| PLOY | Muhammad Ali's rope-a-dope tactic, e.g. |
| DOPE | Ali's rope-a-___ |
| WENTLOW | Employed smear tactics, e.g. |
| ADOPE | Ali's "rope-___" |
| ALI | Rope-a-dope inventor Muhammad ___ |
| BOXINGRING | Where Ali did his rope-a-dope |
| TACTIC | Rope-a-dope in boxing, e.g. |
| SKIP | Flisk from foot to foot; a jump of a twirling rope; a dodge of class; a team captain; a college servant; a bounce of a stone on water; or, a dumpster (4) |
| HORSE | Equid whose name transferred to a chess knight, a clothes airer, an easel, a foot-rope, a sawbuck, a traveller for a sail's sheet and a vault (5) |
| KNOT | A tie in a cord, lace, ribbon or rope; a clump or cluster; a lump; a tangle; an intricate flower-bed; or, a rosette (4) |
| SALLY | Girls' name meaning "princess" that is linked by association with a bell-rope, a dummy, a fairground/pub game, a figure of fun, a quip, a sortie and Worzel Gummidge's mischievous and somewhat vain cou |
| PEG | Part of a riverbank allotted to an angler in a competition; stake for securing a tent rope; a clip for hanging laundry out to dry; or, an object for scoring in cribbage (3) |
| GROMMET | A loop of rope; a metal ring lining an eyelet of the same name; or, a slang word for a young or novice skateboarder or surfer (7) |
| TOGGLE | A nautical pin passed through a loop of rope; a duffel coat button used in a similar fashion; or, any fastener (6) |
| GARLAND | An old word for a crown; a nautical coil or grommet of rope; a festoon or wreath of flowers and foliage; or, an anthology or florilegium of poems (7) |
| ESPARTO | From the Greek for "rope", a species of grass, also called halfa, from which a type of light canvas rope-soled shoe takes its name (7) |
| REATA | Rope a sailor's climbing, end of rope being gripped |
| CLAY | Saucer-shaped disc fired from a trap in a skeet-like sport; boxer Muhammad Ali's original surname; or, tennis court surface used at the French OpenA (4) |
| LAILA | Muhammad Ali's daughter who was also a boxer |
| LASSO | Rope a cow |
