ALL-OUT WAR
“When Lyle floored me, the first thing through my mind was, ‘What excuses do you have now, George? He’s knocked you down, you’re hurt, and when you get up, he’s gonna knock you down again.’ I said to myself, ‘I’m getting up and you’ll just have to kill me.’ “I lived through that match and was redeemed.” THE RING RATINGS: HEAVYWEIGHT (JANUARY 1976 ISSUE) CHAMPION: Muhammad Ali 1. Ken Norton 2 . George Foreman 3 . Joe Frazier 4 . Jimmy Young 5. Ron Lyle 6. Joe Bugner
such as Wilfred Benitez UD 15 Antonio Cervantes and Carlos Monzon UD 15 Rodrigo Valdez. The Ring Round of the Year was awarded to the fourth and fifth rounds of the Foreman vs. Lyle bout. In the 80-year history of this award, this is the only time that two rounds have received the honor. BY GEORGE In an interview conducted with The Ring in late 2015, Foreman shared his memories of the heavyweight war that became a battle for survival: “It’s one of the finest moments I ever had in boxing. The media had said so many bad things about me [following the Ali loss], and I kept trying to defend myself. What better way to defend yourself than to prevail in a fight like that?” “Rarely do two pure punchers get matched together. Muhammad [Ali] and Joe [Frazier] was boxer versus slugger. Muhammad and I was boxer versus puncher. The closest thing to my fight with Ron Lyle was probably Sonny Liston versus Cleveland Williams.” (Liston won by TKO 3 and TKO 2 in 1959 and 1960, respectively.)
7. Earnie Shavers 8. Duane Bobick 9. Check Wepner 10. Randy Neumann
“I’ve always said Ali is the only fighter to truly defeat me in the ring, because the other guys just survived. They deserved victory for going the distance. Ron Lyle was one guy who refused to run, refused to be intimidated and stood there and had a fight. He physically hurt me. Nobody else ever did that.” “It was my first fight with Gil Clancy as trainer, and I also had Kid Rapidez, who is rarely mentioned. Rapidez was a former fighter who helped train former welterweight champion Jose Napoles. Both Gil and Kid got me in tremendous condition for Lyle, and I needed it.”
“When I look at the fight today, I often ask myself how I got through it. The truth is that I don’t really know. Lyle hit so hard that he froze me at times. There was no way you could prepare yourself for that kind of punishment in training. No way.” “Other than my victory over Joe Frazier to win the heavyweight title, my redemption against Ron Lyle means more to me than all of them. After the Ali loss, I was a shell of myself. I walked around for over a year and could barely face people. I was so low and kept making excuses.
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