Don King should have been arrested for putting Duran in with Joppy. Any others?

right

 

Mac Foster probably had no business being in with Jerry Quarry, Michael Dokes none with Razor Ruddock, and Alexis Arguello with Aaron Pryor the second time.

 

Dokes was a couple years removed from his superb effort against Holyfield. Ruddock at the time was unproven, it seemed on paper, excellent matchmaking.

Arguello/PryorI made fight two an almost given...

 

That embalmed version of Dokes that went in the ring with Bowe was a far bigger travesty.

 

He was in position to challenge Frazier, but he needed to cement his contention credentials against a prime contemporary, not a former contender like Cleveland Williams. Jerry had the cachet, but also seemed safe enough. In the previous year, he'd wound down and been stopped by Frazier, then decked by a single shot from Chuvalo. JQ was probably already in decline by then. The defensive elusiveness he displayed against Thad Spencer seemed to be gone, and he was already relying far more instead on punch resistance instead of punch avoidance. Scrap Iron had just gone the ten round limit with Jerry, after succumbing in two rounds earlier in their careers.

Mac started extremely well against JQ, surprising everybody with his jab and right hand, after entering with a reputation as a deadly hooker. With the was Jerry gassed a year earlier against Smoke, it didn't seem likely he could come back here, especially with the shots he was taking. [Mac was far more impressive early in this one than he later was at any time against Ali in Tokyo.]

For Mac to get to Frazier ahead of Ali's return, I think taking on Jerry was well timed, and he did start out extremely well over the first four rounds. What was not predictable was the abrupt ferocity with which JQ would rally [directly off the hardest punch Mac hit him with], and that wild unpredictability is part of what makes Jerry such an item for discussion even today. But yeah, with Mac having reached 24-0-0 with 24 knockouts, and having become the number one contender for Frazier's HW Title as a result, he had to step up to secure that credential.

Not only was Jerry the only guy to ever stop Mac, I believe he was the only opponent to even floor the USMC veteran. Ali tried mightily to do it in Tokyo, but Muhammad, in his final match before turning 30, just couldn't manage to replicate Jerry's feat, even over the championship distance.

 

King put Parkinson's Ali in there with Prime Holmes. If he would do that he would do anything.