BoxRec

Il Duce - do you have any photos of Wepner in the Akron hospital after the fight?

SteveO wrote:Il Duce - do you have any photos of Wepner in the Akron hospital after the fight?

My guess? He has all of them.....and will never share. May even own the rights.

What about the the footstompin part? If your just talkin' appearances....I'm with ya! It looked pretty good.

But it WAS afterall....an accident....you know.....foot on other fella's foot.....making balance difficult.

Very good that it is ruled "official" so it's a feather in Wepner's cap.......but it was actually a bad call.

So both have a "reality" official call.....but physics fluke....and technically against the rules.

And that's the real deal on this.

But I like your bountiful verbage, and interesting fictional accounting.

Maybe you could parlay this into a movie......oh wait.....someone else already ran with this is an inspiration.

So you are a tad late. But don't let that stop ya. I want to see the screen play. Or is this the screenplay?

C'mon....I like the screen play...it's got spunk. All over it. But in spite of that I like it.

But really.....a foot well planted keeps Ali from moving and he falls down due to physics. And Wepner happens to be in the ring....and it's ruled a KD....both you and I know it was not a real KD. It was an OFFICIAL KD. And in this case there is a difference.

Wepner..has to be proud of this....so I don't fault him...but you should know better. You see the pic.....it's not just "touching".....it's even more than "touching"....it's got heart....and SOUL. lol.

It's like someone who knows the time that an eclipse is coming, and steps up in front of some aborigines and claims that it was HE who caused the sun to black out. And everyone goes oooo and ahhhh! Well not everyone.....but ONE person does, because they have FAITH!!

And in this particular case....I honestly think your the only one with such faith amongst us.

And I only mean this in the way of innocence, as the aborigne's simply did not have the scientific knowledge to decipher the lie. They did have other great wisdoms...but that was not one of them.

Not sure anyone one else thinks this is anything more than an OFFICIAL KD. You sir, are a talented and spirited (perhaps inebriated) bologna peddler!

Your all science.....what about SOUL?


....of Wepner's shoe. Didn't mention it again.

Can you see it? Or no? It's ok....I'm color blind, I can't see green....or red.

OK....I should engage you with respect. So here goes.

I heard Ali say that Wepner gave him a tougher fight than Foreman.


"I was surprised when I read this question but after watching the interview I think that Ali didn't mean Wepner gave him a tougher fight because he was better than Foreman, he just meant that Wepner was a tougher fight because he hadn't trained hard and took Wepner lightly. With Foreman Ali was in peak condition and for Chuck he wasn't, and I'm sure that is the only reason Chuck was a rougher fight." .....HairyDude


I have placed HairyDudes comment in quotes for your feedback. What do you think of what Hairy has to say here?

Philo Gabrielle offered a rather definitive summary...and some info the fair minded may want to know about this matchup.


Philo Gabrielle combines his opinion with sources he notes, in the following contribution.


"The Bayonne, New Jersey native was certainly no Joe Frazier or George Foreman, but he wasn't as embarrassingly bad an opponent as many champions had chosen to fight. (The immortal Joe Louis had fought so many dubious challengers that they came to be known collectively as his "bum of the month club.") Wepner, with a record of 30-9-2, was ranked 9th in the world after all, though some observers opined that all that really indicated was that the heavyweight division was quite thin after you got past the top handful of contenders.

For most of the fight, things went pretty much as expected. Ali was in mediocre shape, and didn't push himself. He comfortably won most rounds, though he didn't look as flashy or impressive as he could on a good night. Wepner oafishly plodded after Ali, throwing punches but unable to land anything of consequence, except for his constant rabbit punches (illegal punches to the back of the head).

Then in the 9th round, came the stunner. The round was looking like the preceding eight-dull, with the clear edge to Ali-when Wepner strode forward and momentarily stepped on Ali's foot [/b]or got his foot tangled with Ali's. As Ali stepped back off balance, Wepner threw a lunging right to the body, which was half punch and half push.


(Il Duce...this is for you!......) The champion went down!

Really if referee Tony Perez had seen clearly what had happened, he probably would have ruled it a slip instead of a knockdown. It was definitely the most dubious of the four knockdowns Ali suffered in his career.

Ali didn't protest it however. He immediately got up, clearly unhurt, and resumed what he had been doing, winning the remainder of the round.

As Ali continued to dominate the fight in the subsequent rounds, really the only remaining suspense was whether Wepner could survive to lose by decision instead of by a knockout.

He almost did, but not quite. Ali battered the exhausted Wepner around the ring in the 15th and final round. A flurry put the challenger down. Wepner weakly tried to haul himself up by grabbing onto the ropes, but the referee stepped in and stopped the fight in Ali's favor, with just 19 seconds remaining.

Interestingly, what the Ali-Wepner fight is best remembered for today is not the unlikely knockdown of Ali, but the fight's influence on movie history.

One of the fans watching the fight that night was a small time actor named Sylvester Stallone. Inspired by the underdog Wepner's valiant effort to survive 15 rounds against a legendary champion, Stallone wrote a movie script about an unknown heavyweight challenger's efforts to "go the distance" when he's granted a surprise fight against the champion. Stallone cast himself in the lead in his movie, which was called Rocky and won the Academy Award for Best Picture of 1976."

Sources:

Mark Collings, "Chuck Wepner: The True Story of the Real Rocky." Sabotage Times.
Chad Millman, "Yo, Big Chuck." New Jersey Monthly.
"Muhammad Ali vs Chuck Wepner." Boxing Memorabilia.


Now here is some information you can read with confidence and an assurance of it's source.

Touching? Well a touchstone to the actual events and how it actually manifested..yes.

I like yours better. But wanted to offer up some options to the readers.

Your language work is good....but the information is not all that accurate.

So I felt compelled.

Il Duce wrote:Chuck Wepner

"I had nothing to lose going coming out for Round 15."

"Muhammad was the 'embarrassed one'. I was still hanging around after nearly everybody
said I would be 'lucky' to last thru 6-Rounds. Though I was so far behind on Points, I was
still pressing the action, and making Muhammad work hard for the Knockout win."

"Muhammad was not a nice person, as he had been calling me very bad names during the bout."
> 'White MotherF***er'
> 'White Ass F***'
> 'Scumbag'
> 'Great White Dope'
> 'Whiteboy'
> 'Pale Face Cracker'
> 'This N****r is beating your Slave Ass'

"He kept saying those 'filthy things'. And each time, he would follow up with... "You're going down now Bum."

"I just couldn't understand the 'hate'.

You are one sick b@stard.

Fact: You are goofy.......OK I can't prove it....so....it's a factoid. However it's a very popular factoid....so it might as well be gospel.

Factoid.....it's entirely possible Ali beat on him just to KO him before the bell rang, because he could. Gave him a chance to quote unquote practice his craft. This factoid can stand up against many of your edumacated guesses that you are offering up. In fact...yeah that's the ticket! It's troo!

Fact: Wepner stepped on M.A's foot. (Refer to photographic evidence earlier submitted for your perusal.) CW was awarded an official knockdown. You know...from that referee that don't pay proper attention. It's all part of this experience known as quote unquote....reality.

Well now you're just being contrary.

Giancarlo wrote:

Il Duce wrote:Chuck Wepner

"I had nothing to lose going coming out for Round 15."

"Muhammad was the 'embarrassed one'. I was still hanging around after nearly everybody
said I would be 'lucky' to last thru 6-Rounds. Though I was so far behind on Points, I was
still pressing the action, and making Muhammad work hard for the Knockout win."

"Muhammad was not a nice person, as he had been calling me very bad names during the bout."
> 'White MotherF***er'
> 'White Ass F***'
> 'Scumbag'
> 'Great White Dope'
> 'Whiteboy'
> 'Pale Face Cracker'
> 'This N****r is beating your Slave Ass'

"He kept saying those 'filthy things'. And each time, he would follow up with... "You're going down now Bum."

"I just couldn't understand the 'hate'.

You are one sick b@stard.

Seriously...the guy is completely f*cked in the head.

Learning to love yourself...........it's the greatest love of all.

I see you have done a good job of it.

If it is true that he was "sick" and "100% racist" Where oh where does this leave you?....if graded on some sort of subjective curve?


You should limit your hateful critiques.......but you "should" do a lot of things that you will not likely do. This is a venomous and spiteful/hateful statement. I suppose it is protected as well. Aren't you lucky. But your bile is disgusting and repulsive to some.
You may be just about as vile as you accuse Ali of being. Coincidence?........I think not.

Il Duce, Mike Schutte does not stands at 6'4", but he stands at 5'11 1/2" and here was the second fight with future WBA Heavyweight Champion and fellow South African Gerrie Coetzee.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vcVRqD154i8