Was Berbick given the decision in the Ali vs Berbick fight?

I have an opinion I don’t think I’ve seen anyone else express: I think Ali arguably “won”, but only because Berbick was humane to a fault (by boxing criteria) and couldn’t bring himself to give a full effort.
(I don’t think he intended to lose, just hold back enough to not hurt Ali more than absolutely necessary.)


Ali wasn’t medically fit to ride a roller coaster at this time, let alone fight a world class heavyweight.

 

Ali wasn't fit? Should'nt have been allowed to fight? Was a corpse? He was old and might have had the onset of all his medical,issure, but damn, Berbick, while an oddball for sure, was a tough fight for anyone. He was very good and tough. Ali did very well in that fight for an old guy who I think wasn't fighting very often at the time.
he was just an older guy that lost a step or two or three by that time. Should he have won? If the points on the judges cards added up in his favor he should have. There are plenty of old trial horses in the game that get beat up fight after fight, nobody cares about them. Ali shouldn't be any different. Though I don't want to see anyone hurt or too over matched.

 

Ali showed some skill & Berbick said something like he first could not get him outta there, then could not bear to do so,...

But Ali was far from just an older fighter.
He had Parkinsons for years. You can see a youtube clip of his hand shaking on a talk show when he was trying to hold it out & say it was steady!
he embalmed himself with the thyroid meds for Holmes.
He was far from just aging; if that was the case maybe he stiil could have been champion.
No, for years he was declining.
He was the shell of the ghost of a corpse of Ali.
he had nothing but guile, toughness & chin left.
All his speed, reflexes, offensive firepower & coordination were gone.

He should never have even been licensed after the Thrilla in Manilla.
But by the '80's he was not only in significant danger...
He was Well & Truly Gone.

 

Looking at the judges scorecards, it wasn't close at all with Ali only winning 4 rounds combined on all 3 judges cards but there does seem to be a higher than usual number of combined drawn rounds than you might expect for a ten round fight.

99 - 94
99 - 94
97 - 94

UD for Berbick.

 

complete exaggeration, He was an older fighter, didn't look much worse really than he did in previous years. I'm not a big fan, but I give him much credit, he still could have beat some guys and was in there with a tough Berbick. But he IS a ghost now

 

They are both ghosts now if you believe in ghosts that is.

 

I am a big Ali fan, i do think he narrowly lost the fight, however even if Ali had perhaps edged it, for once i would have been happy to see a scoring error made in Berbicks favour, i would fear the long term damage that someone like Weaver could have done to Ali if they had fought him next.

Even heroes need protecting sometimes.

 

Was weaver that much better than berbick? He was probably a bigger puncher especially with the right hand but Berbick at the time seemed tougher and more resilient.

 

Yes he was given the decision. This was on Dec 11 1981, known as Drama in the Bahamas, Ali was badly faded at this time, only a shell of his great self. He already had Parkinson's Syndrome.

 

Ali was signed to fight John L Gardener.

 

The poor guy would have been in a wheelchair

Dead right. If Angelo Dundee had walked away after Manilla as Ferdie Pachecco did Ali might have stopped. However, Don King was now making the decisions.

 

Ali actually looked like a real boxer in that fight, not like he did against Holmes. He had zero business going into that ring against Holmes. But at the end of the day he still lost to Berbick.
I don’t believe for one second they gave Berbick the win to ‘save’ Ali. Boxing was a cynical business even back then. Could they have made some more money with Ali against Weaver or some other fight, then they wouldn’t have hesitated to make the fight. And Ali would’ve been the first to co-sign

 

He lost, and Weaver would have TKO'd him had he been given a gift.

The Berbick-Ali fight did have a couple of encouraging moments for people whom love Ali. It sure was a better performance than against Larry...but how much exactly is that saying?

 

I don't think anyone think Holmes win against Ali was downplayed. Ali was a shadow of his former self, everyone knew that. To his credit Holmes is the only fighter to stop Ali, and he wasn't trying too. And it actually bothered him to do that. Holmes proved his greatness against far more capable opposition than Ali was at this time in his career. The Ali win wouldn't have proven or disproved that.

 

Yeah at that stage, Weaver would have turned Ali's lights out and maybe taken a few years off of his life.