Things that were not immediately obvious to me

This is an entry in an occasional series of posts looking back at the Ring Magazine Fights of the Year from 1970 to 2009.

In 1972, Bob Foster defended his unified (WBC & WBA) Light Heavyweight championship against Chris Finnegan in the UK. Foster was a heavy favorite in this fight; not only was he in the midst of a record-setting string of defenses at LHW, he was also the naturally bigger man in this fight; the only questions centered on his age. Foster answered those questions with a clean 14th round KO, which capped a good, competitive fight that he was nevertheless clearly winning.

Overview

Although Finnegan was overmatched for much of this fight, he employed great persistence and resourcefulness to make it far more competitive than either the outcome or the scorecards would indicate. Most of the action fell into one of these three patterns:

• Finnegan circles away from Foster while looking for openings, while getting jabbed to death and taking the occasional hard combination. Finnegan lands occasionally, but usually not enough to win the exchanges. Often, when Finnegan does attack, he is rebuffed by a hard counter before he really gets started.
• Finnegan pursues Foster, who trades with him. Finnegan often wins these exchanges.
• Finnegan remains largely stationary, while Foster circles him. Finnegan gets jabbed to death and takes the occasional hard combination, while landing hardly anything.

These patterns are listed in the rough order of their appearance in the fight. As you can see, Finnegan rarely had the advantage, but he was also rarely discouraged. What made the fight interesting was that, to my eye at least, Foster always looked vulnerable to a lucky shot, and Finnegan rarely if ever looked discouraged. He was the very definition of a guy with “a puncher’s chance”, and a pretty good boxer in the bargain.

Although I scored the first 9 rounds strongly for Foster, in truth many of them were very close, and Finnegan could even have had an edge on the hometown cards. After the knockdown in the 10th, however, Foster began to establish more and more control over the fight, leading to the eventual knockout.

Reaction

This wasn’t a particularly dramatic fight; Foster was clearly the better man on this night from the first bell, and his counters were especially spectacular. I think this bout loomed large at the time because it was so much better than anyone expected, and because Finnegan, although outclassed, fought with such tenacity.

A word here about FOTY criteria: I think that the tastes of Ring Magazine have changed over the years. The modern criteria seem to heavily weight action and, especially, drama. The older criteria, in force for the fights we’re looking at now, seem to value significance as much as anything else: so far, every fight we’ve seen has been a unified championship fight. This might be a by-product of technology: in the 1970s, many obscure fights that could contend for modern FOTY honors might simply not have been taped or filmed, limiting the pool of candidates to those relatively few bouts that were seen by more people than were in the house on the night.

It’s still a good fight, it’s just not Gatti-Ward.

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This is an entry in an occasional series of posts looking back at the Ring Magazine Fights of the Year from 1970 to 2009.

Joe Frazier and Muhammad Ali met for the first time in 1971, when Frazier defended his unified (WBC & WBA) Heavyweight championship. This was a heavily hyped fight: The announcers (including Burt Lancaster and Archie Moore!) were calling this the “Fight of the Century” before a punch was thrown. The fight (almost) lived up to the hype, as a fast-paced and competitive bout began immediately, and evolved into a intriguing and uncertain contest. Joe Frazier ultimately received a unanimous decision, a decision I concur with, despite seeing the fight as somewhat closer than any of the official scorers.

Overview

The basic pattern of the fight was established in the first round, and never really changed: Frazier came forward throwing a good mix of power shots to Ali’s body and head, seeking to trap him against the ropes while using movement to avoid counterattacks. Ali backed up, trying to outmaneuver Frazier while potshotting his head with jabs and combinations. This pattern didn’t vary much; for instance, aside from a period of (highly ineffective) aggression in the middle of the 12th, I don’t recall Ali ever taking the offensive.

What did change a lot was the relative success of the fighters in implementing their strategies. Some rounds saw Ali completely befuddle Frazier, while others saw Frazier’s power stagger and chase Ali. Frazier would tend to have the edge in scoring as the aggressor in a close fight, and this is probably why he won.

Reaction

This fight began as an entertaining but not spectacular affair, becoming closer, tenser, and more dramatic only as it went on. Although the fight was competitive throughout, it usually seemed that Ali was in command; his style was just suggestive of a man who could easily outmaneuver his opponent. Looking at my scorecard, the key to Frazier’s victory was his rally in the 10th, 11th, and 12th rounds, which gave him the points to compete for the victory, and the knockdown in the 15th, which sealed it.

The official scorecards were unanimously for Frazier, with referee Arthur Mercante scoring it 8-6-1, and the two judges 9-6 and 11-4 (on the rounds basis in use in 1971). I scored it more closely, 143-142 Frazier on the 10-point must system, or 7-7-1 on a rounds basis.

On my card the knockdown was essential, as Ali looked to be on his way to winning the last round. (I had him winning the 13th and 14th as well.) It should be noted that the knockdown didn’t matter officially; at worst, had Ali won the last round, Frazier would still have received a majority decision victory.

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