NY Times article after the Ali vs Evangelista fight

Hip punching and kidney punching are illegal. The latter is also dangerous yet we never hear about boxers being kicked out of the ring for those "tactics".

 

Nor do we hear that Ali should be for his.

 

I see a lot of ‘should have been DQ’d’ rule sticklers for ‘holding’ (when most clinches involve both guys and are not outright grappling style holding) — I just don’t understand why people who want to see boxing officiated that way don’t gravitate to amateur boxing.

In amateurs they give warnings for anything and everything and interrupt the flow of the fight all the time and DQ people for minor offenses … you think people rooting for this way of doing things would be overjoyed that there’s a level of boxing handled this way, but for some reason they don’t take to it.

Disqualifying a boxer should be done for egregious and malicious and purposeful repeated illegal action. Not because someone initiates a clinch and releases when the ref tells them to do so.

Paying customers and people who watch on TV or shell out for PPVs don’t want to see the fights end before they even start.

 

Like continually hitting somebody in the hips because you can't t penetrate their low guard? Big George gets a lot of grief for pushing but he wasn't a hip puncher. He tried to penetrate Ali's low guard the right way in Zaire.

 

Everyone was stealing from him. In his book, Holmes wrote about the abuses he saw of Ali's money while working for him. Ali had set up an account at the local grocery store for the guys in his camp to use to buy whatever groceries/incidentals they needed. Holmes saw the guys going in there and buying huge amounts of groceries and household supplies to give to their girlfriends, friends, etc., on Ali's account.

 

And then the judges would have awarded it to Ali anyway. They weren't letting some surly no-name peanut-head have the title.

 

I don't think he cared about money. He brought his brother a home every time he got married and I believe he was married several times.

 

Other than Manila this can be said to varying degrees about Ali’s entire second reign .. after the huge Foreman upset you’d imagine he’d have been thrilled to have regained his title but he really didn’t want to make the needed sacrifices and age then began to catch up. He beat some good names in Bugner, Frazier, Lyle and Shavers, got gifts vs Norton and Young , slaughtered lamps like Cooperman ans Dunn but as a whole he undertrained constantly and underperformed, kinda coasted through most of it

 

I agree. Ali is viewed as a semi god, but how 'great' is a person, who spends 50 % of his life as a zombie due to accumulated blows to the head?

 

So disgusting.
And you can bet some of those guys were reselling those goods for extra money.
Leeches, just leeches sucking Ali dry.

 

He still had a “first three-time Champion at Heavyweight” scenario to rig.

 

I am more critical of Ali both as a man & Boxer than many, but I’ll admit, this was not pretty reading.

“There’s no wrong way to do right, & no right way to do wrong.” - Joe Frazier

 

I really wish Muhammad Ali had managed his money better and retired a lot sooner than he did. If his cognitive health had stayed in tact he might have had an excellent career after boxing as a commentator or actor. He certainly had the charismatic personality for it

 

Yeah, Holmes was the absolute antithesis to Ali in regards to money management - and good on Larry for that.

There are some that might not like Holmes in terms of persona, but to that, we know Larry would just say “You can kiss my big, black, rich ***!” Lol.