In the 11th round, Ali hurt Lyle, which led to the referee stopping the fight, but Lyle seemed like he could continue. Lyle had been in worse situations before and still managed to win, for example, against Shavers. However, I counted that Ali landed around 30 unanswered punches, and he was tealing the referee to stop it. What do you think?
As good a stoppage as Tyson Vs. Ruddock 1. No one has to agree with any stoppage - that's what the judges decided.
Think it was ok. Ali was teeing off on Lyle in the corner waving at the ref and Lyle did nothing to fight back.
Lyle was totally defenseless at the time of the stoppage. His hands were down and Ali was hitting him at will. I can't understand how anyone watching,apart from a Lyle hater or sadist,would have thought that Ron should have been allowed to carry on.
It’s strange, isn’t it Stevie? This one comes up every now and then with the contention that it might’ve been a bad stoppage - but it absolutely ticked every box for an excellent stoppage - right on the money. I recall Ali also landed a particularly wicked left hook, violently snapping Lyles head back just before the ref stepped in. Right at the moment, atop all else that preceded it, Lyle was goneski. Within a sec or two of a stoppage many fighters might protest but it doesn’t negate an otherwise good stoppage. That a fighter can muster a protest after the fact doesn’t mean that they could’ve viably fought on - Lyle certainly wasn’t “protesting” the assault (read “protesting” as actually punching back), while it was going down. So much for arguments against Ali’s punching power - a beautiful, single right hand right on the button set Ron onto his slippery slope.
The stoppage was perfect. The punch that rocked Lyle and sent him to the ropes is what made the situation so dangerous, not just the follow up punches when Lyle was helpless. Lyle had been hurt by the crashing right hand to the jaw that turned his legs to jelly and probably made his head ring like an alarm clock. Any clean flush combination to the jaw would've cause Lyle irreparable damage if it went on because he was still hurt from the 1-2. This is still one of the coolest edited boxing clips ever. Ali's set up here was brilliant getting Lyle to cover up with the heavy jab leaving him open for the right hand. This content is protected
Perfect stoppage. In today's world, the ref would've jumped in about 3 punches after the big right hand.
It must be mentioned about Lyle that it often seemed, when he was fighting, that he was just one punch away from being knocked out, but he managed to stay on his feet and use the ropes effectively. However, the fight had become too one-sided, and although Lyle didn’t go down face-first as he did in the fight with Foreman, Ali rightly stopped him.
