BoxRec

I have just watched this fight again, still amazes me this one.

A few qestions.


1. how on earth did wepner earn a title shot at Ali. Wepner had not fought any top ranked fighter in two years ( Terrell), or five years (Bugner and Liston).

2. Was Ali in agrement to fighting Wepner?, because ali looks totally bored and de-motivated in this fight

Ali was very upset and complaining to the ref about Wepners constant rabbit punching. I have never seen Ali complain before.

Ali droped in the 9th by a body punch, but looked like a stumble to me.


Wepner was incredibly brave, taking everything Ali threw at him, enven though what Ali thew at him wasnt much at times. The fight was the inspiration for the Rocky films.


Any one know of any stories about this fight, how it happened, etc.

On the first question that is just sort of the nature of boxing, handing out title shots to dubious opponents. Their would be to many of those instances to name. You could actually start a whole thread with that as one of the things that has been bad for boxing.

kick asner wrote:On the first question that is just sort of the nature of boxing, handing out title shots to dubious opponents. Their would be to many of those instances to name. You could actually start a whole thread with that as one of the things that has been bad for boxing.

Of course, that's a problem that has existed for as long as there have been champion boxers. A rather minor problem relative to others, and in fact sometimes it helps to increase the popularity of the sport by making a fighter look invinceable and building a larger fan base. I'd rather a guy like Ali or Louis fight 3 times/year against one top contender, one mid range guy and a Wepner/Coopman/Evangelista type than have the total inaction that we seem to see so much from todays "titleholders".

Ali-Wepner is indeed a boring fight when watching it all these years later. However, it was quite intriguing to watch live at the time because Wepner, as crude as he was, had a certain appeal for just that. Tough guy, could take a hell of a wallop (100+ stitches it took to sew him up after the Liston fight), but not that good a fighter.

Here's an interesting thought, though. At 6-foot-5 and around 225-230 pounds, Wepner was one of few HWs of the late-60s/early 70s that was comparable in size to a lot of these big, lackluster HWs we've got now ... except that he actually came to fight!

What I'm saying is this. If you could lift that guy out of his own era and drop into the current one, I'm not so sure he wouldn't handle himself quite well against this lazy, 10-punches-a-round bunch of hug-and-hold HWs at the top of the division right now.

I remember James Brown sang the Natinal Anthem and sports writer Dick Young later complained that was offensive to white people.

The Great John L wrote:

kick asner wrote:On the first question that is just sort of the nature of boxing, handing out title shots to dubious opponents. Their would be to many of those instances to name. You could actually start a whole thread with that as one of the things that has been bad for boxing.

Of course, that's a problem that has existed for as long as there have been champion boxers. A rather minor problem relative to others, and in fact sometimes it helps to increase the popularity of the sport by making a fighter look invinceable and building a larger fan base. I'd rather a guy like Ali or Louis fight 3 times/year against one top contender, one mid range guy and a Wepner/Coopman/Evangelista type than have the total inaction that we seem to see so much from todays "titleholders".

A fight against subpar opposition is definitaly preferable to legnthy lapses in activity, espescially if their is a lack of contenders. One thing that might help is if they would go back to the old way of matchmaking where rather than fight lesser caliber fighters you would have top fighters fighting each other multible times similar to the Robinson Lamotta matchups.

THE DANCING MASTER wrote:I remember James Brown sang the Natinal Anthem and sports writer Dick Young later complained that was offensive to white people.

Did he say why he had a problem with it?

I remember James singing....and I was highly offended....that he didnt bring out his whuppin band and do about 3 more songs.

This is probably not relevant to the original post but there is a well know story (indeed so well known that you likely know it already!) that Wepner told his wife before the fight "Tonight, honey, you'll be sleeping with the champion"....went off, had the fight, and re-appeared in the hotel room looking battered, cut and bruised. She greeted him with the words "OK, what room is he in...?"

J