Would if The Fight Of The Century Had Never Happened? Let's suppose that Muhammad Ali's appeal to obtain a boxing license had failed, it did fail on June 10 1970 when U.S Supreme Court Justice Hugo Black denied Ali's request to go to Canada to fight champion Joe Frazier. Would if the U.S Supreme Court had upheld Ali's Draft Evasion conviction, Ali then goes to prison for 5 years, what happens to the heavyweight division?
George Foreman gets his title shot a year or two earlier than he did. He still beats Frazier,imo,but it would have been a war for five rounds or so. Joe simply takes too many big shots though and the referee stops it by the sixth or seventh session. George beats Quarry,Ellis,Frazier again,Norton but eventually loses when he runs into Jimmy Young.
As my man above says, big George probably gets the shot earlier. Joe isn't as physically worn, not havin battled Ali. So perhaps he takes a little longer, before getting stopped.
I don’t think Foreman was ready for Frazier in ‘71 nor would he have earned a shot at that point. I think Foreman beats him in ‘72/‘73 though I also don’t think Young beats a Foreman who didn’t have his confidence shattered by Ali. Even in their actual fight, Foreman had many opportunities for a KO, that he let slide. A younger Foreman wouldn’t have allowed this to happen.
I think that a rematch with Jerry Quarry would likely happen, Quarry was the no.1 contender at that point in time.
