Ali Ducking Foreman and Young?

Seamus..you have NO clue about the environment in the US early 20th century towards black hwts. There was no chance..none...for any black to fight for the championship. The powers that be had too fresh in their mind the specter of Jack Johnson and right or wrong they held onto the previous "color line" evoked by all previous white hwt champions. These were the underlying issues that were cultural in nature that of course Dempsey had no control of whatsoever. There certainly was a progressive movement at that time in certain areas of the boxing community but that was not the case predominantly.

Butler, Zolkin, Cooper? LOLOLOLOL Thats your golden age. No wonder you dont know what your talking about!

 

hes a know it all

 

It's way worse, The fight would have happened if not for circumstances,let alone try and tell Wills who could and could not train him.

Wills had no chance,Foreman would have been favorite

 

Its fact Rickard made a lot of money off Wills not fighting Dempsey. Tunney wanted to fight for to claim his "right" to face Dempsey by fighting Wills,another certain defeat for Wills, but Rickard didn't allow it. Why not? because after Johnson/Jeffries he didn't want a big time mixed bout.

 

Seamus, the reason it qualifies as a duck is because many people would have picked Foreman in a rematch. Compare the two guys in 1976...one of them mopped the floor with the division, the other one was given a get out of jail free card for any fight he was in. I think Ali knew himself that his performance in Zaire was extra special, and that duplicating it would've been extremely difficult, perhaps not possible. I honestly think Ali doubted his ability to repeat himself.

 

The color line had nothing to do with race relations. Read more history.

 

Just a little off topic, how Ali got the Kenny decisions is a ****ing disgrace. Money, that was all it was about.

All this 'The Greaest' that we've been fed from Clay/Ali, no. ****ing horse****.

 

The second Norton fight could have gone either way. It was THAT close. Just for the record,I have it consistently scored as 6-5-1 to Ali. Yes,the third one's decision was questionable. I pegged that one to Norton by 9 - 6 in rounds.

 

Don't get me wrong,I'm not denying that Foreman merited a rematch. During the one year window from early 1976,when George beat Ron Lyle,up to when he lost to Jimmy Young in March '77.

1975 does n't come into the equation in my opinion as George had no interest in fighting ANYBODY,let alone Ali.

 

I used to believe that but I lived on the east coast. My boxing buddies in Ca tell me George was on the airwaves constantly discussing a rematch. It was not like today where news no matter where is news everywhere. George was under the impression he would get a quick return match ....which never occurred. This is when he realized to get a return match he would need to make Ali fight him and to do so he needed to fight.

 

Underneath it all,I reckon George must have known that he would have come to grief in an immediate rematch in 1975. Pre Manilla,Ali would have beaten Foreman convincingly again. After Manilla,it becomes a greyer area. Muhammad was no longer the man he was in Zaire two years previously. In Kinshasa Ali was a battle honed warrior who was incredible for a 32 year old. After the Frazier rubber match,he was a shopworn fighter. There again,Foreman was n't quite the man he was after Zaire either. His decline was down to mentality rather than the 34/35 year old Muhammad which was down to physicality.

 

Lord Tywin is correct here.

Frazier and his people actively sought a rematch with Foreman.

Foreman's camp reneged on a return match promise to Frazier.

 

I also recall Frazier calling George out for a rematch quite a few times.