Ali fights Foreman in Manilla instead of Frazier.

With Carlos Padilla as ref to stop Alis constant holding , George comes in as a real chance.

 

No loose ropes , no heat , no dehydr8on and no Dick Saddler = 4man wins by stoppage even if it was in 1974

 

I think Ali beats Foreman in Manila.... after Manila I`m not so sure, he was never the same after that war with Frazier, both men were done after that.

Ali will never be blown away early & Foreman will always fatigue quicker than Ali, if Ali doesn`t stop him like in Zaire then I think he finishes much the stronger from the mid-late rounds & gets a decisive UD.

 

You should have made the poll public.

 

foreman win by DQ because of constant holding.

 

Big George removes all Boxing attire, gives his life to Christ.

 

Ali would still dominate him. Foreman's only chance would be taking on Ali in '76 or later, preferably after Frazier managed to do his damage to Ali.

And Foreman would still probably need to have done a better job putting himself back together mentally in order to get the job done.

 

I don't think Ali had the hands at that point in time to keep George off and he was never ever going to be in as great of condition as he was for Zaire.

In Zaire all the breaks went Muhammad's way. Having all the breaks go identical the second time around just doesn't happen often. Usually, things go against that been an advantage. And Ali's form had not been all that impressive anyway after Zaire---15 rounds with a guy like Wepner in his first bout after George. No way in the world that guy should have lasted that long. That was on par with McNeely as the Tyson opponent, but the results just weren't there. But Muhammad was not put under a microscope until after the Holmes bout. Other guys were, but he was immune to that stuff and criticism along those lines.

Then you had the Bugner rematch. Just who in the world wanted that fight anyway? Horrible. Another long decision in a dreary bout. Then the Lyle bout & that was no A+ performance either.

And if you were not alive at the time, nobody was picking Joe for the rematch. He'd looked bad himself against Bugner after the Foreman loss. Good against Quarry but that's always a good matchup for Joe. The Ellis rematch was another dreary fight and that sure didn't look like Smokin Joe. So the thought was Joe was ruined from that Foreman fight. The Ali bout was expected to be a payday and so long Joe type of fight, but not competitive. On par with the Bugner rematch as far as odds go.

So all we ever got after Zaire from Ali were B and C efforts and lots of examples of challengers rising to the ocassion. But brilliant or great Muhammad Ali efforts?

I think a Foreman victory requires Ali to be at 100% and all we were getting was 75% maybe. Very few ko's with those hands either after Foreman.

 

Ali wins because Foreman was a wreck in 1975, he only fought twice, towards the end of the year, and those were officially billed as "exhibitions".

Of course, there was the 5-opponents-in-one-night farce that happened earlier that year too.

But the first REAL opponent he faced next - Ron Lyle in January 1976 - almost beat him.

in October 1975, Ali would have probably thrashed Foreman.
Of course it is reasonable to think that Foreman would have been able to get up and motivated for Ali and perform a lot better than he did against Lyle, BUT I think he really needed those fights in 1976 to get his confidence back.

 

At his age, you cannot just go to training camp and become mint time after time. He'd absorbed a lot of punishment and had turned pro 15 years earlier, so there was a wear and tear factor with him and especially the hands. He certainly was not turning the clock back to 1967. He was not even turning back the clock to 1971.