...........Muhammad Ali had retired after Manila,like a lot of us wanted him to ? Obviously Muhammad's unified crown would be vacated. Do we think that the two main boxing commisions of the time would have behaved like adults and got together to produce a joint successor,or would boxing politics have seized the day ?
I've a horrid suspicion that the two commisions would have chucked their toys out of the pram,and split the title again.
Those fools didn't want to act right to begin with, so no, they would have disagreed, and there would've been two champions, probably Norton WBC, and Foreman WBA.
Who do you think that George's and Ken's opponents would have been ? Joe Frazier and Jimmy Young,maybe.
Even if they acted right then and for the next few years, they would have eventually turned out the same. They behaved themselves better at heavy then any other weight, at anything below heavy they were already fractured. As an example I'm not sure the WBC ever acknowledged Duran as the Lightweight champ. Ruled the division for a decade and never gave him the recognition. There was always going to be too much money, corruption, and control reasons for the organizations to behave themselves. The only day you'll see it happen is when there is only one organization, and then that one will get probably have all the promoters and such trying to bribe it and get control of it for the sake of their fighters.
Here's a thought ! If Ali had announced his retirement,I could see him doing it on his birthday. The Foreman-Lyle fight was a few days after that. It may have been upgraded to a semi-final eliminator.
That probably would've been a break for George, and probably motivated him to do great in his next encounter after Lyle.Who knows, maybe a Shavers-Foreman fight could've been in the mix.
Norton vs Young..and for the good of boxing, Young would have won... Foreman vs Frazier...and we know the way that tune would go.. So then you'd have George Foreman vs Jimmy Young ultimately...and that would have been another familiar tune..this time Young whips Foreman over 15.... or... you'd have the other scenario.. Norton vs Frazier..with Frazier past his best days, but still with enough in him to stop Norton in 10..a tko something like Joe's 9th round tko of Jimmy Ellis in their unheralded rematch....and again Jimmy Young over Foreman.. This would bring us once again to a (hopefully) inevitable unification clash between Frazier and Young...and you might have had Joe use up every lasty ounce of smoke to outpoint Young...by virtue of just being too busy...or...an already spent Frazier drops a close nod to Young.... whichever scenario, there would be, waiting in the wings...just salivating to enter the picture...a young, hungry Larry Holmes....
Although I'd have made Frazier a favourite over Young and Norton prior to,and including Manila,afterwards I'd be confident that Jimmy and Ken would beat Joe.