How many of Zyglewicz fights have you even seen? Lets see. Im guessing 98 seconds of one. If you want you can make some ridiculous claim about having seen several and then I can have you describe them to me. I can match that with films and compare your description with newspaper reports. Im guessing it will look a lot more like what appeared in print than what appeared on film... It shouldnt be hard, Im sure the WBA was flying you all over the country to officiate his bouts.
Less than three rounds. Why exactly would Ali waste any time feeling him out other than to give the fans their money's worth? Ziggy was 5 or 6 inches shorter, had a much shorter reach, wasnt a puncher, wasnt fast, wasnt a good boxer, and his record of being a punch absorber who had been told to quit by the CSAC was well known. You say he was very tough but he was only tough against an extremely poor selection of competition. That doesnt prove you are tough. You could fight a room full of bed ridden invalids and walk out undefeated, are you going to brag you are tough after that? The only time he stepped up his game he was not even competetive. In fact he didnt make it out of the first few seconds without going down. Ron Stander did better than that and he was "tough" (which is just a pathetic description applied to ham and eggers who willing take a beating knowing they cant win). Ziggy wasnt even on Standers level. No, he doesnt make it past three and it could be stopped a number of ways. The point is he wouldnt finish and he wouldnt last as long as you say in order to minimize Ali's ability.
No, Im saying it didnt take a Joe Frazier to get Zyglewicz out of there early. He remains one of the poorest heavyweight title defenses in the history of the sport.
To my way of thinking, Frazier's true reign as the heavyweight champion began on 2/16/70 when he unified the title by beating Ellis.
Everything after that date was a true defense.
And before someone throws in the name of Daniels and Standers, Frazier was allowed a can or two with his ongoing health issues and the fact that the FOTC took a lot out of him.
Besides, I reckon Stander would have given the likes of Coopman and Dunn a go.
Last edited by yancey on 20 Aug 2013, 22:35, edited 1 time in total.
I don't recall even granberry claiming that Ali ducked Thad Spencer b/c he would have been dangerous, or would have not been able to easily stop Zyglewicz. If I recall he more had conspiracy theories/excuses for all of Ali's top victories.
Thad Spencer was a talented fighter who got beat by the best fighters he faced, how does this make him the uncrowned champion, unless I'm missing something???
fatcity69 wrote:Thad Spencer was a talented fighter who got beat by the best fighters he faced, how does this make him the uncrowned champion, unless I'm missing something???
Hi
If you read the previous 212 posts read only Klompton's messages..they are the truth...do not try to make sense of the argument lol
When a promoter starts throwing out numbers without any other details they are only as good as the paper they are written on, which is to say they are meaningless. If Ford was so serious about his offer then why did he cut $100,000 off of it within a few months? When you start throwing out pie in the sky numbers and then very quickly cut them down by 33.3% it doesnt really sound like you are all that serious. Besides, even if that were true (and I wont believe anything duce writes without corroboration) there are millions of reasons why fights dont get made, particularly in this stage when numbers are simply being bandied about. Besides, your timeline doesnt make any sense. At the time in question Ali was already scheduled to fight Cleveland Williams in November. AFTER Spencer's bout with Jones he was rated only #10 by the WBA, He was rated 8 by Boxing Illustrated, and 3 by Ring Magazine. The WBA (which had Terrell as champion) had Ali rated as #1 and Zora Folley rated as #2, Ring had Ali as champion, Terrell as #1 and Folley as #2, Boxing Illustrated had the same ratings for the top three as Ring. So what did Ali do? He unified with Terrell for a purse that was anticipated at $650,000 with his share of the rights and then went and defended against Folley for what was expected to be $450,000 with his share of the rights the following month. So you would rather that he take an offer (which was waffling all over the place) to face a lower rated fighter for less money? And that makes sense how? Because let me tell you how this plays out: Ali fights the lower rated Spencer for less money. He wins easily but is accused of avoiding Terrell and Folley and 50 years later a bitter 17 year old who knows nothing about the era comes on here pretending to be a former WBA official and starts calling Ali a coward for fighting someone like Spencer whose only credentials were two decisions over a very faded Doug Jones and Brian London. Does that make any sense at all?
Fact: In the November 1966 rankings for the WBA, Ring, and Boxing Illustrated Thad was rated #10, #8, and #2 in that order. So why the drop? Thats an indisputable fact. Go look it up.
Fact: Both Ernie Terrell and Zora Folley were rated higher than Spencer when Ali fought them.
Fact: Ali made more fighting Terrell and Folley than he would have gotten to fight Spencer.
Fact: Thad fought Jones 3 and a half years after Ali did when Jones was clearly on the slide and coming off a loss to Terrell.
So I ask again: What was the incentive for Ali to face Spencer over Folley and Terrell? In Terrell he had a larger purse, a title to unify, and a guy who was considered his biggest threat. In Folley he had a guy who was rated higher than Spencer, an established name, and a higher purse. Where is the incentive?
Last edited by klompton on 21 Aug 2013, 14:18, edited 1 time in total.
klompton wrote:Fact: In the November 1966 rankings for the WBA, Ring, and Boxing Illustrated Thad was rated #10, #8, and #2 in that order. So why the drop? Thats an indisputable fact. Go look it up.
Fact: Both Ernie Terrell and Zora Folley were rated higher than Spencer when Ali fought them.
Fact: Ali made more fighting Terrell and Folley than he would have gotten to fight Folley.
Fact: Thad fought Jones 3 and a half years after Ali did when Jones was clearly on the slide and coming off a loss to Terrell.
So I ask again: What was the incentive for Ali to face Spencer over Folley and Terrell? In Terrell he had a larger purse, a title to unify, and a guy who was considered his biggest threat. In Folley he had a guy who was rated higher than Spencer, an established name, and a higher purse. Where is the incentive?
Not to mention Ali was how old when he fought Jones?
And instead Ali faced the higher ranked Cleveland Williams and got paid 50 percent of the gate for Cleveland Williams which came out to $222,000 plus 60 percent of the ancillary rights which ballooned his pay well beyond the $300,000 (or winner take all) offer that Spencer and his people made but quickly backed down to $200,000.
You dont seem to be able to leave this fantasy world where you think Spencer was a bigger draw, higher rated, and able to bring more money to the table than the guys Ali fought. Face it, Ali fought the people who rated BY EVERYBODY as being better than Thad and got paid more money to do it in front of larger crowds than would have paid for Spencer.
The biggest victory of Thad's ENTIRE CAREER, and he would admit this, was Terrell. Spencer made $50,000 for that fight and thought he had hit the big time. When Ali fought Terrell his purse was estimated at THIRTEEN TIMES what Spencer made to fight Terrell only six months later. Its called prize fighting and Spencer, for all of his bluster, was not as well known, not as highly rated, and not as well funded as ANY of the guys Ali was fighting during this time period you are discussing.
p4p1 wrote:So a professional fighter wanted to face the guys who would give him the biggest pay days then.
If you claim to be the 'The Greatest', and scrape the bottom of the barrel looking for opponents,
are you not a Garbage Picker....
If you call your opponent a 'Bum, are you not a 'Bum Fighter'.
The money was there in the bank, no matter who Cassius fought..........
You're theory only works if Spencer was ranked #1 and everyone was calling for this fight. This was not the case.
Exactly you cant call it scraping the bottom of the barrel because he didnt fight spencer when all of these guys were eated over spencer by everyone and brought more money to the table to boot. its not like these were some b.s. alphabet ratings, even the ring and b.i. had them rated higher
Last edited by klompton on 21 Aug 2013, 16:20, edited 1 time in total.
So lets move the goal post one more time since you got no traction with the other two or three dates you listed as offers for Ali-Spencer. First it was October, then August, then June. All this says is that Spencer was chasing a fight with the heavyweight champion when he wasnt even highly regarded and didnt get it. Big deal. The problem with this date and all the others you listed is that Ali was already booked to face London and Mildenberger when Thad's people floated this offer. Real brave. Then three days after Ali knocked out Mildenberger Thad was stopped by that beast Bill McMurray which essentially blew his chance of leveraging a match. He came back and beat a very faded Doug Jones which kept him from totally being bounced out of the ratings but by that point he had been passed by Williams, and Folley and Terrell had already been ahead of him. So this idea that Ali ducked Spencer is a joke. Spencer just had to keep winning and make a name for himself. Instead he lost to a journeyman. Ali then defended against three men in fairly quick succession who were all rated over Thad and made more money doing so than any of the offers from Spencer's people.
You also dont know what you are talking about when you discuss the purse Ali got for that fight with London. He was guaranteed $250,000. His purse was augmented by his share of ancillary rights which brought up around $290,000 (probably a lot more than this but the numbers which were published later were the preliminary numbers). There was no dirty deal or under the table payoff as you insinuate.
You come on here and say it was sham etc. Where is the evidence other than you just once more making up b.s. in order to denigrate Ali? Evidence or STFU. I also want you to provide sources for your quote for Ali. You posted a link which didnt state anything backing your claim. In fact, what does Ali fighting London and Mildenberger have to with Spencer?
Yes, they were so much easier than a guy who had lost to a light heavyweight nobody and a couple of journeymen. A guy whose two best wins came over a very faded Doug Jones and Ernie Terrell coming off a loss, in which he showed he wasnt as good against Terrell as Ali was. A guy who after Terrell never won another fight in four years of fighting despite being only 28 when he retired. Contrast that with the fact that despite Ali being a year older and suffering from a three year layoff he came back, fought on for ten years, and in so doing defeated Oscar Bonavena, Jerry Quarry 2X, Joe Frazier 2X, George Foreman, George Chuvalo, Jimmy Ellis, Ron Lyle, Earnie Shavers, Ken Norton 2X, among others. All better fighters than Thad was at any point in his career.
Il Duce.....I didn't want this thread to be forgotten....and I know you have more to say regarding your assertion of Thad Spencer's domination of the HW division. But you never got around to chronicling one of Thad's key events.
Can you walk us through the how's and why's of the details leading up to and the specifics of the actual Thad Spencer vs Mac Foster event?
I only brought it back in order for you to continue to make your point.
I thought you had more to say.....
No need to be disrespectful.
I thought the Quarry-Foster-Spencer triangle was somehow relevant. But I see you have dealt with it by way of exposing Thad's timing of the use of illegal drugs. Was Thad using the same suppliers as Sonny? I know that Leotis Martin was sent in to clean both their clocks.....is there a connection? Was he the "enforcer"?
If you haven't thought of it yet, please use it.....I'm thinkin' it's a great plot twist to crank up the drama and suspense factor.
at this thread.
