If Ali was not Ali, he would have been penalised for sure, especially when Ali executed it without any concern of subtlety. All these illegal tactics drained Foreman's already paltry stamina. Ali out-roughed the rough Foreman, grabbing, yanking and pushing Foreman after every other punch he landed. Furthermore, I feel that the real enabler of Ali's knockout of Foreman was not the fabled 'rope-a-dope' but Ali's incessant wrestling. Ali did play with the ropes, but he did not do it just to be a punching bag. But after actually watching the fight one should realise such an interpretation is gross simplification.

The popular interpretation of this event seems to be that Ali lay on the ropes to let Foreman punch himself out. The fight that achieved mythical status in popular culture. I always loved his commentating and I think its cool that he still does it today for Iron Mike Productions. I can't remember his name but I can still remember the commentator saying, 'Ali has won! Ali has won! This the most joyous day in the history of boxing!' That is a very underrated commentator call and I also love Bob Shannon's commentating here. People would remember his amazing skill that he displayed in his prime years but that would be it. I believe without this match Ali wouldn't be looked at the same way he is today. Still though nothing quite equates to this. His 5 round knockout of Ron Lyle and the upset loss against Jimmy Young was another battle of the ages. I think Foreman might have won a rematch had he not gotten all depressed after this fight, but even then for the next two years he had great matches. One of the greatest upsets led to one of the greatest matches. The hours and hours I could spend talking about the greatness and unpredictability of those matches. Can you imagine Rocky Marciano vs George Foreman, Ali vs Lewis, Foreman vs Liston, Ali vs Johnson, and Foreman vs Tyson.

These are true legends of the heavyweight division and I believe they would thrive in any era you could put them in. You have my top ten favorite pound for pound fighter vs top 20. The atmosphere, the electricity that was in the air on that night was unmatchable. Agreed that's why this is probably one of the most famous fights in history without question.

Rope a dope air combat maneuvers