same reason Ray Leonard waited 8 years to rematch Hearns. Ali knew he put his all out to win that fight, and a rematch might not go the same way with a more experienced Foreman.
Ali started a world tour and earned a ton of cash. Foreman never regained the same monsterous form he had pre "Rumble" and then packed it in. Just circumstances!
And this has been said on numerous occasions , well , just read my post you quoted , I think it's the best i've ever put it.
I have read it again and i understand what your saying but i disagree. Ali was constantly beating him to the punch from pretty early on in the fight before Georges 'fatigue' set in.
But how cum was he able to avoid so many punches ? and absorb the rest relatively easy ? the visible part of the answer lies in no other place than youtube , the invisible part is in my post that you ignore despite you quoted it previously and claim to have read but disagree with . Ali the better fighter ? :-( Ask Norton , Frazier and Chuvalo . But wait , "the man I beat is the better than the man who beat me " , "I was old/not myself against ____" (fill in the blank) But regardless of their (and the so called "experts") answer the real answer is both on boxrec and on youtube.
I very much doubt that it was Foreman whom Ali was scared of. It was more the march of time. By the time that Muhammad had defended against Joe Frazier and Ken Norton,he knew that he was ageing,so did n't fancy many more tough ones. He's hardly the only champion ever to have been guilty of that. If George had been up for a rematch in '75,Ali would have taken it up. Let's look at the facts here. Ali had no qualms about taking third fights with Frazier and Norton,who were tougher for him than Foreman was. Look at the stats. Ali v Frazier Frazier beats Ali by decision 8-3-71 Ali beats Frazier by decision 28-1-74 Ali rematched Joe 30-9-75 Ali v Norton Norton beats Ali by decision 31-3-73 Ali beats Norton by decision 10-9-73 Ali rematched Ken 28-9-76 Ali v Foreman Ali beats Foreman by knockout 31-10-74 Looking at the above stats,surely Muhammad would have had more to be afraid of in Norton and Frazier ?
Damn right ! Even by the end of the fifth round,Ali was virtually unmarked,while Foreman's face was puffing up.