Cassius Clay vs. Doug Jones (1963)- Was Jones robbed of a win?

[butterfly1964]

tonight at 8pm eastern on espn classic, i'm watching the 1963 bout between the number one heavyweight contender doug jones and the number two contender, 21 year old cassius clay (aka muhammad ali). i saw the fight before and it was a good fight. clay would have to win this fight if he wanted a title shot against the big bear charles "sonny" liston. clay's trainer angelo dundee thought it would be a true test for clay to see if he could really hang with the big boys. he usually fought guys his size or bigger, so jones would be a good test for the young up-start, because jones was strong yet he was smaller than clay at about six foot and about 196 1/2lbs, so clay would be fighting someone as fast as him. before the fight clay asked jones how tall he was. jones reply was, "Why do you want to know?" clay boldly responded,"So I can judge how far to step back when I drop you in the fourth!" however, clay didn't know what he was in for. jones matched him blow for blow, he even almost knocked clay down in the first round when clay fell back on the ropes after a huge left hand lead from jones! it was close and many people thought jones won. however, ali was given a unanimous decision. many people threw beer, peanuts, stubs, even glass bottles in the ring! what does cassius do? he casually walks to the center of the ring, picks up a peanut, crackes the shell, and eats the nut. cool, calm, and collected huh? hardly! many people thought he was lucky to come out of there with a win!

i watched it about twice before, and i didn't actually score it, so i don't really know if jones was robbed. i will though tonight. for those who watched that fight, do you think either jones was robbed, clay was rightfully given the victory, or that it was a close call and it could have gone either way?

[fistlegend]

i heard it was close

[habZ]

I read somewhere that one judge gave all the close rounds to Ali and the other 2 judges gave all the close rounds to Jones. Due to that judge that gave the close rounds to Ali (8-1-1 i think), he just about won the fight.
I also read that it wasnt Ali's greatest performances but just did enough to pull the win.

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Just checked and the judges scored:

Scorecards: 5-4-1, 5-4-1, LoScalzo 8-1-1

[KidBlackie]

Ali was less than impressive against Banks, Cooper, and Jones. That's how he got the Liston bout. Sonny thought it was such a slam dunk that he was training for a 6 rd fight and was out nightclubbing after training. At any rate, Sonny was at an advanced age when he believed his press clippings as he was going downhill and was rusty. Ali was young and improving and happened to catch Sonny at the perfect intersection of time just like Leon caught Ali so many years later.

[butterfly1964]

interesting posts. also i'd like to correct myself on something. doug jones wasn't the number one contender, but actually the number three contender. the number one contender was floyd patterson, who later that year (1963) would fight sonny liston for the championship. whoever won the match between liston and patterson would have to fight the winner between clay and jones. also, jones didn't weigh 196 1/2lbs, he weighed 188. clay weighed 202. sorry if i mislead some of you. here is a picture from the clay-jones bout. keep posting!

[butterfly1964]

i scored the fight myself and i actually found clay winning that fight 7-2-1. oh well, maybe it wasn't so close after all.

[Skydog]

It was one of the tougher fights of Ali's career in the 60's, but he definetly won the fight.

[butterfly1964]

It was one of the tougher fights of Ali's career in the 60's, but he definetly won the fight.

it probably was his toughest.

[fistlegend]

yep, i think it was, no one else gave him much of a challenge, that the challenge doug gave him in the 60's but i think a more older ali maybe 2 years older wouldve demolished him

[habZ]

part of the **** performance was to decieve liston