Ali post Manila to 1978

I said the exact same thing earlier, Ali would have toyed with Foreman even worse than before.

The response was 'thats beside the point'

 

Precisely :good

This tends to get forgotten frequently

 

Their first meeting was quite conclusive.

 

If Frazier, Norton and Spinks had taken the same attitude, Ali never would have got a rematch with them. Why bother fighting him again? Already whipped him once.

Besides that, by 75-76 the only guys Ali was toying with were the complete stiffs. By 77 he wasn't even doing that and in 78 he lost to one of them.

 

Frazier, Norton and Spinks didn't school Ali and then KO him. Their bouts were competitive.

 

What relevance does the above have to do with anything?

For the whole of 75 George Foreman was sitting at home sucking his thumb like a baby.

After March 77 he was back at home sucking his thumb again this time for a WHOLE decade, and NOT just 15 months like the first time.

Is this so difficult for you Ali haters to comprehend?

Foreman was worth less than dog **** between October 74 when he first got the sulks, and March 77 when he really threw his toys out the pram. It doesn't matter what fools think, that is ALL he was worth. Sorry to be so blunt, but Foreman was if you like the indestructible silver backed gorilla, once he was beaten, the novelty value disappeared. There was no longer any interest.

Like him or loath him Ali was the biggest thing in boxing in his time, and as a consequence he was rightly or wrongly able to more or less call the shots.

Foreman on the other hand was a surly monosyllabic boring piece of **** that NO ONE gave a fvck about. Why on earth would the powers that be pander to his childish whims?

At the end of the day boxing is part of the entertainment business. No one with a brain could call Foreman pre 77 entertaining unless you got your rocks off seeing Joe Frazier bounced up and down like a Jack in the box. The guy used to have paint watch him dry. When he tried to speak, he could send glass eyes to sleep.

 

I am a fan of Big George, but I agree tha saying that Ali ducked him out of fear is pretty absurd.

A rematch with Foreman would have been Zaire II all over again.

Ali had already taken the very best shots that George could deliver and he was still standing.

George had nothing left in his arsenal to throw to Ali. His bag of tricks was empty. 75/76 Foreman was still a slugger and he was not going to change that anytime soon.

His personal "fall of grace-exiled-reborn-back for a last chance for glory" is a Hollywood tale and someday it wil be made into an Oscar-winning movie. But 90's Foreman was a very different guy than 70's Foreman. It took George 20 years of soul searching and maturing to come back and achieve redemption as a smart and cautious fighter.

 

Good points. And as I'm always saying - Why would Ali be afraid of giving George a rematch when he had a far easier time with him than he did Joe Frazier and Ken Norton,two men whom he had third fights with in 1975 and '76,respectively ? BOTH MEN GAVE HIM FAR TOUGHER FIGHTS IN THEIR FIRST TWO MEETINGS THAN FOREMAN DID IN ZAIRE

 

And as I keep asking, if Foreman was so easy for him, by consensus here virtually a guaranteed W, why fight all those lesser fighters for far less money than he could have made in a Foreman rematch? Why not toy with him for a few rounds and collect an easy $5-8 million?

 

It wasn't an easy fight! Ali might have made it LOOKED easy but it would have been tough getting hit with all those heavy swings of Foreman even if most were on the side of the body and on the arms. No one would have taken those shot and be totally unaffected.

 

Frazier took the same attitude towards Ali. He only rematched him when he needed the fight more than Ali did. When Frazier still was undisputed champ he took on unranked Standers and Daniels instead of Ali who was the top contender. He then let Foreman jump the queue as well.

Norton and Spinks had no other fights out there that payed nearly the same money.

 

Who was paying $8 million?

Don King had to find a "government" that was willing to put up $10 million the first time.

Everything I read about Ali-Foreman rematch talks involve rumors of a guy offering a deal here, and a guy getting one of them to sign there ...

But there's never a site, a date, guaranteed dollars for each ... it's always one promoter here ... or a guy looking to get into the fight business there ... someone from California ... someone from the Middle East ...

If somone said: "Here is $10 million .... here's an arena ... here's a date ... sign here," both would've signed. But nobody ever did it. The deals were never real deals ... they were just people trying to negotiate in public.

Ali bounced around the world taking the fights he did because THOSE deals were all sound. Here's a couple of million to fight in Germany and a date ... he's there.

Here is a guaranteed $6 million for a joke fight against a wrestler in Tokyo, he's there.

There were offers in 1976 for Ali to fight Stevenson in Cuba, there were offers to fight Schutte in South Africa, there were offers to fight Foreman everywhere ... all got reported ... all got a lot of press ... but none of the deals were worth a damn.

They were just people trying to grab headlines.

Someone would call Don King and say, "I've got a deal for you" ... King would tell Ali and Herbert Muhammad. And Ali would say to the press that he was going to get X-amount to fight this guy in this country.

The very next day, a guy would call Bob Arum and tell him he had a deal for Arum ... Arum would call Herbert Muhammad ... and Ali would come out (the very next day) and say he had an offer to fight so-and-so in this country (directly contradicting what he said the day before).

In the end, the person who actually showed up with the guarantees and a legit plan was the one who got him. That's all that mattered.

Nobody was ducking anyone - as far as Ali and Foreman were concerned. Ali was looking to make as much as he could as fast as he could. He defended four times in 76, he made a movie, he fought a wrestler, he took part in exhibitions, he signed deals to be the spokesman for everything (even bug spray).

Ali and Foreman signed the first time because the money was guaranteed. The fight was set. Even when Foreman got cut in training, the government wouldn't let anyone involved leave because THE FIGHT WAS GOING TO HAPPEN regardless.

Ali and Foreman kept waiting for SOMEONE to present them with a sound MEGA-deal. No one ever did. So they both fought who they fought, until Foreman lost and retired.

 

I can't believe Ali still gets criticism for not rematching Big George.

He made the ridiculously brave/stupid decision to lay on the ropes and get pounded on in 1974, because he knew it's the only chance he had of winning.

He knew that he couldn't stay on his toes at that stage of his career. So he backed on to the ropes and let George wail away, in the hope that he burnt himself out.

Yet people are questioning why he didn't fight him again?

Please!

Ali took an almighty pounding to the body.

He was urinating blood afterwards.

Who could have asked him to put himself in that same situation for a second time?

George Foreman was a 24 year old punching machine.

Could you even imagine what it must have been like to let him fire away at will?

You guys should be thankful that Ali had the balls in the first place to sign up for the 'Jungle'

It was just too much to ask of him, to do it again.

Nobody should ever criticise him for not fighting him again.

It's absurd.

 

I'm not saying the Rumble was an EASY fight for Ali,but it was a lot EASIER than any he had with Norton and Frazier

 

Well, I agree with you there.