Who won Ali-Shavers?

I think Ali won a CLOSE one against Earnie but your sarcastic remarks mask the fact that Ali was going to get EVERY close call fight in his 2nd reign, Norton 3-Young etc...
It's simply a fact in retrospect.
Ali was the greatest HW champ of all time IMO (largely due to the fact that we never saw a 'prime' Ali (summer 67-summer 80) I'm not one of the 'young bucks' here but as I said, in retrospect, his second reign was FULL of orchestration.

 

Ali

 

No, I wont claim that because it's clearly not true.

I'm just pointing out the obvious possibility that Shavers might be "in awe of" Ali as much as any fan.

It's rare that a fighter in such a close fight shows "bias" against himself, and concedes and insists that he didn't deserve the decision, but it's not unheard of.

 

You mean like Chuvalo thinking he won the rematch?

Shavers is the only one who had a close fight with Ali who's said Ali was the rightful winner.

 

I very much agree with your second paragraph. Though I thought Shavers definitely won a close fight the last time I scored it.

 

Exactly. That's a more common phenomena in boxing. But different fighters have different personalities.

Exactly. That means he was remarkable in some way ... either remarkably modest, remarkably honest, remarkably unbiased, remarkably objective ... or possibly, remarkable in the fact that he was selling himself short.

 

Have no reason to believe it wasn't objective. You say the Ali hype got into his opponents' head, but really has nothing to prove it with.

Chuvalo believes he should have been 1-1 with Ali.

Frazier that he should be 2-1 (hell, perhaps 3-0, since he was bitter at Futch a long time fot stopping it).

Holmes says he would he was the better fighter already when Ali's sparring partner.

And so on, and so on.

But as soon as someone seems reasonably humble concerning his encounter with Ali, it's because he was swallowed by the hype? Pretty weak argument, methinks.

It was a close fight, but Ali did enough to win it. That's all.

There's such hysteria concerning Ali's close fights. Fact is, he's probably not any different from any other long reigning, popular champion. Louis had close fights with Pastor, Farr, Godoy and of course Walcott, for example. But that fact doesn't turn people into nearly the same drama queens. And if anyone of them stated they thought Joe won it fair and square, I doubt that opponents would be dismissed as buying into Louis's hype.

Everything with Ali gets such ludicrous dimensions.

 

You misunderstand me perhaps.

I'm not saying Shavers was selling himself short or over-estimating Ali.
I'm saying the possibility exists. You seemed to be implying it was impossible for Shavers to be biased for Ali.

Sometimes people under-estimate their own efforts. Sometimes people over-estimate what their opponents did against them. It might be rarer than the reverse, but it happens. I may or may not be the case here.

I'm talking about Shavers v Ali, those other fighters don't really figure at all.
I will say that most of them revere Ali in one way or another though, revere him to unusual levels, and with good reason.

 

No, I implied it's odd he should say that about a fight it was apparently impossible to score for Ali objectively. Not that you need to do more than watch the fight to see that it's very possible to score for Ali, but I think that was one way of highlighting the silliness of the remark.

 

I don't dispute what you are saying here but I think you are missing the vital point. Most of these guys have said these wonderful things about Ali, after the onset of Parkinsons. He was originally only given grudging respect for his ability. Now everyone who ever fought him says he was a mix of mother theresa, superman, and einstien.

That said another poster mentioned Holmes. I read somewhere that he was dropped as a sparring partner because he regularly got the better of Ali.

 

Ali clearly won vs Shavers.

 

Going to float this one.

Shavers probably should have won it, but made some poor choices.

 

Of Ali's close fights.
I had him defeat Doug Jones I think 6-4 or 5-4-1
He should of been dq'd against Cooper for smelling salts
He defeated Shavers by two rounds.
I had Norton up 8-7 in 3rd match.
I had Jimmy Young up 9-6 I think

 

I think Ali got very lucky and should have lost decisions versus Young & particularly Norton (3rd fight) but, from memory (a long time since I watched the fight), thought he deserved a close decision versus Earnie.

 

Interesting to speculate what might have happened if Young, Norton, or Shavers had been given the decision.