Earnie Shavers vs Lamon Brewster

No. You are saying that the decision was controversial. It was not. I watched the bout live and rooted AGAINST Ali but still gave it to him 9-6 in rounds. The overwhelming majority felt as I did that Shavers did not do enough to win. Further Shavers himself has stated he did not do enough to gain the decision.

 

Both men could stop each other. shavers hits harder while brewster was the better technician. This is a tough one but I think shavers would stop by a hard straight right hand

 

Lets not overrate Brewster because of the Wlad win. Kally Meehan boxed his ears off in his first defence of the title he ripped away from Wlad in savage fashion.

Saying that though , he was very tough and has underrated hitting power. Shavers doesn't want to collide head on with a Brewster right hand cos if he does its curtains for Ernie.

 

It's Ovah....I salute you. YOu are completely correct about the Ali-Shavers fight. Perry is correct that the decision wasn't controversial at the time, but there were reasons why it wasn't, as I shall explain:

This fight was televised on, I believe, a Monday night, or maybe a Thursday. This was not the PPV extravaganza that Norton III or the Thrilla were. Shavers was seen as a decent challenger, but still very beatable by Ali.

What happened is that, for the first time, they had round by round open scoring. Everyone knew the score, and the announcers were telling everyone that Ali was winning the rounds. This was a weekday night....many casuals were watching....many people who don't know **** about boxing were tuning in to see the great and magnificent Ali do something magical....something he hadn't been able to do in two years.

The announcers were biased, plain and simple. Ali was given credit for EVERTHING he did. He circled around and they praised his moment. He threw a slapping combination completely blocked by Shavers, and they praised that. The announcers told the audience that Ali was doing all this great stuff, and then the judges backed it up on their cards.

Meanwhile, Shavers is coming forward, frequently landing BOMBS on the side of Ali's head. These heavy blows, however, were not given the same praise as Ali's tired old schtick. Yes, Earnie took a couple rounds off to pace himself. Still, when you look at effective punching, for the first 14 rounds Shavers was the only guy landing anything. Ali finally landed in the 15th for a strong 30 second flurry....and of course stole that round, too.

In the end, the announcers stated that Ali won, very matter-of-factly. The audience, brimming with casuals, accepted this. This was only Earnie Shavers....right? He didn't even have the status of Norton, so no one cared that he got screwed. And everyone went to bed that night saying "Wow, isn't Ali great? Did you see how he flurried in that final round?! Wow! We'll never see another like him!".

Shavers did complain about the decision immediately after the fight. It wasn't until years later that he changed his story, and that's because like so many others, he was in love with Ali and didn't want to offend him.

So, after this, Ali gets to take 8 months off and then come back in against the easy Alfredo Evangelista, and Earnie gets thrown in with the toughest guy out there, one Lawrence Holmes. Shavers, like Norton before him, gets screwed out of his legacy. He is better than given credit for.

And yes, he would beat Lamon Brewster.