Boxing is only my 2nd favorite sport, after basketball, but sugar is the greatest athlete of all time 11 years went 128-1-2 against the best competition like angott zivic Lamotta Basora brimm Doyle and many more. Even when he was past his prime he beat Turpin fullmer Basilio etc. Sure he might not have fought burley marshall or others but with the amount of depth in his era it's expected that he wouldn't be able to get everyone. If he fought those guys people would be saying he never fought Lamotta or Olson or someone else. To have that kind of consistency for that many years with only one loss is just unbelievable. There hasn't even been a sports team with that kind of consistency let alone an individual athlete. Maybe u can say bill Russell with 11 rings in 13 yrs but he needed to do far less to win those titles than modern players since he was in an 8 team league Michael jordan was great but he only had 8-9 years as the best player with 6 titles. Pas his prime had nowhere near the success of sugar Pele won 3 world cups but he was injured for the majority of his 2nd and didn't play. Maybe the fact that World Cup is only every 4 year makes him close but I don't think it's enough Ali himself says sugar ray is the greatest and as great as he was he didn't have the consistency or quality of robinson. Henry Armstrong is close but I don't think he's higher than number 2 in boxing. Nfl has jerry rice nhl has Gretzky Still not good enough Mma is too new to say any of them are close to the greatest. baseball is a fake sport - but seriously nobody in mlb is on sugars level and cricket is good but nobody dominates it like sugar. Bradman played at an underdeveloped time So yeah sugar ray robinson is not just the greatest boxer but greatest athlete of all time.
Packey McFarland had no losses from late 1903 (when he was disqualified vs Dusty Miller) until 1915 in over a hundred fights, not even a newspaper decision against him, and had by far fewer subpar performances than Robinson during his streak.
I watched the available coverage of his fight against Tommy Gibbons. Must say I came away more impressed with Gibbons but that's no knock on Packey.
The greatest athletes are all-rounders. How high could SRR jump? How fast could he run? How strong was he?
Lebron James is the greatest Athlete of all time. 6 foot 7 250lbs,unbelievably agile and coordinated,amazing spatial awareness, intelligence,versatility(only player to play all 5 positions in a season since Magic Johnson) 40+ inch vertical and runs like a deer. Imagine if that guy got into boxing when he was young instead of bball :shock:
904-07-13 This content is protected Dusty Miller This content is protected - This content is protected - This content is protected USALNWS? Precise date, location and type of decision (L-KO5 in most versions of McFarland's record) are unknown at present. It is likely that this is actually the 1903-11-16 bout where Dusty defeated Eddie McFarland by disqualification. "It has been generally supposed that Packie McFarland is an unbeaten wonder. This sentiment was broken recently when Dusty Miller came forward with the proof that McFarland fought him six rounds before the Watita club in Chicago some four years ago and Miller won an easy decision." (Colorado Springs Gazette, 1908-06-21) Not being pedantic but one of you seems to be wrong. Still a terrific record.
I go for pentathletes not boxers or other sportsmen. Can James sprint, do an 800 metres at a respectable time, lift weight,high jump, long jump hurdle, throw the discus, putt the shot? if he can't, he isnt an all round athlete no more than Ray Robinson was.
I'm not that clued up on basketball, but yeah from what I've seen of James he's unbelievable. Even 6'11" Dwight Howard...there is a youtube vid of him and O'Neal running the 200m, and despite their size they were pretty quick. I was really impressed by that. As to the thread, I honestly think Roy Jones was a better athlete than Sugar.
That depends on what you rate higher in your criterion, being all round decent at many, unrelated activities or specializing in one and being the best in the world at it? I wouldn't consider Bruce Jenner or Ashton Eaton to be better athletes than James. In my opinion the greatest Athletes of all time are Lebron James, the weightlifter Vasily Alexeev who set 80 world records winning 7 world championships and Alex Karelin wrestler who won 3 straight gold medals, was unbeaten for 13 years in international competition (which is mind boggling for a brutal and ultra competitive sport like greco roman).
That commentary was added by me, while I was a boxrec editor. Packey lost by disqualification on Nov 16, 1903. Chicago Tribune: "Dusty" Miller was given a decision over Eddie McFarland on a foul wire: "Dusty" Miller got the decision over Patsy McFarland in the fifth round on a foul, the latter throwing Miller to the floor.
I find bball players athleticism to be vastly overrated. Their number one asset is height. I'm under 6 feet and could dunk ball well into my 30's. It just is not a great test of jumping ability for a 6-7 guy to throw down. And very few of those guys even run the court let alone run it quickly. Most of the time everyone is just standing around watching some guy iso. That said, Lebron is special. He moves exceptionally well for someone his size... tho his flat line speed is really overrated (he admits his best 40 time was a 4.6 which is good, not great)... For sheer athleticism I will take any of a number of decathletes with Ashton Eaton being the current best... or even a guy like Sergie Bubka who not only dominated his event but was world class in several others. And when we get into applied athleticism, that is athleticism in the context of a game, we can start talking about Lebron (tho I still take Michael) or Sugar Ray Robinson or Pele/Best...
McFarland was coming off a long retirement vs Mike Gibbons (who likely could be called the P4P #1 at the time), so that it can be considered an "off-night". He still won the bout according to the majority of ringside reporters. Robinson was in many more unimpressive fights during the 1940s, than Packey was during his career.
Robinson was undoubtedly a great athlete, but a critic might point out that he was never the best in a certain sense in his own sport--only the best against guys his own size, so he was fighting a limited competition. It is not like being the best in other sports like basketball, football, or baseball in which you compete against all the other players. How many would pick Sugar Ray to defeat Joe Louis?
Ray Robinson as a welterweight was the best fighter I ever saw ringside. Realistically you cannot compare him in a bout against a Joe Louis nor the great LH Ezzard Charles...Though almost 6ft tall, SRR at MW would not fare well with top LHs as a Fitz,a Jack Dillon, a Sam Langford, or the truly greatest Harry Greb, who spotted anyone and anytime, much larger men and prevailed...