Jimmy Young - "The Ali Fight Was the Turning Point"

It’s a big deal that he did that. It’s borderline disqualification or tko loss

Doesn’t matter how many jabs Young made Ali miss with

I mean how could you not penalize him for doing that while he was trapped on the ropes?

 

Jimmy would have gone to something else if he was anywhere near close to being penalized. Like spitting out his mouthpiece or something else to kill time. It wasn't as if he was ready to go or anything anyway. And Ali was missing a ton of punches whenever he did bother throwing combos. He was usually murder on guys with those 2/3/4 punches after the jab. Not that night.

So Young, just like the guy in the other corner, would do things to the limits of the ref. And if it looked like points deducted, he'd go to something else with that boxing savvy.

Guys like Ali and Young are going to take 15/16ths of an inch the ref gives them. They know exactly where to take things to the limits. It's a real skill to have and could have benefitted tons of fighters.

 

People that routinely love to downplay Jimmy Young's performance against Ali usually choose to chastise Young for acting ridiculous and clowning Ali, effectively making Ali himself look foolish where as previously that was something only he was allowed to do to his opponents. Sticking your head out of the ropes is DQ worthy? Get real.

Deliberately carrying an injured fighter like Patterson or Terell to punish them, verbally goading them to compliment the physical torture going on? Sure. That's not disgraceful, embarrassing, a black eye to the sport. Nothing worse than what Jimmy did right?

Holding and grappling Joe Frazier behind the head and tugging him around like some kind of glorified mixed martial artist or Muay Thai fighter literally dozens upon dozens of times in one bout without a point deduction is ok as well, certainly, again, no double standard here.

Ali apologists exist right alongside Marciano fanboys and both have an equal distortion of the sport as opposed to what actually happened in reality.

It's really pretty remarkable how sporting figures can become so big and transcendent that they inherently bias the hearts and minds of the otherwise normal people that rabidly follow them.

 

Nah, I boost up Leon Spink's performances in the first bout with Ali and Mercado all the time. I'm probably one of like 3 people on here with a good thing to say about the guy, who obviously had a lot of talent and great conditioning when he was fit, but was undersized and outgunned in a quickly changing division.

You'll be hard pressed to find very many posters on here that would favor Spink's over Botha.

 

Well, I think people have a big issue in general with constructive thinking and making sense of the information they're being given at any time, so it is really all that surprising?

Ali was a faded entity but still one capable of pulling one over just about any other fighter in the world at that time period. In my opinion, he was simply out manuevered, out fought and even out boxed by Jimmy Young that night. It wasn't a great match and Young acted like a fool at times, but so what? That was who he was, a jester in the ring, much like other enigmatic fighters like Emmanual Augustus and "Gypsy" Joe Harris. They all did weird **** in the ring, I don't try to make sense of any of it because I don't think it does make any. Why did Young stick his head out of the ropes? I don't know. Did it affect the fight? No. It really did not. I cannot for the life of me understand why people get so worked up that Jimmy did that. He looked like he was trying to **** Ali off, and voila, it worked. It's the same thing Ali did before and during how many fights? People are just particularly sour over this particular event because Jimmy certainly was no Ali and no one wanted to see his antics.

Ali was played like a damn fiddle in that fight, sloppy and flat as it was at times. I don't think anyone ever did anything approaching what Young brought to the table, and Ali didn't like it.

 

Jimmy did, in fact, employ the 'head out of the ropes' tactic early in his career but, as far as I know, it was not illegal at the time; he may have been the first to do it. In subsequent fights, he stopped. Many other HW's employed questionable tactics. Dempsey's 'pound his opponent's arms when the ref wasn't looking; "if they did see it, the ref will only warn you" and Rocky could be a bit of a "s**t ass with his bully tactics at times. No one has ever called them out!
In Jimmy's short window of prime I loved him and he was simply a master ring general. As I've previously said: "He certainly didn't hit that hard but he hit hard enough to stop the big bangers in their tracks!" If not, the big bangers would have walked right through him.
Jimmy warrants respect! As a counterpuncher, you're always going to be judged negatively by the judges. Lyle (2x clear wins), Ali (a win depending on one's perspective), Foreman (clear win) and Norton (the ref said he would have given Jimmy the win).
In closing, with Ali's dog and pony show (for the most part in his 2nd reign), Jimmy immerged as a viable, popular contender mid-70's. The Norton decision broke his heart.
All hail Jimmy! How anyone can give him any demerits in his short window of prime is simply beyond me?!
My $0.02

 

Can you imagine if Young had pulled the trunks down of Ali ----like he did to Dokes to slow the action down?

 

Great post jowcol. Jimmy could punch a little, I'm surprised no one's mentioned how he damaged Ali's ear drum in their bout.

 

As a fan of technicians, I thought Ali's tactics and game plan to win the fight were far more embarrassing. I'm young though, so I don't have any ties with Ali. I look at him the same as every other fighter, which is as impartial as I can, not buying into the hype around him. In the same sense that I'm not buying into any hype that Anthony Joshua gets. I just take every fight he gets as it comes and asses his chances based on his opponent.

Taking this fight for exactly what it is and ignoring the reputations of both fighters, it should be quite clear that Ali didn't do enough to win.

I probably view it this way because I'm young and in more modern times the bull**** that goes on in the sport is so see through it hurts. I just don't understand why it appears it wasn't so see through back then.

 

By scoring more punches than the other guy. Winning more rounds. It was a clear win for Jimmy Young.

How does Ali win a fight when he can't land anything? His name and politics.

 

Hi Webb! Good post! As an old-timer I appreciate your insight!

 

HeyJowcol, Jimmy did the head thing in other fights before Ali fight? How do u know? I'm not dissing u, just curious. OK, For u Ali nuthuggers who say Young stuck his head out because he was scared of Ali coming on, r u kidding me??? Young was in with real bangers, Cooney, Lyle, Norton, Foreman, Sims, and more. U think he was afraid of Ali hurting him??? He did it probably to **** off ali, or maybe just for fun. And Jimmy could bang, he was very cautious boxer though, he wouldn't follow up much really after he hurt a guy, he was satisfied just hurting him and continuing to box cautiously, not putting himself at risk. He was a pleasure to watch in the ring. A true artist

 

ali doesn't

 

For me he did not have the mentality of a winner and he lost close decisions he might have won had he been prepared to put it all on the line.Too many excuses for him have been given over the years.Bottom line he did not have a champions DNA imo.