After the humiliating knockout loss to Jerry Quarry on December 14, 1973, Earnie Shavers stayed out of the ring for five months. He met Roy Wallace at the Civic Auditorium in San Jose on May 16, 1974, and knocked him out in one round. It would be yet another six months of inactivity until Shavers fought again, only this time he lost on November 4 to Bob Stallings at the Felt Forum in New York, via a ten round decision. Just 22 days later, he had a rematch with Jimmy Young, and was held to a draw. At this point, Earnie’s career was on life support, and he needed to do something quickly to keep it alive.
Shavers won three fights in a row by knockout from February until May of 1975, and then agreed to take on Ron Lyle in September. Lyle had just given Muhammad Ali all he could handle, and stopped Earnie in six rounds in Denver. Another big loss set him back yet again, but once again he had nothing to do but try and regroup.
Earnie put a string of five solid wins together starting in November of 1975 against Tommy Howard. The streak included two straight wins over Henry Clark, and victories over Roy Williams and Howard Smith as well. His good showings in those bouts earned him a shot at Muhammad Ali’s title on September 29, 1977 at Madison Square Garden in New York.
I vividly remember watching this fight on the new 19 inch color television my mother had just bought.. I wheeled it on a cart into my bedroom to watch it live on NBC tv, and even though I wasn’t a big boxing fan at the time, when Ali fought, I tuned in.
The were broadcasting the scores between rounds that night to try something new, so you knew exactly what was happening as the night progressed. Ali’s cornermen had a tv on in his dressing room, and informed Muhammad of the score after each round. Shavers rocked Ali badly early and often, but the champion sucked it up and fought the last good fight of his career. Ali closed the show strongly, and won easily, but Shavers did nothing to hurt his reputation. He had hurt Ali obviously on live national tv, and made himself a household name.
Earnie won as much as he lost that night in 1977. It revived his career at age 33, and set him up for more big fights against big names as the year 1978 began.
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