Muhammad Ali vs Jimmy Young

Muhammad Ali retained the WBA and WBC heavyweight championship at the Capital Centre in Landover, Maryland, on April 30, 1976, but did so in one of the least convincing performances of his second reign. Ali, weighing 230 pounds, was at the heaviest mark of his career to that point and looked it. Jimmy Young, 209 pounds, came in as a clever, awkward challenger rather than a puncher, and his style made the champion look slow, heavy and uncertain for much of the fifteen rounds.

Ali entered the contest after a demanding run that had included George Foreman, Chuck Wepner, Ron Lyle, Joe Bugner and Joe Frazier in the space of nineteen months. The victory over Frazier in Manila the previous October had been a severe physical ordeal, and there was little in this performance to suggest that Ali had recovered either his old movement or his former sharpness. Young, by contrast, fought with the caution and craft of a man who understood both the danger in front of him and the opportunity available. He did not try to overpower Ali. He tried to make him miss, make him reach, and make him look ordinary.

The early rounds were slow and unsatisfactory. Ali did little more than prod with the jab, lean, feint and wait. Young gave ground, slipped punches, ducked low and looked for counters. He did not produce sustained attacks, but he landed enough right hands and jabs to expose Ali’s lack of rhythm. The champion, usually so sure of distance, often found himself punching at a man who was no longer there. Young’s defensive method was unattractive at times, but it was effective in denying Ali clean work.

As the fight moved through the middle rounds, Ali tried to increase his output but could not maintain pressure. Young’s habit of ducking outside or through the ropes to avoid exchanges became a central feature of the contest. It happened repeatedly and drew criticism because a challenger seeking the heavyweight championship is expected to do more than avoid danger. In the twelfth round, when Young again put himself partly through the ropes, referee Tom Kelly ruled it a knockdown and began a count. Young returned quickly, but the moment counted against him and reinforced the impression that his tactics, though clever, were sometimes too negative.

Ali had his best spell around the ninth round, when he got onto his toes and found Young with a series of jabs. For a short period, he looked more like the champion of old, scoring cleanly and giving the crowd a glimpse of the speed that had once made him so difficult to read. But the effort did not last. He was flat-footed again in the later rounds, and Young, still fresh enough to counter, had success with right hands as Ali missed and fell short. The final three rounds strengthened the challenger's argument among many observers, as Young continued to box with purpose while Ali looked tired and increasingly laboured.

There were no clean knockdowns apart from Kelly’s ruling against Young for going through the ropes. The fight lacked sustained drama, but it built to a crescendo as the champion appeared to lose control. When the final bell sounded, there was no certainty among many at ringside that Ali had done enough to retain his title. The official decision, however, was unanimous. Kelly scored it 72-65, Larry Barrett 70-68, and Terry Moore 71-64, all for Ali. The Associated Press had Young ahead 69-66, reflecting the division between official judgment and ringside opinion.

The crowd booed the verdict, and the reaction was understandable. Young had not fought like a bold challenger in the traditional sense, and his repeated use of the ropes damaged his case, but Ali had been poor by his own standards. He was overweight, too economical, and unable to impose himself for long stretches. Young made him look bad and may well have deserved better than the official scoring suggested. Still, the champion retained the title, helped by his occasional cleaner bursts, his standing in the sport, and Young’s reluctance to press his advantage more forcefully.

The contest remains one of the most disputed results of Ali’s later championship years. It was not a robbery in the crude sense, because several rounds were awkward and difficult to score, and Young’s evasions gave the officials reason to mark him down. But it was certainly a warning. Ali had survived Frazier in Manila, yet against Young, he looked like a fighter paying for past exertions. The champion kept his belts, but the performance made it clear that his reign was entering a more precarious phase.

Ali against Jimmy Young is one of those fights where you have to be honest, even if it upsets the shrine-builders. Ali got the decision, but he looked awful. He came in at 230 pounds, the heaviest of his career to that point, and you could see it. The feet were slow, the timing was off, and too much of the old magic was being replaced by reputation.

Young was no puncher, but he was as clever, slippery, and awkward as a tax bill. He made Ali lead, made him miss, and kept popping him with jabs and occasional rights. That is not easy to do with Muhammad Ali, even an older, heavier version. After Manila, after all those hard fights with Foreman, Frazier, Lyle and Bugner, Ali was starting to show the price for all that greatness.

The official cards were wide for Ali, 72-65, 70-68 and 71-64, but I do not buy those margins at all. The Associated Press had Young winning 69-66, and plenty at ringside felt the same way. Young’s problem was that he fought too negatively at times, ducking through the ropes repeatedly, and in the twelfth, Tom Kelly even counted one of those moves as a knockdown. That sort of thing does not help when you are trying to take the heavyweight title.

So was it a robbery? Not clean-cut, because Young did himself no favours. But Ali was poor, and Young made him look poor. For me, this was a warning sign. The great champion was still finding ways to keep the belts, but the old engine was coughing, and the younger contenders could hear it.