What do you think about "Rope a Dope"?

Ali has admitted doing the rope a dope against Foreman damaged him. He took a lot of punishment doing it. He said he was never the same after that.

 

Ropes are pretty dope. Keeps fighters in the ring. Most of the time at least.

 

IMO you're a dope to hang around on the rope ...

The tactic can work but inviting a guy to punch you till he's tired has never been the best strategy.

 

I watched it live too and that time they called it VIA Satellite television.
To me, it was the best fight ever
I knew Ali could win then but I did not know how he'd do it until this ROPE A DOPE !

 

In that case, IT can only be done by one person ONCE

 

No I don't believe so. Definitely not in the UK, probably not in the US, possibly somewhere else in the world.

Attitudes have changed. People are more litigious. Modern boxing organisations are increasingly aware of their potential exposure to lawsuits, or intrusive legislation. Medical knowledge has grown around the dangers of repeated blows to the head. etc etc.

Referees are charged with the protection of a fighter and I doubt many modern referees would allow the round upon round of one way traffic we saw in Ali v Foreman. Even if the defensive fighter was clearly executing a strategy, the pressure to stop the fight would be intense.

I think you could do it at points as in the Mayweather example given above. It's very dangerous though, not just because of the punishment you take but the threat of the referee stopping it.

 

Loose ropes helped. I think by regulation they have to be taut to certain amount of tension nowadays. But I could be wrong about that.

 

Ali was actually ahead on points using rope a dope. And was outboxing Foreman.

 

I've seen the fight mate

As I said above, some of this will come down to different interpretations of the referee's role. In the UK, where there's been some very tragic outcomes in the boxing ring, there's little appetite for seeing fighters taking massive volume of punches, particularly at the higher weights. The AJ vs Takam stoppage was considered a good one by most here simply due to the volume of punches Takam had taken. In reality many of them were on the gloves, he remained in the fight and there were signs that he may have been able to perrform a rope a dope of his own in the latter rounds as AJ tired. The stoppage was convenient for AJ, but as I said, few protested it because no-one here wants to see more fighters wind up like Watson, McLellan etc.

 

yup

 

Ali was able to lean back quite a bit making foreman reach to a certain extent. Looser ropes or a bigger fighter make that more possible. Taut ropes and a small fighter make a proper rope a dope pretty impossible it would seem.