Best adjustments in a fight

:good

 

:good:good:good

Also Marciano in Charles I. loses the first 4 rounds on any normal card..Charles kept landing shoulder roll counter right hands on him. By round 6, Marciano switches up. Instead of going for the big bomb, he shortens his punches, and adds volume to his output. he outlands outworks charles down the stretch for the decision win.

 

I always figured Ali's rope a dope was a bit of fluke. As suggested Ali was trying to box, but it simply was not working, and the rope a dope came about purely from Ali laying on the ropes trying to figure out plan B.

Dundee did not like it, he was screaming at Ali in between rounds to get off the rope, Ali just couldn't...

Also if you listen to the post fight interview it was (Sir) David Frost who coined rope a dope, by paraphrasing Ali at the end of the interview with the "So you roped yourself a dope?" question.

To add to the thread, I liked the way Honeyghan adjusted tactics in the fifth, to brutally outbox The Cobra, after Curry seemed to be finding his in the third and fourth rounds of their famous fight.

 

A case could be made for Jeffries in the First Corbett fight.

He employed the same counterpunching tactics as he had used against Fitzsimmons and Sharkey II for the first 15 rounds, and was getting boxed silly. After round 15 he switched to a more offensive pressure orientated strategy, started winning the rounds, and eventualy turned the fight round and stopped Corbett.

The criticism could be made that he left it latter than he should have to switch tactics.

 

How about Aaron Pryor in Alexis Arguello I? He made adjustments by drinking something from a black bottle that gave him a super energy boost. smart thinking by Pryor!

 

Muhammad Ali won 3 of the first 4 rounds, off the ropes. He was'nt just laying there, he was blocking, slipping, countering............................

He was beating George Foreman up off the ropes.

Watch Rumble in the jungle again.......smart ass.

It was'nt even a close fight..!!!

 

I am not for one second disputing Ali won well from early on, but watch the fight, Ali by default was on the ropes, not because he wanted to be (at least not at first), but because he had no choice...

 

I think he was knacked because his tactics of turning back the clock a decade was not working. He was cute and cunning and thus sat back to recover, and to think out a new plan.

He realised his only way of controlling the fight was on the ropes, he had for the moment lost the ability to dictate the fight any other way, so being on the ropes was his only choice, as Ali could only fight well when he controlled matters...

 

One not mentioned yet is Lennox Lewis in the second Holyfield fight. The jab of his was not landing anywhere near as clean as the first bout. It was effective but not anywhere near to the degree it was in the first fight. So Manny had Lewis throwing a right uppercut in mid rounds and was Evander ever open for that punch.

Evander did the same thing in that Copper fight when he went to the uppercut. It changed everything and he just didn't miss. Prior to that it was a back and forth brawl but that adjustment pretty much put Cooper in the has to land a big punch real soon category.