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OT: Anyone remember 50 years ago

At that time, heavyweight boxing championship matches were probably the biggest sporting events in terms of interest and excitement. And Ali-Frazier was as big as it got.
 
I was 4.

So, no. :D

I do remember my father taking me to visit some friend who lived in North Omaha. They had their portable b&w tv on a folding chair on the sidewalk playing one of the big fights on Wide World of Sports. Maybe Ali/Frazier?
 
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i was 6, but vaguely remember the hype.
remember when joe fought stander in omaha the next year, too.
pretty big deal at the time for omaha, as i recall.
 
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I used to be a huge fight fan, back in the day. Not early 70's day but more like late 70's -early 80's day.

Alexis Arguello vs Aaron Pryor
Wilfred Benitez vs Roberto Duran, Thomas Hearns and Ray Leonard. Benitez won a world title at 17 years old. When he lost to Leonard he was 38-0-1 as a pro and was like 20 or 21. Unreal

The sad story of Matthew Saad Muhammad, his mother died when he was an infant, his aunt took in his older brother and Matthew. Aunt decides she can't afford both so instructs brother to basically lose him somewhere in Philly. He is found by the Catholic church, spent some time in the system and was finally adopted. He went on to be a champ and was a tremendous puncher. By 2010 he was broke and homeless. ended up dying in 2014 from ALS. His fights are classics

Salvador Sanchez
Marvin Hagler
Hector Camacho
Julio Caesar Chavez
Azuma Nelson
of course Tyson and De La Hoya


The heavyweight division was always king, but the lighter weights always seemed to have better fights, at least more action.


Rant over
 
I used to be a huge fight fan, back in the day. Not early 70's day but more like late 70's -early 80's day.

Alexis Arguello vs Aaron Pryor
Wilfred Benitez vs Roberto Duran, Thomas Hearns and Ray Leonard. Benitez won a world title at 17 years old. When he lost to Leonard he was 38-0-1 as a pro and was like 20 or 21. Unreal

The sad story of Matthew Saad Muhammad, his mother died when he was an infant, his aunt took in his older brother and Matthew. Aunt decides she can't afford both so instructs brother to basically lose him somewhere in Philly. He is found by the Catholic church, spent some time in the system and was finally adopted. He went on to be a champ and was a tremendous puncher. By 2010 he was broke and homeless. ended up dying in 2014 from ALS. His fights are classics

Salvador Sanchez
Marvin Hagler
Hector Camacho
Julio Caesar Chavez
Azuma Nelson
of course Tyson and De La Hoya


The heavyweight division was always king, but the lighter weights always seemed to have better fights, at least more action.


Rant over

Arguello vs Pryor was great!
Though a short fight, Hagler/Hearns was a war, Great opening round.
Chavez vs Meldrick Taylor
Arturo Gatti,Micky Ward, One of my favorites, Nice follow ups also.
Another of my favorites was Foreman vs Ron Lyle in 76
While not a great fighter, I always enjoyed watching Ernie Shavers.
 
I used to be a huge fight fan, back in the day. Not early 70's day but more like late 70's -early 80's day.

Alexis Arguello vs Aaron Pryor
Wilfred Benitez vs Roberto Duran, Thomas Hearns and Ray Leonard. Benitez won a world title at 17 years old. When he lost to Leonard he was 38-0-1 as a pro and was like 20 or 21. Unreal

The sad story of Matthew Saad Muhammad, his mother died when he was an infant, his aunt took in his older brother and Matthew. Aunt decides she can't afford both so instructs brother to basically lose him somewhere in Philly. He is found by the Catholic church, spent some time in the system and was finally adopted. He went on to be a champ and was a tremendous puncher. By 2010 he was broke and homeless. ended up dying in 2014 from ALS. His fights are classics

Salvador Sanchez
Marvin Hagler
Hector Camacho
Julio Caesar Chavez
Azuma Nelson
of course Tyson and De La Hoya


The heavyweight division was always king, but the lighter weights always seemed to have better fights, at least more action.


Rant over

I remember watching Sugar Ray Leonard when he was in the Olympics. He beat that Cuban for the gold and everyone went nuts. I loved watching that era of boxing. Hagler, Leon and Michael Spinks, Benitez, Duran, Hitman Hearns. Doesn't get much better than that. I still can't believe that Sugar Ray continued to fight with his eye issues.
 
I used to be a huge fight fan, back in the day. Not early 70's day but more like late 70's -early 80's day.

Alexis Arguello vs Aaron Pryor
Wilfred Benitez vs Roberto Duran, Thomas Hearns and Ray Leonard. Benitez won a world title at 17 years old. When he lost to Leonard he was 38-0-1 as a pro and was like 20 or 21. Unreal

The sad story of Matthew Saad Muhammad, his mother died when he was an infant, his aunt took in his older brother and Matthew. Aunt decides she can't afford both so instructs brother to basically lose him somewhere in Philly. He is found by the Catholic church, spent some time in the system and was finally adopted. He went on to be a champ and was a tremendous puncher. By 2010 he was broke and homeless. ended up dying in 2014 from ALS. His fights are classics

Salvador Sanchez
Marvin Hagler
Hector Camacho
Julio Caesar Chavez
Azuma Nelson
of course Tyson and De La Hoya


The heavyweight division was always king, but the lighter weights always seemed to have better fights, at least more action.


Rant over

The lighter weights later on did have better bouts but never was there 2 champions who held the title and never been beaten when they fought..
 
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Remember it well. As was said, boxing was the sport of kings at that time. Had a grandfather who watched them every Friday or Saturday night as I recall. There were some showmen and tremendous puncher in those days.

The Cubans produced many great boxers for the Olympics and there were some epic battles with them.

Now we MMA with PKA in between and probably a thing or two I am missing.
 
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3 epic fights with two of the greatest of all time. cosell calling the fights was epic. nobody that was anybody missed one of these fights. two tough sob's refusing to go down in extreme conditions. loved fraizer and hated ali just made it all the better. the whole world watched these fights.
 
I was -9 at the time, those were heady days for certain. I'm sad that I missed the sport when it was in it's prime. Not as much fun right now. The fights we want just don't happen, and the heavyweight division is hot garbage
 
I used to be a huge fight fan, back in the day. Not early 70's day but more like late 70's -early 80's day.

Alexis Arguello vs Aaron Pryor
Wilfred Benitez vs Roberto Duran, Thomas Hearns and Ray Leonard. Benitez won a world title at 17 years old. When he lost to Leonard he was 38-0-1 as a pro and was like 20 or 21. Unreal

The sad story of Matthew Saad Muhammad, his mother died when he was an infant, his aunt took in his older brother and Matthew. Aunt decides she can't afford both so instructs brother to basically lose him somewhere in Philly. He is found by the Catholic church, spent some time in the system and was finally adopted. He went on to be a champ and was a tremendous puncher. By 2010 he was broke and homeless. ended up dying in 2014 from ALS. His fights are classics

Salvador Sanchez
Marvin Hagler
Hector Camacho
Julio Caesar Chavez
Azuma Nelson
of course Tyson and De La Hoya


The heavyweight division was always king, but the lighter weights always seemed to have better fights, at least more action.


Rant over

I still have the news paper clipping of Tommy the Hit Man Hearns vs. Marvelous Marvin Hagler. I loved that era. I won a dollar on that fight. Was paid in 4 quarters.
 
This may be a dumb question. But back in the hay day of boxing which I sadly missed. Was there multiple promotions that made it difficult for some boxers to square off? I can't stand the way it is right now with boxing.
 
I still have the news paper clipping of Tommy the Hit Man Hearns vs. Marvelous Marvin Hagler. I loved that era. I won a dollar on that fight. Was paid in 4 quarters.

I am quoting myself here cause I goofed and corrected it...I initially stated Hearns won...obvioisly that is wrong and I fixed it...you'd think I remember it cause I cut out the clippings after I won the bet...
 
This may be a dumb question. But back in the hay day of boxing which I sadly missed. Was there multiple promotions that made it difficult for some boxers to square off? I can't stand the way it is right now with boxing.

I believe it really got started in the late 70’s, WBC and WBA, Casinos also got much more involved in hosting fights and closed circuit bouts became a thing, The first CC fight I paid to watch was Duran vs Leonard 1.
 
seems like don king controlled the fight game back then

He and Bob Arum to a large degree did control the fight game. Personally, that is when I started losing interest.If you didn’t sign with one of the two of them, you didn’t get a title shot. So smaller promotions started to gain traction. But the downside to that is what you see now with Bud Crawford. Very few big cross promotion fights. Super fights are almost impossible to put together. It shouldn’t be that hard to put the two best fighters in a ring.
 
He and Bob Arum to a large degree did control the fight game. Personally, that is when I started losing interest.If you didn’t sign with one of the two of them, you didn’t get a title shot. So smaller promotions started to gain traction. But the downside to that is what you see now with Bud Crawford. Very few big cross promotion fights. Super fights are almost impossible to put together. It shouldn’t be that hard to put the two best fighters in a ring.

I use to watch a lot of boxing but became disenchanted in the 80's because of fixed fights and how opponents are determined and scheduled.
 
He and Bob Arum to a large degree did control the fight game. Personally, that is when I started losing interest.If you didn’t sign with one of the two of them, you didn’t get a title shot. So smaller promotions started to gain traction. But the downside to that is what you see now with Bud Crawford. Very few big cross promotion fights. Super fights are almost impossible to put together. It shouldn’t be that hard to put the two best fighters in a ring.
Bud should get bigger fights on merit alone, but the strength of his game just isn't enough. You have to have a big personality and marketability too. You better draw the PPV crowd.
 
First big money fight in boxing history. Both got $2.5M, which back in those days was unheard of. I listened to the fight on radio. Ali probably needed a few more tune-up fights to regain his timing before meeting Frazier who was in his prime. Funny, if Ali had not been stripped of his title, they probably would have fought in '68 or '69 for a heck of a lot less money. The 3-1/2 year layoff, the political circumstances surrounding Ali made the fight that much bigger.
 
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Bud should get bigger fights on merit alone, but the strength of his game just isn't enough. You have to have a big personality and marketability too. You better draw the PPV crowd.

If they are able to make a Pacquiao/ Crawford fight and Crawford is able to knock him out, something only Juan Manuel Marquez has been able to do in 20 years. That may be enough to set him up for an even bigger fight.
 
I used to be a huge fight fan, back in the day. Not early 70's day but more like late 70's -early 80's day.

Alexis Arguello vs Aaron Pryor
Wilfred Benitez vs Roberto Duran, Thomas Hearns and Ray Leonard. Benitez won a world title at 17 years old. When he lost to Leonard he was 38-0-1 as a pro and was like 20 or 21. Unreal

The sad story of Matthew Saad Muhammad, his mother died when he was an infant, his aunt took in his older brother and Matthew. Aunt decides she can't afford both so instructs brother to basically lose him somewhere in Philly. He is found by the Catholic church, spent some time in the system and was finally adopted. He went on to be a champ and was a tremendous puncher. By 2010 he was broke and homeless. ended up dying in 2014 from ALS. His fights are classics

Salvador Sanchez
Marvin Hagler
Hector Camacho
Julio Caesar Chavez
Azuma Nelson
of course Tyson and De La Hoya


The heavyweight division was always king, but the lighter weights always seemed to have better fights, at least more action.


Rant over

Yeah those wealter weight/middle weight fights between Benitez, Duran, Hearns, Hagler, Leonard were awesome big time events in my memory. Loved those.
 
He and Bob Arum to a large degree did control the fight game. Personally, that is when I started losing interest.If you didn’t sign with one of the two of them, you didn’t get a title shot. So smaller promotions started to gain traction. But the downside to that is what you see now with Bud Crawford. Very few big cross promotion fights. Super fights are almost impossible to put together. It shouldn’t be that hard to put the two best fighters in a ring.
thanks,forgot about arum. they hyped and made the fight game a world wide popular event and then drove it into the backdrop with their greed.
 
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The Muhammad Ali / Joe Frazier fight ?

The biggest boxing match that ever was..
Just a toddler at that time but love watching replays of it as well as Ali-Frazier II and The Thrilla in Manila (Ali-Frazier III). Ali and the entire Heavyweight boxing in the 70’s must have been great to witness live. It has been pretty much a wasteland the last 20 years.
 
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First big money fight in boxing history. Both got $2.5M, which back in those days was unheard of. I listened to the fight on radio. Ali probably needed a few more tune-up fights to regain his timing before meeting Frazier who was in his prime. Funny, if Ali had not been stripped of his title, they probably would have fought in '68 or '69 for a heck of a lot less money. The 3-1/2 year layoff, the political circumstances surrounding Ali made the fight that much bigger.

Great post... Especially about the political circumstance that made the fight as big as it was..

Ali, might have been a little impatient needed at least a couple more bouts but I can’t blame him for wanting to get after Joe and winning that title back..
 
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