Muhammad Ali vs. Earnie Shavers was a professional boxing match contested on September 29, 1977, for the undisputed heavyweight championship.

However, the $300,000 sum that he made was greater than all the money earned during his entire professional career leading up to the fight.

Shavers continued to land hard shots to Ali's head and body, forcing the champion to box cautiously and move.

[3][4][5] Sports Illustrated boxing writer Pat Putnam said:That fight with Shavers, and particularly the last round, sums up for me what Ali was about, even though he was long past his prime.

[8] Sportswriters Bob Canobbio and Lee Groves contended that "the illogical scoring patterns heavily favored Ali during this period in his career... the fourth round saw Shavers out-throw Ali 63–26, out-land him 22–1, achieve accuracy gaps of 35%-4% overall and 42%-7% in power, and land the single hardest shot of the round, a massive right hand in the closing moments.

While judges Tony Castellano and Eva Shain rightly saw Shavers as the winner, Johnny LoBianco awarded the round to Ali."

Other alleged irregularities in scoring included none of the three judges scoring the ninth round for Shavers (in which he landed 13 punches to Ali's 4, with higher accuracy and a higher ratio of power punches) while unanimously scoring the much closer tenth round (in which Ali outlanded Shavers 24–23, but Shavers still landed more power shots and had higher accuracy) for Ali.