kingpawn wrote:Buzz ... I clearly remember watching the fight live on like CBS Sports Spectacular or ABC's Wide World of Sports ... whatever the program was that broadcasted the fight at the time. I remember when our TV Guide used to come each week and I would always look for the televised fights. Often times there would be one of those "closeups" with a couple paragraph write up about the fighters.
Well, yes, I also recall footage (no pun intended) shown between rounds of Wepner's foot on top of Ali's when Wepner threw the right that he got credit for the knockdown with. Not much of a punch when you see it on these old ESPN Classic replays. But "scoreboard" as they say. That's what it was scored, so that's what it was.
Here's a thought, though. How do you suppose Wepner would do if you could lift him out of his time and drop him into the present time? Indeed he was as big as these HWs nowadays. And he was tough, if not exactly all that good. What do ya think?
He would never get past the Alexander Dimitrenko's and Alexander Ustinov's of the world... Dimi went 257... Wepner was 119 for Ali, from his own mouth.. He had 6 pounds of clothes on when he weighed in.. Joseph Parker would eat his lunch.. .
Damn....your on to something here, they should never have matched up a straw weight (113 pounder apparently based on Kalan's keen sense of observation) vs a fella Like Ali. Sounds like everybody was eating poor Chuck's lunch for the entire training camp before the fight. The commish should have stepped in.
Chuck Wepner weight 219 lbs for the Ali fight ?
diffcult to belive.
he is a big dude at 6 ft 5" tall and burly looking.
I remember when he was on the show on ESPN
with Angelo Dundee and Dundee said he couldnt believe
how big he was sitting next to him.
Kalan wrote:219 for Ali with 6 pounds of clothes... Obviously a typo to anyone but you.
Kalan.... more is expected from you.....it's not about me.....it's about the kids, they are all attempting to sort out the great dilemma of "fake news"......and it's just this sort of reporting that does not help.
Caractacus wrote:Chuck Wepner weight 219 lbs for the Ali fight ?
diffcult to belive.
he is a big dude at 6 ft 5" tall and burly looking.
I remember when he was on the show on ESPN
with Angelo Dundee and Dundee said he couldnt believe
how big he was sitting next to him.
Chuck looked downright thin in the fight. Those were the days when HWs trained seriously. Not only that, Chuck tried the entire fight, he wasn't trying to run out the clock like Saunders or Monroe.
what I remember about that fight was that it was shown on closed-circuit TV, which meant you had to go downtown and buy a ticket
for at least 10 dollars and watch it at an auditorium or movie theater. (live and on the Big Screen).
[quote="Caractacus"]Chuck Wepner weight 219 lbs for the Ali fight ?
diffcult to belive.
he is a big dude at 6 ft 5" tall and burly looking"
Chuck was tall, but far from burly looking. He actually looked very wimpy, soft, and pasty.
Wepner was a much smaller, shorter, slower, and much more hittable version of Tyson Fury -- and without the sense of humor... Wepner looked like your regular plumber coming in with his pants low and his crack showing.. Duane Bobick beat the shiit out of him and Bobick himself was a wimp.. It was nothing but 2 chinnies who couldn't box hitting each other and the tougher guy won.
Caractacus wrote:Chuck Wepner weight 219 lbs for the Ali fight ?
diffcult to belive.
he is a big dude at 6 ft 5" tall and burly looking"
Chuck was tall, but far from burly looking. He actually looked very wimpy, soft, and pasty.
Wepner was a much smaller, shorter, slower, and much more hittable version of Tyson Fury -- and without the sense of humor... Wepner looked like your regular plumber coming in with his pants low and his crack showing.. Duane Bobick beat the shiit out of him and Bobick himself was a wimp.. It was nothing but 2 chinnies who couldn't box hitting each other and the tougher guy won.
I don't see how you compare Wepner w/ Tyson Fury on any level other than white HWs. And Wepner did have a good sense of humor. "How many guesses do I get," Chuck said when the ref asked him how many fingers he was holding up. Wepner can be compared to Scott LeDoux or Tex Cobb, not Tyson Fury.
Last edited by Tony1244 on 25 Sep 2017, 16:04, edited 1 time in total.
True... Skill wise Tyson Fury was 10 million miles above Chuck Wepner...also size wise... But they were both about as careless with their appearance and putting their bodies into fight shape... They didn't care how they looked.. I haven't seen much weaker looking training efforts from Title Challengers.
I think Tex Cobb was a much better fighter than LeDoux or Wepner. Even though Tex was slower than Hell he learned some of the basics and gave Michael Dokes a good run for his money. Norton had to fight like Hell to beat Cobb and said he was much better than Scott LeDoux, who Bobick knocked out.
Wepner wasn't too rough for rookies Foreman and Mathis -- or even for Bobick... He had a long ways to go to be skilled, elusive, or a dangerous puncher.
Caractacus wrote:That was a rough night for Muhammad Ali when you re-watch it.
Chuck Wepner who was a Marine was "Gung-Ho".
Wepner wasn't too rough for rookies Foreman and Mathis -- or even for Bobick... He had a long ways to go to be skilled, elusive, or a dangerous puncher.
As far as being a "FAMOUS" knockdown??? ... It's not very famous and few people talk about it -- because it wasn't real or believable.
Blimey you say???? ... Canelo rehydrated 20 pounds after weighing in at 154... Are you telling me that a man over 30% heavier rehydrates 6 pounds -- most of which is clothes he wore for the weigh-in because Heavyweights DON'T have to make weight -- that's serious rehydration???
HomicideHenry wrote:I think Wepner was better than Tex Cobb
Oh man... Cobb damned near beat Ken Norton and fought a close fight with the rising and undefeated Michael Dokes... Cobb beat the living Hell out of Earnie Shavers after taking his best shots... He was too big, strong, and tough for Shavers... Cobb would beat Wepner into a jelly. You didn't see Wepner-Mathis
Kalan, for an older guy, I'm an older guy too, you'd think you'd know what happens when you age.
Kalan wrote:Blimey you say???? ... Canelo rehydrated 20 pounds after weighing in at 154... Are you telling me that a man over 30% heavier rehydrates 6 pounds -- most of which is clothes he wore for the weigh-in because Heavyweights DON'T have to make weight -- that's serious rehydration???
No, you are claiming that he rehydrated by 100 lbs. That is an outlandish claim.
Kalan wrote:Blimey you say???? ... Canelo rehydrated 20 pounds after weighing in at 154... Are you telling me that a man over 30% heavier rehydrates 6 pounds -- most of which is clothes he wore for the weigh-in because Heavyweights DON'T have to make weight -- that's serious rehydration???
No, you are claiming that he rehydrated by 100 lbs. That is an outlandish claim.
I don't think that he really did weigh 119. I think that's impossible. Why are you saying he did?
Kalan wrote:Wepner wasn't too rough for rookies Foreman and Mathis -- or even for Bobick... He had a long ways to go to be skilled, elusive, or a dangerous puncher.
Mathis was a top amateur. He was supposed to go to Tokyo in 1964.
Wepner's fight with Bobick was very close until Chuck cut again.
Wepner stepped on Ali's foot. Then hit him with a looooong shot to the armpit that put the GOAT down as he backed away from the punch.
Apparently Ali had a glass armpit.
At first Wepner denied Ali's claim that he was stepping on the champ's instep.
A couple days after the fight, a full page newspaper photo clearly showed Ali going down as Wepner's left foot was planted on Ali's right foot.
Wepner admitted he was standing on Ali's foot, but insisted his armpit punch would have put Ali down anyways.
Some say that referee Tony Perez knew it was a trip, but that he despised Ali for ridiculing his refereeing after the second Frazier fight. (Ali had badly rung Frazier's bell late in the second round, but it was Perez who heard bells and prematurely halted the round with Frazier wobbly.)
Maybe true. Maybe not. But Wepner definitely stepped on Ali's foot. Not a myth, but a phantom knockdown.
HomicideHenry wrote:I think Wepner was better than Tex Cobb. Both men have one distinct thing in common and that was toughness. Guys nowdays are almost all but afraid to hit one another, and you could probably hit Wepner with a hammer and he'd still be standing.
Mind you Wepner did beat Terrell and was the first man to ever knock down George Foreman, despite given a broken eyes socket for his efforts, and as an amateur he did very well.
Wepner was all but unranked anyways when he fought Ali, and the fact that he stayed almost a full 15 rounds with Ali when he never trained full time for a fight in his life is something to be said.
It was an incredibly sloppy fight, and Wepner more or less, as the movie ROCKY, which was based on this fight, was quoted as saying "blocked the blows with his face".
I think Wepner would have faired better in the bare knuckle era...as they didnt stop fights just because someone was cut bad---they would almost stop a fight when somebody broke a bone or was near death or unconscious.
Wepner knocked down Foreman? Never heard that before. Have never seen a clip of Foreman-Wepner. I do know GF fight him in his 3rd or 4th pro fight.
I thought Ring Magazine ranked Wepner #8 when he fought Ali.
I too have looked hard and researched and fail to find any mention of Wepner flooring Foreman.
As far as I know, only Ali and Jimmy Young hold knockdowns of Foreman.
HomicideHenry wrote:I think Wepner was better than Tex Cobb. Both men have one distinct thing in common and that was toughness. Guys nowdays are almost all but afraid to hit one another, and you could probably hit Wepner with a hammer and he'd still be standing.
Mind you Wepner did beat Terrell and was the first man to ever knock down George Foreman, despite given a broken eyes socket for his efforts, and as an amateur he did very well.
Wepner was all but unranked anyways when he fought Ali, and the fact that he stayed almost a full 15 rounds with Ali when he never trained full time for a fight in his life is something to be said.
It was an incredibly sloppy fight, and Wepner more or less, as the movie ROCKY, which was based on this fight, was quoted as saying "blocked the blows with his face".
I think Wepner would have faired better in the bare knuckle era...as they didnt stop fights just because someone was cut bad---they would almost stop a fight when somebody broke a bone or was near death or unconscious.
Wepner knocked down Foreman? Never heard that before. Have never seen a clip of Foreman-Wepner. I do know GF fight him in his 3rd or 4th pro fight.
I thought Ring Magazine ranked Wepner #8 when he fought Ali.
I too have looked hard and researched and fail to find any mention of Wepner flooring Foreman.
As far as I know, only Ali and Jimmy Young hold knockdowns of Foreman.
And Ron Lyle twice in the 4th round.
Amazingly Foreman was never knocked down or stopped after age 40.
