..and that was a sad moment...seeing Ali in his corner, retired and beaten up [ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WKmPvso3x6U&feature=player_embedded[/ame]
My saddest boxing memory. I still have n't watched the fight,in it's entirety,thirty years on. All I have to say on this,really.
This was the 'Dark Gable' version of Muhammad Ali,,,,,,,publicity stunt Mustache and dyed hair......conversion Then the 'I'm not talking'.....secret plan Angelo Dundee given way too much credit for stopping the fight. He should have ended it after the 8th Round, when the whole arena was screaming for it to be stopped. Larry Holmes even yelling at Dundee and Drew Brown, during the 8th Round, 'how much more do you want this guy to take'.
Should have been stopped before ink was put on the contract paper. Herbert Muhammad had great influence over Ali at this time,and could have stopped Ali from doing it. Thanks Herbert....You *******. Of course,Ali is n't exempt from blame,himself.
The boxing commissions (looking for a fight fee, and officers of the commission looking for nice hospitalities), at the expense of having an old guys brain scrambled even more. Todd Langley, one of the recipients of a lavish hotel room, and the use of a nice Mercedes Benz, plus all expenses covered at the hotel (a net value of $10,000) was an officer of the sponsoring group. Asked about Muhammad Ali's condition after the fight, 'I'll answer that question after the party, I have guests up in my suite. I don't want the champagne to go flat'
Knowing Ali deceptively tried to use a clandestinely double dose of Thyrolar as a PED when he discovered it slightly improved his speed and reflexes if taken as prescribed, only to have it backfire in the ring, then using that drug abuse as his excuse for losing, is akin to Holyfield admitting that the heart malfunction which caused him to lose to Moorer was steroid induced. Muhammad was better enough against Berbick to validate that Thyrolar overdose as the prime reason for his showing with Larry. For me, Ali's attempted use of Thyrolar as a secretive PED resulted in some karmic justice. He tried to cheat, and it bit him on the ass. Holmes-Ali was horrible to watch at the time, but I had no difficulty reviewing it after reflecting about that dirty trick. It was as if all his previous nastiness and cheating had finally boomeranged back on him. If he had continued taking his Thyrolar in the correctly prescribed dose, he still would have lost, but he would have taken far less punishment and gone the distance in relatively good order. Dundee claimed right before that bout that Ali was in better shape than he had been for New Orleans.
Shape,,,,,,,,,,,Muhammad Ali should have not been allowed to fight anymore, after the Earnie Shavers fight. The training, sparring sessions, 30 rounds with Leon Spinks, 10 rounds with Larry Holmes. The outer shell of the brain can only take so much.
We agree on this. With modern technology, I suspect a scrupulous neurological evaluation of Ali's condition following Shavers might have ended his career then and there. With Foreman and Frazier, he always knew where he was and what he was doing. (The one exception was the final round knockdown in the FOTC. He remembers being hit by that hook, and being on the floor, but not the falling itself.) Even in defeating Leon Spinks, he didn't look quite right, as Cosell noted. He recalled enough to say with absolute confidence that Earnie was the hardest puncher he was ever hit by, but reportedly missed his memory of much of it. A mid ring post fight interview with Ali immediately following Shavers would have been interesting indeed. Would he have been like Mike Quarry after Bob Foster, or Starling after Molinares? Muhammad was perfectly lucid with Don Dunphy while kneeling on the floor after Manila, able to reconstruct what just happened in some detail, and utterly energized when talking to David Frost following Kinshasa.
Dr. Ferdie Pacheco, Ali's cornerman said that Ali should have retired after the 3rd fight against Joe Frazier.
If there ever was a call for an independent boxing medical review board, that was the time. Even Tyson vs Holmes should not have been approved. Cooney vs. Norton Ruddock vs Dokes Bad match-ups.
He absorbed obscene punishment in Manila (as did Joe), but looked all right when he came back from the dismal showing with Young, trimmed down to 220 for Dunn. Pacheco had no qualms about contributing an enthusiastic voice over commentary for the post Manila Norton III, and I think a reasonable case can be made that it was actually Shavers who finished him as a great champion, neurologically compromising him beyond the point where diligent training and conditioning could still resurrect his abilities. (Inoki also damaged his legs severely prior to Norton. Take away that destructive fiasco in Tokyo, and the Ali of the Dunn fight might have done well enough in Yankee Stadium that there would be considerably less controversy over the UD he got awarded over Ken.)
Food for thought. :good I've said on other threads that Ali looked better against Dunn than he did against Norton. I know that Norton was 100 times better than Dunn,but Ali LOOKED better in the former. His pre Manilla legs were there,but largely absent in the Yankee Stadium fight.
Ali's mistake was that he wanted to see if he could do it one more time, every fighter has done this mistake in the past, but time goes by for everyone and boxing is a cruel sport for fighters with no skills left....
I watched it once, it made me feel physically sick, no other fight did. :verysad I vowed to never watch it again.