The outrageous scorecards for Ali in 76-77.

I recently rewatched the Shavers fight and Ali did nothing in that one bar dance around, gurn at the camera every time Shavers landed a hard right on his grill, and occasionally throw a few shoeshine combinations on Shavers's gloves that predictably fired up the audience and commentators and presumably won him those rounds. He hurt Shavers late in the fight, but that was nothing compared to how Shavers shook him to his boots almost every other round. Really felt Shavers got jobbed on that occasion.

 

Ali was the money maker in the 60s and 70s, he put butts in seats and would have been a massive TV draw as well. Of course he was going to get decisions going his way. Just look at how one judge scored Joshua as winning his 2nd fight against Usyk.

It's all about money in the most corrupt sport in the world.

 

It is this simple about all these fights, and how they were viewed at the time. They were all viewed as close fights, with ringside reporters split on who won.

The three judges, like me and probable many others, had the result in Norton 3 hingeing on the last round. Norton said that he on the advice of his corner played it safe in that round. If that's true, he and his corner blew it since all the judges all gave the round to Ali. Young would have won if he could have kept his upper body in the ring, so also only has himself to blame. Shavers at least left his all in the ring, even though he nearly was stopped in the last round.

An ageing, war torn champion hade some close fights and got the benefit of a doubt in them by finishing strong. Not a huge thing in any way.

 

Baloney. I've watched innumerable fights from that period and there were many instances where a champion did not get the benefit of the doubt. Ali ALWAYS did. I remember the Jimmy Young fight and although he stuck his head outside the ring later in the fight he did not do it every round. He actually did quite well otherwise but did not do enough to win.

 

I've scored Ali vs Norton III on three separate occasions and, on the first two, I had Ali winning and the third time, I had it as a draw.

Norton gave the better performance and won his rounds more convincingly than the ones I gave to Ali but Norton was too cautious, particularly in the 15th round.

Ali was never going to score a knockout in the final round and Norton should have gone for it in the 15th.

I thought that ultimately cost him the fight.

I scored All vs Young as a draw.

The margin of Ali's win on all three scorecards was ridiculous.

I'd score it again but it's one of the dullest fights I've ever seen and I can't bring myself to watch it a second time.

 

If he ALWAYS got the better end of it from the judges, he’d have won FOTC.

Like I said, every great fighter has close fights or close encounters where they avoided a stoppage … or maybe got a stoppage in their favor for a TKO — unless and until someone comes along who completely overwhelms every opponent from start of career to finish there’s always going to be some. And by definition, that means those great fighters had things go in their favor in those circumstances.

Yes you can find exceptions but it was all but written in stone that there was a ‘champion’s advantage’ that was biased in their favor because the belief was you had to TAKE the title. There’s a period of decades where the title never changed hands via decision.