the ropes to avoid punches -- not the kind of heroism people get behind in clamoring for another go.

Ducking is avoiding someone entirely. When you fight someone, but definition you have not ducked them.

 

Saint...wrong on several counts. The fight with frazier was a destruction. Noone would have paid to see the fight and frazier certainly did not petition for a rematch...a fight noone wanted to see. Secondly foreman did not take 14 months off....he was expecting an immediate rematch which never came. He was the ex champion and wanted a rematch and Ali avoided making it happen. Thats the facts...I wad there.

 

The fight with Wills is not a bout Dempsey had any control to make. So your being dishonedt....again. when you pu rposfully avoid a fight with a s pecific fighter when the fight could be easily made your ducking that fighter...period. Ali was avoiding getting into the ring again with foreman...thats boxing history.

 

Foreman wasn't a difficult fight for Ali. I can't see the logic that Ali was avoiding him. People like to romanticize the fight as being some epic David vs. Goliath confrontation where an outmatched Ali had to rely on trickery to outwit Foreman. In truth, Ali totally outclassed him from the beginning to the end.

It wasn't a particularly competitive fight. And non-competitive fights don't deserve immediate rematches. Ali went on to take harder fights against more difficult styles, while Foreman ultimately regressed instead of evolved. I don't ding Ali in the slightest for choosing not to waste the limited fights his aging body had in him on retreading ground to appease some conspiracy theorists. Its probably also why he almost never did rubber matches. Was he ducking Spinks because tradition dictated that split fights warrant rubber matches? I'd rather he kept the line moving in a stacked division than follow some unwritten rule on when and how often to rematch.

 

Ali retired after the second spinks fight. Your completely wrong concering how the fight was percieved in the mid 70s. For the first 5 rounds foreman had ali hurt numerous times. Ali himself said..he had me out several times but he never knew it. There were many Foreman fans who clamored for a rematch. Liston got one in a less competitive bout than this one.

 

Unless they edited all tape of the fight so that only people who were there know how close the fight was, in every copy of the fight I've seen, Ali virtually whitewashed Foreman. Foreman barely landed clean all night. It wasnt a fight that deserved a rematch.

Of course the Liston fight had a rematch, Ali was young , had his whole career ahead of him, and the division didn't have nearly as much talent as it would in the 70s.

If you look at Ali's history, he almost never gave rematches to fights he won, not even in harder fights than his fight against Foreman. It wasnt about ducking anybody, it was simply if he whupped you, he wasnt interested in whupping you again. In his whole career there were only two exceptions to that, and those are completely understandable exceptions.

Personally, I think it was the right policy, and because of it, we got to see him run the gamut before Parkinson's set in rather than us wondering "what if?" about three or four fighters he would have never had time to fight.