Was the Rope-A-Dope planned? Foreman-Ali

[SthPaw]

Necessity is the mother of invention.

This.

In my opinion Ali realised early on that he could employ this tactic and then proceeded too. You could say it was planned given that George hadnt gone many rounds at all and the fight was in such a warm environment that he was bound to fade, but I’m not sure about that.

[.!WAR MIKEY!.]

im pretty sure the plan was to tire big geroge out but not like that lol but on the oustide looking in is way different and im sure once ali got in there that was literally the only way to tire foreman out.

[soul_survivor]

Ali said he planned to rope-a-dope him,but for some reason I am not so sure.

In the first round Ali tried to dance but George cut off the ring so he had nowhere to go, in the 2nd round onward he started to press him onto the ropes.

Do you think Ali tried to rope-a-dope him from the beginning or was it just a happy accident?

When did Ali say he planned it? Do you mean planned in the ring or pre planned?

Every interview of his I've ever seen and I think I've seen them all, he speaks about realising early on, the first round in fact, that he couldn't move for 15 rounds. Not like he used to. So from the second onward he decided to allow foreman in, and the. Counter him.

[Larry the boss]

Yes, The Foreman camp even complained about how loose the ropers were BEFORE the fight

[Joe Beamish]

In Ali's book he said Foreman was great at cutting off the ring and that Ali himself world have been exhausted if he continued to move at that pace. The rope a dope was plan b.

This. By that stage of Ali's career, he couldn't dance all night long like he wanted to.

But he was whupping on Foreman both ways -- dancing and sitting on the ropes. One of the few fighters that could have so totally outclassed Foreman like that. (Same goes for his successes against Liston.)