Muhammad Ali vs Jimmy Young: who really won?

Even if Young ‘won’ more rounds, he didn’t get penalised except 1 time, when he kept sticking his head through the ropes, you can’t just stick your head through the ropes whenever your opponent gets you in a position where he’s at an advantage, Young should’ve been counted every time and should’ve made each occasion a 10/8 round, or 10/7 if he did it several times in a round.

Ali deserved the win.

 

Ali should be slung out for holding behind the head endlessly in his biggest fights…

 

No thats not how it works, Young did as much as the ref let him get away with… some refs don’t allow inside fighting, some count slower you operate within the arena you’re given, in real life most felt Ali lost that fight and it ain’t a biggie because in real life he got given the win like he was several times.

 

Well, if it’s something he was relying on, then penalising him for it would absolutely have affected the course of the fight, the judges obviously just evened out what the ref wasn’t doing.

 

I agree — that was a disgraceful showing. When the pressure’s on and your opponent has the edge, you don’t get to stick your head out through the damn ropes to escape the heat.

Not sure why it’s being excused in this thread.

 

Which round are you referring too? I’ll have to rewatch

 

It’s also just as illegal to do what the ref was doing, not counting Young when he stuck his head through ropes, essentially what was happening was that Young was getting to call time out whenever Ali had him in a position where he could land punches, boxing is all about getting your opponent into positions where you can land punches, and the job is to not get yourself into those positions, and escape properly when you are in those positions.

 

I don’t recall any round where either participant landed zero blows. It’s been admittedly a while since I’ve watched.

 

Excellent breakdown!

 

I felt Ali's work was a bit better than given credit for he picked after the very early rounds.

Not that I trust CompuBox fully but it had Young almost doubling Ali's landed punches......

 

I don't really understand that you can second guess the judges' performance concerning who won a fight, but not the ref's. Either one just accepts the official result of the fight or take the performance of all the officials into account when judging who one thinks is the real winner.

Of course, if the ref had started a count the first time Young did that he might not have continued. The judges' cards weren't known during the fight and therefore didn't influence the action.