Why didn't Ali rematch Foreman?

Not ignoring any of your 'facts'. I'm just stating what happened in their fight.

 

What exactly am i ignoring? Are you suggesting that i didnt read your post yet claim i did? Why would i do that?
Its only a exchange of opinion, not Judgement at Nuremberg.
I thought i answered you perfectly clearly anyhow.

You claim he won because of the ropes
I claim he won cos he was the better fighter
Wheres the misunderstanding here?

As for the 2nd half of your post.....i just dont know how to answer that

 

As you say,the better man on the night won the fight.

 

How does Foreman beat him in a rematch? By outlasting him? Only Coopman and Dunn went out faster than George among Ali's final 20 opponents. There is nothing in their post Kinshasa 1970s careers to suggest George would have had any kind of chance to do this. Until the outset of round seven with the Young defeat, Foreman had never generated a significant display of power beyond round five. (The tenth round stoppage in the Peralta rematch was spurious, and he halted Scrap Iron Johnson in seven on cuts, hardly something Ali would have had an issue with.)

Keep it in the middle of the ring? Who was the straighter puncher with the faster hands? Norton, Frazier and Leon Spinks had the necessary hand speed and staying power to compete. George didn't possess those qualities, and telegraphed his shots via Western Union. He rarely connected flush on Ali's head even with Muhammad stationary on the ropes. How does he score more effectively in mid ring when it was his preference to batter a target cornered or on the ropes? Frazier and Norton were far more proficient in ring center than Foreman. Are we to assume George has more success connecting than Ali does in ring center, if it comes down to hitting and not getting hit? Again, look at the opening stages of Ali-Spinks II, when Muhammad repeatedly slipped Leon's considerably faster head shots. Foreman would have trouble slipping on a banana peel on oil coated ice.

Does he succeed in catching Muhammad with a huge bomb and then finish him? Shavers, who all five common opponents (Caldwell, Lyle, Ali, Norton and Young) of Earnie and Foreman agreed was a harder puncher, failed to do this at the end of September 1977. Shavers had superior hand speed and stamina to George, in addition to better punching technique. (It was not until Foreman's second career that he produced an outburst of knockdown power beyond round five, like Earnie did in round ten of Tiger Williams, round ten of Rochelle Norris, round nine of Tillis, or round seven of Holmes II.) Shavers actually swept round 14 from Ali on all cards, and could gear himself to opt for a decision win, something not in Foreman's mentality. That betrays the true reason why Foreman couldn't get back on track after the Jungle debacle. When he discovered he could not knock Ali out, he had no plan B, and saw no realistic chance to regain the title unless Muhammad obviously slipped or got dethroned.

Today, with benefit of hindsight, we can point to Manila as a tipping point for decline, but that wasn't apparent through the first 3/4 of 1976. Ali looked all right for Coopman, and the poor showing against Young was dismissed to laziness, inadequate conditioning and excess weight after he seemingly redeemed himself by easily dispatching Dunn three weeks later and ten pounds lighter. The Inoki farce damaged his legs (causing him to be hospitalized), then Norton III clearly showed a diminished champion.

One month after Norton III, George took on white Ali wannabe Dino Denis with renewed confidence. He had taken the better part of five rounds to stop Smoke in their rematch. Joe was over 20 pounds above his best weight, a half dozen years beyond his peak, and survived that long by using a style of movement which was not natural for him. Denis was a tall and fast, albeit feather fisted cutie, who was comfortable boxing on the run, and Foreman mowed him down with efficient dispatch. I do think an element of his performance was the realization that Ali might now be ready to be taken.

If Frazier had succeeded in Manila, we'd have seen George get his act together very quickly, enjoying the luxury of a champion he knew he could knock out.


Are we to assume Foreman would have been any smarter and wiser for an Ali rematch? Well, ignoring Gil Clancy's admonitions to get his ass to San Juan at least three weeks prior to Young for getting properly acclimated to the heat and humidity of Puerto Rico was pretty stupid. Going by that foolishness (which Dokes would later repeat for his gift draw with Ocasio), no, he was too ignorant and bull headed at the time to improve much on what he did in Kinshasa. He was almost wholly dependent on Ali sliding downhill, and there's no chance Muhammad would take him too lightly as he did Frazier in Manila.

 

Good post,Duodenum :good

 

Contrary to some statements made here, Ali-Foreman was not one-sided. It was a very close fight. Foreman landed plenty and also gave the impression of being in control early on, with Ali in the ropes. Ali's tactics took awhile to show their effects. Comparing this to Liston-Patterson is ridiculous.

 

If the eighth round had have run it's course,I'd have had Ali up,by approximately five rounds to three.

 

so the ropes had nothing to do with it and foreman was heatproof ,
getting hit by a punch 2d body while standing in front of tight ropes is just as painful and damaging as getting hit by the same punch when you have loose ropes behind you which both absorb the punch and yet keep you standing and even allow you to withdraw backwards from the punch before it even landed not to mention it makes the job of avoiding the punches easier , no these are all nuisance , ali was the better fighter with his constant backpedalling , occasional weak for his size punches and skin ripping pity pats . so much better he peed blood after chuvalo , sucked ass' balls vs doug jones and went life n death with norton n frazier which foreman made quick work of not to mention i m glad he never met doug jones.
ali was a p4p light hitting , dirty , don king (and angelo dundee) protected fighter. the circumstances of the zaire fight is part of that protection .
now , if you want to claim ali was durable then you're right , but only if you mean the slow ali.
if you want to claim ali was quick , well , then ur right again , but only if u mean the not so durable ali whom would have gotten stopped by sir henry cooper had cooper wasn't a white ass alcoholic , or whatever made his skin crap , well , maybe don king or angelo dundee had something to do with these cuts too.
ali and holmes' stylez r **** , which only don king fighters can do with .
holmes was lucky he had never met coetzee , never met a young norton nor did he rematch the old one , thumbed shavers , somehow never met jimmy young , sucked against a crap cooney and a just slightly better michael spinks twice , and i watched all of these fights which is why i know this .
haven't seen ali-cooper fights yet though.
a motivated corrie sanders would have blitzed through a young ali , and pummel the old one whom might just cheat his way en route to a don king decision.
most of ali's important stoppages were due to either cuts , the foreman story , an old floyd patterson , or a back injured floyd patterson. such is the magnitude of the greatness of your protected donking all time hypejob filling in for a hero ali.
same for holmes whom just lacked the charisma and the stupid ass talk (although he might have had a point in his claim on marciano , not that i accept it completely either)

 

So you had it very close then on your card, closer than I had it (4-2-1).

 

Duo, excellent post earlier, although I'm not sure about this bit...

Foreman signed to fight Lyle soon after Ali's win in Manila, when previously he cancelled a 'comeback' fight with Pedro Lovell (who went on to fight Norton instead) before the contest with Joe, so he was most interested in another fight with Ali. It was after the Lyle win that the WBC announced that the only reason George was dropped from the #1 spot was due to inactivity, as soon as he was in action he was again mandatory contender.


Ali then claimed, before the Coopman joke, that he would take on "Norton then Foreman in 1976 then retire". Of course, he would fudge the issue by delaying the Norton fight (orignally mooted for July) then announcing his retirement about four times throughout the year.

 

I wonder if Ali's '7 consecutive world title defences' without taking on a mandatory is a record for a heavyweight champion? :huh

 

A couple of the Foreman rounds were very close. Could have gone either way really. The ones that Muhammad won were more emphatic,imo.