Rewatched Ali vs. Foreman...53 Times Ali clinched and held Foremans head down.

[lefthook2daliva]

According to official Compuclinch stats, the wizened Ali (with less than one third of Wlad's clinching ouput) clearly cannot hold a candle to today's master boxing technicians.

Respek...

[edgarg]

This was a great read, thank you. I didn't know Foreman was so superstitious.

Well..the reason that he came out of retirement at age 38 was because he heard a "voice" in his head tell him that he must build a church and become a pastor, and that he was to go back to boxing to earn the money to do it. I thought it was well known. I've heard him tell this a few times. And the mess in Zaire was well documented., but it was a long time ago. I'm glad you liked my post.

[kiDynamite92]

I'm sorry to say that you really don't know anything about that fight. You should read up on the few months BEFORE the fight. You should also watch the video "When They Were Kings" which was a detailed accompaniment of their visit to, and stay in Zaire.

Foreman was a pretty ****** guy in those days who was very young and very superstitious. He believed in being bewitched, and in ghosts. He heard "voices'.... Once they got to Zaire, the dictator Mobutu wouldn't let them out for any reason. They were held hostage. Mobutu was footing the big bills from his impoverished country and wanted to make sure of the PR benefits, to show his regime was benevolent, to counteract the bad publicity he'd been getting for years.... When Foreman got a cut over his eye and held the bout up for nearly 2 months Mobutu wouldn't let them move a mile. They stayed right there and sweated. They were constantly surrounded by soldiers, and they could hear lions roaring at night.

Ali really won that fight long before it actually happened. He was tremendously popular there because of his fight with the US Government, and they were in a Communist country (supposedly-really just a primitive dictatorship). Everywhere he went he was "mugging" for the crowds, who had little of fun in their lives. He'd learnt to shout "Ali Bombaye" which meant something like "Ali is great" or "Ali will win", and everywhere Foreman went, the crowd would shout this. It wore him down. When he heard that Ali had hired a witchdoctor to put a spell on him, he got his own witchdoctor whom he made go over the whole arena as well as the ring and especially under the ring, to erase the spells.

The whole thing was a tragi-comedy; a farce; and Foreman wasn't KO'ed -although he was hit, he collapsed from exhaustion. Ali didn't have the power to even KD a guy like Foreman.

I may have a few errors but my memory of that event is fairly accurate.

It mean't 'Ali kill him' and yeah heard about all that. Ali's plan was to tire George down and the heat worked to his favor, he waited his time, weathered the storm and exploded with that combo to put him down. Ali was in total control, you could see in the last moment when George was falling that Ali could have cracked with another shot, but he let him go and knew if he got up he would proceed to further kick his a55.

[soul_survivor]

I wrote something earlier:

http://www.boxingscene.com/forums/sh...1#post13818410

Check it out, that's the thread. Like I say in that, a lot of great fighters get away with bending the rules. Fact is, what Wlad did on Saturday was beyond bending the rules, he clinched and leaned far too much, even though he was the superior fighters, taller, bigger, stronger, harder hitting and more skilled.

What Ali did to Foreman in Zaire, he did off the back of being 32 years old, post-prime, slower than he was 5 or 6 years earlier and nowhere near as hard hitting s Foreman. Ali was the underdog, 3-1 in fact. People said the fight wouldn't go 5 rounds. Ali went in and neutralised Foreman's attack but if you watch the fight, the clinching is simply to stifle Foreman's work and then get in his own shots. Beautiful right hand counters and jabs. Wlad didn't just stifle Pov's worlk, at times he stifled his own game. It was unattractive against a smaller opponent who was a big underdog in reality anyway.

[bojangles1987]

A past prime Ali clinched a couple times a round against a bigger, stronger, dangerous prime fighter people legitimately thought he would die against.

Wow, that really compares to clinching double digit times a round in every round against a guy who posed no threat.

[fabie]

Ali is the greatest. Period.

[StarshipTrooper]

You should be banned for just being a ****.

You should be banned for stealing oxygen from others more worthy of breathing.

[Suavecito80]

This guy made an alt to post this **** of a thread?

Are we really comparing the Rumble in the Jungle to WWE?

At least Ali stopped his man... not to mention that man was GEORGE FOREMAN


Foreman back then on a bad night could stop anybody.

Than you got dumb asses amening this **** thread. SMH

[Dwyer]

The difference is Ali had a much better inside game than Wladimir, the outside game however would have to go to Wladimir, in the end I would put my money on Ali TKO from a far superior inside skills and avoiding the clinch.

[Humean]

I wrote something earlier:

http://www.boxingscene.com/forums/sh...1#post13818410

Check it out, that's the thread. Like I say in that, a lot of great fighters get away with bending the rules. Fact is, what Wlad did on Saturday was beyond bending the rules, he clinched and leaned far too much, even though he was the superior fighters, taller, bigger, stronger, harder hitting and more skilled.

What Ali did to Foreman in Zaire, he did off the back of being 32 years old, post-prime, slower than he was 5 or 6 years earlier and nowhere near as hard hitting s Foreman. Ali was the underdog, 3-1 in fact. People said the fight wouldn't go 5 rounds. Ali went in and neutralised Foreman's attack but if you watch the fight, the clinching is simply to stifle Foreman's work and then get in his own shots. Beautiful right hand counters and jabs. Wlad didn't just stifle Pov's worlk, at times he stifled his own game. It was unattractive against a smaller opponent who was a big underdog in reality anyway.

Being post-prime and/or the underdog makes it right to clinch a lot but not if your not post-prime and/or the favourtie? Or do you mean that this shows Klitschko is simply not as good as Ali and/or whoever? Klitschko did have a lot of success in this fight and Povetkin had almost none, surely that suggests that Wlad's approach was very effective.

I personally think it was because of Povetkin's success versus usual Klitschko's opponents of getting under the jab and close to Klitschko that allowed for even more clinches than a normal Klitschko fight but that his limitations from when he got close meant that he couldn't do anything other than get tied up. With a worse or better fighter than Povetkin, the fight probably wouldn't have had as many clinches.