By Chris Williams: In October 1974, Muhammad Ali defeated a young 25-year-old George Foreman by an 8th round TKO. It was a fight where Ali, then 32, played rope-a-dope by laying against the ropes and letting the powerful Foreman expend energy beating on his body, gloves and head. In the end, Foreman tired out and was taken out by Ali.

However, Ali never chose to give Foreman a rematch even though Foreman pursued it hard wanting to gain revenge. It was a logical fight for Ali to take considering he fought Joe Frazier on three separate occasions, winning two of the three. Foreman destroyed Frazier in two rounds in January 1973, taking his WBA and WBC heavyweight titles in the process.

Foreman then turned around and proved that his was no fluke by stopping a defensive Frazier in the 5th round in 1976. There was no reason why Ali shouldn’t have fought Foreman again because the boxing public wanted to see the rematch instead of the guys that Ali ended up fighting after the Foreman.

Here are the fighters Ali chose to fight instead of Foreman: Chuck Wepner, Ron Lyle (a fighter Foreman beat), Joe Bugner, Frazier again, Jean-Pierre Coopman, Jimmy Young, and Richard Dunn in the next three years. Does that make any sense to you?

It looks like Ali was taking the soft path by avoiding a second fight with Foreman and maybe it’s a good thing he did. Foreman said himself that he would have fought Ali differently in a rematch, using his powerful jab, which was actually better than Ali’s, to stab from the outside and soften him up. Once he had Ali tenderized he would have gone for the kill.

I believe Ali didn’t want any part of Foreman after getting the win over an inexperienced young Foreman. It’s too bad Ali didn’t fight him once more for the fans instead of the 2nd tier guys that he ended up fighting for the next two years after the Foreman fight.