Jimmy Young (boxer)

Shavers, who at that time had a 42–2 record dealt Young his first knockout loss, being his 4th loss.

Young had tried trading blows and was caught early on by one of the division's hardest punchers, who was well known for his overwhelming early attacks.

After this defeat Young went undefeated for the next three years, including a win over contender Ron Lyle and a controversial draw in a re-match with Earnie Shavers with many observers scoring the bout for Young.

The improved outcome for Young was largely due to improvements made to his defense since his last fight with the devastating hitter.

Despite Young's inability to earn a victory over Shavers, it was still enough to earn him a title fight with the Heavyweight Champion of the World, Muhammad Ali.

Jimmy Young (November 14, 1948 – February 20, 2005) was an American heavyweight professional boxer.

Young was known for his awkward, defensive style and counterpunching.

He was one of the top contenders of the 1970s, most notably earning a victory over George Foreman in 1977 and losing a unanimous decision against Muhammad Ali in 1976.

Young achieved widespread public recognition when he fought Muhammad Ali at the Capital Center in Landover, Maryland on April 30, 1976, for the world heavyweight title, although boxing circles had already noted his ability.

Ali weighed in at 230 pounds, the highest for any of his fights up to that point (he would weigh 236.25 pounds in his fight against Trevor Berbick), and was consequently slow and immobile throughout the bout.

Seven years younger and 21 pounds lighter, Young adopted a strategy of fighting aggressively from a distance, landing numerous light blows while dodging and parrying Ali's counterpunches, and using his body blows, which had little power behind them but were effective at scoring points.

At close quarters, Young would turn passive.

In addition to retreating whenever possible, Young often kept his head ducked very low in order to deter Ali from landing blows at his head and risk censure from the referee for "rabbit punching".

On several occasions when Ali was inside and Young had his back to the ropes, Young intentionally put his head or upper body out of the ring beyond the ropes to compel the referee to step in and separate the fighters.

As a novel boxing tactic this divided opinion between its being a way of neutralizing Ali's game, to its being seen as an unsportsmanlike way of causing tactical stoppages every time Ali possessed an advantage.

At one point during the bout the referee did initiate a count due to Young's being outside the ropes.

The fight went the full 15 rounds resulting in a controversial one-sided unanimous decision in favor of Ali.

Referee Tom Kelly scored it 72–65; judges Larry Barrett and Terry Moore had it 70–68 and 71–64, respectively.

Ken Norton, (a rival of Ali) who was commentating at ringside, had the fight even on his own scorecard.

Former Ring editor Lester Bromberg called the decision a "travesty".

New York Daily News reporter Dick Young said: "[Ali won] by the grace of three hero-worshipping fight officials. I believe many people, the voting officials among them, refuse to believe what they see when one of their super-heroes doesn't function as expected."

After the match's televised broadcast, many viewers called to the network to complain about the decision, and Ali's career trainer Angelo Dundee went on record as saying this was Ali's "worst fight".

After the match there were calls on Ali to retire from the sport from quarters of the sport's media.

Young defeated Lyle in a November 1976 rematch by using clever defense and a fast offensive style.

He was able to dominate the older fighter, with one judge's scorecard having Young winning 11 of 12 rounds.

Young fought many significant fighters of his era, including twice outpointing Ron Lyle and losing only by a split decision to then-number one contender Ken Norton in a title eliminator in late 1977.

A fellow boxer, Bobby Watts, was his cousin.

In March 1977, Young then fought George Foreman in San Juan, Puerto Rico.

Foreman was on a five bout win streak since losing the title to Muhammad Ali in "The Rumble in the Jungle", earning victories over top contenders Ron Lyle and Joe Frazier.

The Young–Foreman fight was somewhat steady until the sixth round.

The early rounds were punctuated by complaints from Young and his corner about the use of elbows by Foreman, who was punished by the referee with a point deduction.

For the first half of the fight, Young used his somewhat unorthodox boxing skills and good defense to keep out of harm's way, while using his punching speed to counter.

In the sixth round he became somewhat more aggressive himself and landed a number of clean punches on Foreman.

Eleven seconds into the seventh round, Foreman caught Young with a left-handed body punch, and immediately followed with a powerful swinging left hand to the head.

Young reeled and turned away and seemed about to go down, while Foreman tried to pursue his advantage, but somehow Young survived to the end of the round.

In his after-match comments on TV, he described it as "desperation".

After the near knockdown Young rallied, and landed a number of good punches of his own.

As the fight progressed Foreman's eyes became puffy and his punches lost their menace.

For the rest of the contest, Foreman continued to move forward, trying to cut off the ring and looking for the big knock out, while taking punches from the elusive Young.

An inexperienced Young was matched against contender Earnie Shavers in what was only his 11th professional fight.