FuryNgannou – BOXINGWRITER.CO.UK

_{^{Article first published at BigFightWeekend.com}}

Muhammad Ali turned 36 a few weeks before his loss to novice professional Leon Spinks. A man with as many gaps in his smile as fights on his ledger. Tired and compromised, Ali was a poorly coordinated confection of numb defiance and flickering memory by the early Spring of 1978. The shuffle, the rope-a-dope all danced and lumbered into view. No more than crowd-pleasing catchphrases from what had once been masterful soliloquies.

Spinks’ victory, following a paltry 7 wins and a draw from a little over 12 months as a professional by way of preparation, remains one of heavyweight boxing’s greatest upsets.

On Saturday, another ageing champion faced a novice. And surprise visited boxing once again.

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_{First published on BigFightWeekend.com}

In retirement, Pete Rademacher, a pioneering spirit who boxed for the heavyweight title in his first professional bout, helped to invent a divider for swimming pools that reduced turbulence between lanes. The idea being that each competitor could optimise their own performance unhindered by the wake created by a rival carving through the water in an adjacent lane.

Tyson Fury, boxing’s number one big man, fights Francis Ngannou, the once preeminent heavyweight in Mixed Martial Arts, on Saturday in Saudi Arabia. A curiosity solicited on the turbulence the latter’s ‘crossing of lanes’ proposes to create and reliant on the resulting voyeurism of the lucrative mainstream market.

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