The 33-year-old Ali brought a 45-2 record and weighed 224 pounds. Wepner, 36, weighed 225 and had a 30-9-2 record. Ali received approximately $1.5 million, while Wepner earned $100,000, easily the largest payday of his career.
Wepner knew he couldn’t match Ali’s speed or skill, so he made the fight physical. He pressed forward and threw looping punches from the outside that wrapped around Ali’s guard and crashed into the back of his head. These weren’t merely short punches sneaked in during clinches. Wepner was throwing some of them from a distance, allowing him to put considerable force behind the blows.
Ali
