From Ali v Inoki to Mayweather v McGregor: five bizarre boxing bouts

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In 1975 the former heavyweight champion Foreman takes on five opponents on the same afternoon in bouts of three three-minute rounds each in Toronto.Muhammad Ali is ringside providing withering putdowns for the ABC television network six months on from their colossal “Rumble in the Jungle”.Foreman, who is attempting to rebuild his reputation, takes on respectable fighters in Alonzo Johnson, Pedro Agosto, Mac Foster, Terry Daniels and Boone Kirkman.To a background of booing, Foreman wins the lot.“I’d put on a show.

I’d fought five guys, and I’d made it through,It was a big victory for me,” he says afterwards,Nine months on from his third and final fight against Joe Frazier, the “Thrilla in Manila”, Ali has been busy boxing stooges such as the Yorkshireman Richard Dunn in Munich,So in June 1976 he travels to Tokyo and takes on the gigantic Japanese wrestler Antonio Inoki for a cool $6m, contesting the title of “Toughest Man on the Planet” at a soldout Budokan,Ali has a less than complimentary nickname for Inoki – “The Pelican” because of his big bullseye chin – and what follows is 15 rounds of pure slapstick as Inoki lays flat on the canvas offering only kicks and Ali, leaping out of the way, throws only six punches.

In July 1979, the now 37-year-old Ali fights an eight-round exhibition against the burly American football star Lyle Alzado at Mile High Stadium, Colorado.Ali’s previous competitive bout had seen him regain the heavyweight title from Leon Spinks in August 1978 while Alzado is pushing for a new deal with the Denver Broncos – having fought in the Golden Gloves he wants to prove he has career prospects outside the NFL.Before the exhibition bout Ali goes into full motormouth mode, taunting Alzado: “We’re friends now, we smile and we laugh.But when the bell rings, we rumble.You’ve got some nerve.

I’m not in shape to fight no Joe Frazier or Foreman, but I’m in shape for a football player.” Amid all the blather, 15,000 turn up to watch, leaving 60,000 empty seats for a forgettable waltz around the ring that Ali struggles to take seriously.The 2009 bout is part of a TV series called “Shaq Vs” where the basketball legend takes on other big sporting figures in the boxing ring.The fight takes place in Paradise, Nevada and consists of four two-minute rounds and a one-minute fifth round.The undersized De La Hoya outboxes O’Neal and walks away with a unanimous decision, but the former LA Lakers great later says: “I held back ‘cause he was my friend.

”Sign up to The RecapThe best of our sports journalism from the past seven days and a heads-up on the weekend’s actionafter newsletter promotionIt’s August 2017 and the finest boxer of his generation, unbeaten in 49 paying fights in five weight classes, faces off against an opponent with no professional boxing experience but a big noise in mixed martial arts.Mayweather is lined up to pocket $100m from the PT Barnum-style “superfight”, and announces his retirement from boxing straight after his 10th-round, 30-minute TKO victory.

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Cryptocurrency traders: share what got you into crypto, and how you feel about recent developments

It’s been an eventful few days for the cryptocurrency market, with the price of bitcoin having risen above $87,000 for the first time amid traders’ hopes that cryptocurrencies will boom in a favourable regulatory environment when Donald Trump returns to the White House.Bitcoin reached a record high of $87,198, before slipping back slightly on Monday. The price more than doubled from about $37,000 12 months ago.Other cryptos such as Dogecoin also experienced a “Trump pump” surge.We’d like to hear from retail investors who have bought crypto and how they have fared since they entered the market

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Genetic testing firm 23andMe cuts 40% of its workforce amid financial struggles

The genetic testing firm 23andMe said on Monday it would cut about 40%, or 200 employees, from its workforce and discontinue further development of all its therapies as part of a restructuring program.“We are taking these difficult but necessary actions as we restructure 23andMe and focus on the long-term success of our core consumer business and research partnerships,” said the company’s CEO, Anne Wojcicki.The company said it was evaluating strategic alternatives, including licensing agreements and asset sales, for its therapies in development.The company has been left with few options as its value has plummeted in the aftermath of a massive data breach. The DNA testing company is being investigated by British and Canadian authorities over the 2023 breach that exposed 6

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TechScape: Will Elon Musk fire a third of the US government?

Hello, and welcome to TechScape. I’m Blake Montgomery, US tech editor at the Guardian. In this week’s newsletter: Elon Musk and Donald Trump want to create a “Department of Government Efficiency”, crypto wins big across the board, and a modern equivalent of Lysistrata takes hold on TikTok. Thank you for joining me.Trump, president-elect of the US, said he wants to appoint Musk, the world’s richest man, as the country’s “secretary of cost-cutting” to reduce bureaucracy in the federal government by an order of $2tn, roughly a third

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Musk’s influence on Trump could lead to tougher AI standards, says scientist

Elon Musk’s influence on a Donald Trump administration could lead to tougher safety standards for artificial intelligence, according to a leading scientist who has worked closely with the world’s richest person on addressing AI’s dangers.Max Tegmark said Musk’s support for a failed AI bill in California underlined the billionaire’s continued concern over an issue that did not feature prominently in Trump’s campaign.However, Musk has warned regularly that unrestrained development of AI – broadly, computer systems performing tasks that typically require human intelligence – could be catastrophic for humanity. Last year, he was one of more than 30,000 signatories to a letter calling for a pause in work on powerful AI technology.Speaking to the Guardian at the Web Summit in Lisbon, Tegmark said Musk, who is expected to be heavily influential in the president-elect’s administration, could persuade Trump to introduce standards that prevent the development of artificial general intelligence (AGI), the term for AI systems that match or exceed human levels of intelligence

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Bitcoin price tops $87,000 for first time amid ‘Trump pump’

The price of bitcoin has risen above $87,000 for the first time as it benefited from traders’ hopes that Donald Trump will favour cryptocurrencies when he returns to the White House.Bitcoin reached a record high of $87,198, before slipping back slightly on Monday. The price has more than doubled from about $37,000 12 months ago.The election has also affected traditional currency markets, individual stocks – most notably Elon Musk’s electric car company, Tesla – and broad US equity markets, as investors bet on deregulation and tax cuts from Trump.Trump has in the past called bitcoin a “scam against the dollar”, but he changed his tune on cryptocurrency during the US presidential election campaign, courting the crypto community and appearing at industry events

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How a second Trump term could further enrich Elon Musk: ‘There will be some quid pro quo’

Donald Trump owes his decisive 2024 presidential victory in no small part to the enthusiastic support of the world’s richest man. In the months leading up to the election, Elon Musk put his full weight behind the Maga movement, advocated for Trump on major podcasts and used his influence over X to shape political discourse. Musk’s America Pac injected nearly $120m into the former president’s campaign.Now, Trump is looking to return the favor. Speaking with reporters last month, he said he would appoint Musk as “secretary of cost-cutting”

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