I'v seen a couple things mentioned on here about Ali's Gold medal "win", also there is always mention of him throwing it away which makes me laugh seeing as he didn't deserve it in the first place. I want to address his Final and Quarter Final fights. First the Finals against Poland's Zbigniew Pietrzykowski. The fight is on Youtube and there is no way Ali won the first or second rounds. The Third is close for the first half of the round then Ali turns it up and definitely wins the last one. 2 rounds - Pietrzykowski 1 round - Ali Gold Medal Zigzy Now when you watch the fight take note of the horrible American commentary and credit given to Ali for blows that are either blocked or completely missed. [ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BvyUa6hmAnE&feature=related[/ame] Secondly is his Quarer Final fight against Soviet fighter Gennady Shatkov. Some things that don't usually get mentioned is that Shatkov was a Middleweight fighter who was 5'8 and could barely make the weight requirment for Lightheavy. There are several articls on this website entitled "Soviet Legends...." that give Bio's on a few, here's some excerpts from Shatkov's regarding the Ali fight REGARDING HIS MOVING UP IN WEIGHT "This is also not an instance where, a boxer is unable to make weight anymore, or wants to get a bigger payday for fighting a larger opponent. It’s also not a matter of methods of dropping weight in order to get in under the limit of a specific weight category, when in reality that boxer weighs 5-10 kg’s more." "What we are talking about here is doing something “in the interest of the team, or in the special interest of certain government officials.” " FROM SHATKOV ON MAKING WEIGHT "I had to drink water right up until the weigh in, just so I could get in over 75 kg. And into light-heavy. Even for that weight I wasn’t a tall fighter, and facing me I had a tall, athletic, difficult fighter, and really one of the best representatives of the American school of boxing in Clay." SHATKOV ON THE FIGHT ITSELF "My kind of fight, in keeping the action at a distance, was something I couldn’t rely on from the get-go. Even so the fight was even after two rounds. Everybody in the media at that time was going crazy about that fact. However in the third the “crafty” Middleweight, could hardly find something with which to bother the great Cassius. I really believe that if we fought at middleweight, the chances for victory would have been 50/50." Just some things i wanted to set straight pertaining to Ali's participation in the 1960 Olympics.
No robbery in this one Pietrzykowski doesn't do badly in the first or second rounds, but he isn't landing very much on Ali either. By going in and out, and out punching, if not out-landing the Pole, Ali edges the first for sure, and though "Ziggy" has a nice start to the second, Ali starts find the range in very last part of the round, and could certainly gain a share of it on the scorecards. Third round is all Ali, so he deserved the gold. Edit: Rewatched the fight, and might be inclined to give round one to Ziggy, because he did land a few more clean shots. Second is a toss-up, but Ali certainly landed the best shots of the stanza during the tail end, when he was starting to bounce right hands off of his opponent with increasing regularity. So, still seems like a good decision.
A very close fight. Ziggy won the first, the second is hard to split them without been ringside and seeing what punches actually landed. The third was Clay's but if you give the second to the Pole then he wins it. No robbery either way and an interesting viewing.
I agree this wasn't a walk in the park for Clay, but, then again, it's called a fight, and for the gold medal. The better man won. Ziggy was much older and experienced, and may have taken the first round. But Clay remained calm, solved the Pole and came on stronger and stronger, probably edging the second round and romping in the third, pounding Ziggy back onto his heels in a couple of instances. I agree, though, that the calling of the fight (on my DVD, can't see the post here) is just goo.
Clay clearly won. And Pietrzykowski and his corner seemed to think also. 1st round: Was close. Clay did the better boxing. Scoring more with jabs and single right hand shots from far. Pietrzykowski lands the more meaning full blows. Still I think Clay scored just a little more and sure did the better boxing. 2nd round: 1st half Pietrzykowski does the better scoring. 2nd half Clay does the better scoring and it seems like he hurt Pietrzykowski to the body by the end of the round. 3rd round: Clay all over. The longer the fight did go on the better Clay did get.
