On April 30, 1976, Jimmy Young faced more than Ali the fighter. By that time, Ali was a living icon: a two-time heavyweight champion with his name attached to products such as action figures, raking in unheard-of paydays for merchandise.

Maybe even more important, Ali’s career was well-tailored. It was in 1970, at the end of his infamous exile, that manager Herbert Muhammad co-founded Ali Enterprises, a way to handle Ali’s commercial and business interests. And it was rarely a mystery what the champ was up to in terms of in-ring ambitions.

Ali’s late spring and early summer calendar filled up quickly in 1976. A proposed bout against British heavyweight champion Richard Dunn, which had initially been pondered the previous year, finally found a home in Germany for May. Right after that, Ali would depart for Japan to tangle with pro wrestler Antonio Inoki in a mixed-rules bout. If all went well, Ali expected to fight rival Ken Norton a third time later in the year.

That left a months-long gap between a February win against Jean-Pierre Coopman and the Dunn fight, and it was important for Ali to stay busy. Contrary to his reputation as a bastion of fitness, Ali could gain weight between fights if he wasn’t in the gym. Not every appearance had to be a megafight, just enough to keep him sharp as the heavyweights of old faded away and new blood emerged.

Compared to Ali, Jimmy Young was nobody. At 17-4-2, Young wasn’t the typical Ali foe. Even the opponents who weren’t recognizable to the U.S. public were notable for something else, such as holding the British or European versions of the heavyweight title, or being locally popular. Young clearly struggled at a few points early in his career, and the Philadelphian wasn’t much of a puncher.

Timing was another area where Ali excelled. His moves weren’t without strategy, but gamesmanship gave way to Ali’s inner competitor. Whereas some fighters might wait until they can face a weakened version of a foe, allowing them to cool off before a matchup, Ali usually chose to fight opponents who had career momentum.

Such was the case with Young, who not only hadn’t lost in three years but scored wins over Dunn, José Román and Ron Lyle during that time. He even semi-avenged a loss to Earnie Shavers by braving a hard knockdown to salvage a draw in their rematch. At a minimum, as far as those who put fights together were concerned, Young earned his shot at Ali, which was scheduled to take place at Capitol Center in Landover, Maryland.

To be clear, timing mattered, but nobody actually called for an Ali-Young fight; it was supposed to be a tune-up for Ali and an opportunity for Young, who approached his training and the fight with earnest optimism.

Rubin “Hurricane” Carter, out of jail and awaiting his trial for murder, watched Young work out in Landover in the days leading up to the fight. Young ate too many punches in sparring, according to newspapermen in attendance. He kept up with Ali in verbal sparring, however, snapping back just enough to keep the champion on his toes.

“[Ali] can float like a butterfly, sting like a bee, but I got the net that will catch him,” Young said. “He’s finally found someone just as smart as he is, faster, quicker and more determined.”

Multiple Ali opponents made similar claims while incorrectly predicting the demise of “The Greatest.” Ali often gave them nicknames. Frazier was, regrettably, “The Gorilla,” Foreman was “The Mummy,” Buster Mathis was “The Blimp” and George Chuvalo was “The Washerwoman.”

Ali’s gift for firing off entertaining rants and loquacious salvos drew more media people and fans to his workouts than the actual working out, in fact. At one of the final workouts for the bout, a visibly overweight Ali declared: “I’ve labeled Jimmy Young ‘The Squirrel.’”

When asked why, Ali took a moment and said: “I’m not sure but I’ll think of something. I just figured he was good enough that he should have a name.”

The champion couldn’t say he wasn’t warned. Trainer Angelo Dundee scrawled out “When in doubt, remember San Diego” on a sign leading from the elevator to Ali’s hotel room in Landover. Dundee was referencing Ali’s loss to Ken Norton in 1973 that left him with a broken jaw at San Diego Sports Arena, and suggesting that taking him lightly caused the catastrophe. It was also supposed to remind Ali of the Norton rubbermatch on the line.

At 34, Ali scaled in for Young at a career-high 230 pounds. He immediately claimed it was so he could wear the younger fighter down and stop him. Newspaper writers, uneasy about Ali’s weight, nevertheless approved of Young being a clear underdog. But arriving that heavy took away one of the things that made Ali effective for so long, and that was versatility. At his best, Ali could move or stay still, box or sit down and punch a bit. Looking like this, Ali had few options.

Early in the fight, Ali held his guard high and walked Young down. He did it without much punching, though, and Young worked his jab and his right hand, inching his feet away from the champion at very annoying angles. Ali reached out to land right hands, whiffing embarrassingly, and that seemed to deter him from really opening up while Young pecked away. Eventually Ali began parrying some of Young’s shots, but not enough.

Ali opened up enough to force clinching from Young in Round 4, and in the fifth he finally began acting his size as he pushed him around inside and held the challenger’s head down. Still, Ali was lukewarm in that ring.

During the fifth, broadcaster Howard Cosell correctly said: “Another one of the strange things about Ali [is] how he can be so brilliant against class competition, and not-so-brilliant against lesser competition.”

If Young were actually a puncher, the slapping punches he landed may have troubled Ali much more. As it was, Young won some rounds but couldn’t actually hold Ali off entirely. When Young landed a few snapping punches in Round 7, Ali responded with a few combinations that forced him to sinfully duck his head outside of the ropes.

Ali connected well in Round 9 as he danced on his toes and got into a rhythm. Young’s tricky counterpunching kept Ali from running away with the round, and the 10th was a jabbing competition that Young clearly won.

The champion gasped for air in his corner, where everyone on his team knew Ali needed to find something to turn the fight around. It wasn’t spectacular, but on cue Ali landed a series of right hands in the 11th that stopped Young’s activity. The challenger was tiring, too, it was just that he at least showed up in shape to fight through exhaustion. He appeared to outwork Ali in Round 12 before the champion landed a few right hands in the corner. Young went to the ropes and ate shots before once more putting his head through them, and this time it was counted as a knockdown at the bell.

If judges or other observers were looking for a reason to favor Ali even more than they might already have, they found them in Young’s defensive antics. In the 13th, Young repeatedly ducked through ropes, then he turned his back when action resumed. Both landed good punches in the final minute, and Ali even appeared hurt by a handful of Young’s right hands in the 14th.

Just as quickly as the crowd became invested in the action, Young blunted the excitement by ducking through the ropes yet again at the start of the final round. Ali tried to fight on his toes to the final bell, and Young remained slippery.

Norton, who fought on the undercard and joined the broadcast in the last few rounds, refused to say outright that Young won but suggested Ali may have “blown [their third fight]” before the judges handed the champion a highly unpopular decision win.

Young fled the ring before he could be interviewed and voice his disgust. Ali truthfully admitted he trained far too lightly, but he also said there was no way he could have gone the distance if he were truly out of shape.

One judge scored the fight as a two-point win for Ali, well within the realm of reason, while the others somehow found 10 and 11 rounds apiece to score for him. Some rounds were close, but those scored were downright punitive.

Nat Loubet, then-editor of The Ring, wrote: “We must not take away from Young the point that he lasted 15 rounds with an inept champion, but he looked like a little boy against the heavy boned champion.”

Several cliches arose in the post-fight discussion. For starters, you can’t win the title running away. There was also the old adage about close fights being nudged to the champion. Above all, money talks.

Jimmy Young was a better fighter than being a footnote on the careers of fighters such as Ali, Foreman, Norton or Ron Lyle. He deserves to be mentioned among boxing history’s great Philadelphia overachievers.

Unfortunately, he had the audacity to try and expose the illusion of Ali’s late-career magic.