| Date | September 29, 1977 | ||||||||||||
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| Venue | Madison Square Garden | ||||||||||||
| Tale of the tape | |||||||||||||
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Muhammad Ali and Earnie Shavers fought each other in a 15-round boxing match on September 29, 1977. The 10th title defense by Ali since regaining the championship, the fight went the distance with Ali winning by unanimous decision.[1][2][3]
Ali entered the fight weighing 225 pounds, while Shavers weighed nearly 15 pounds less than the champion. Shavers was paid one-tenth as much as Ali. However, the $300,000 sum that he made was greater than all the money earned during his entire professional career leading up to the fight.[4]
Ali was badly hurt in the second round but, by pretending to be more hurt than he was, deceived Shavers into thinking he was play-acting resulting in Shavers not going for a knockout. Shavers continued to land hard shots to Ali's head and body, and the champion spent much of the fight on the defensive. Despite this, Ali finished many of the rounds strongly, winning favor on the judges scorecards. The fight intensified in the final rounds, as Shavers mounted a strong comeback in the 13th and 14th rounds, once again leaving the champion badly hurt. The final round was close with Ali finishing strongly, leaving Shavers staggered after a flurry of punches towards the end of the fight. Some experts regard Ali's performance in the Shavers fight to be one of the finest in his boxing career.[1][2][3]
Sports Illustrated boxing writer Pat Putnam said:
That fight with Shavers, and particularly the last round, sums up for me what Ali was about, even though he was long past his prime. Could have taken him out. He had him hurt early. Ali was ready to be taken, because if Shavers hit you, you were gone. But he suckered Earnie. He faked being more hurt than he was, and conned him out of going for the kill. He fought through that; he fought through fourteen rounds. People talk about Manila; they talk about Foreman; they talk about Liston. But to me, the fifteenth round against Shavers was as magnificent as any round Ali ever fought. He was exhausted. I don't know where he found the strength and stamina to go on, because when he went back to his corner after fourteen there was nothing left in his body. But he came out for the last round and fought three minutes as good as any three minutes I've ever seen. Not many people remember it now, but late in the round, he even had Shavers in trouble. Only the rope kept Shavers from going down.[5]
All three judges scored Ali as the winner of 9 out of 15 rounds. The result drew loud boos in the stadium when the scores were read out. Shavers had landed 266 punches to Ali's 208, threw 878 punches to Ali's 709, and landed 30% of his punches to Ali's 29%. Shavers also landed 208 power punches to 128 for Ali. Shavers outlanded Ali in 8 out of 15 rounds.[6] Sportswriters Bob Canobbio and Lee Groves contended that "the illogical scoring patters heavily favored Ali during this period in his career... the fourth round saw Shavers out-throw Ali 63–26, out-land him 22–1, achieve accuracy gaps of 35%-4% overall and 42%-7% in power, and land the single hardest shot of the round, a massive right hand in the closing moments. While judges Tony Castellano and Eva Shain rightly saw Shavers as the winner, Johnny LoBianco awarded the round to Ali." Other alleged irregularities in scoring included none of the three judges scoring the ninth round for Shavers (in which he landed 13 punches to Ali's 4, with higher accuracy and a higher ratio of power punches) while unanimously scoring the much closer tenth round (in which Ali outlanded Shavers 24–23, but Shavers still landed more power shots and had higher accuracy) for Ali.[7]
