See some of the videos on youtube like "The Strength of Wilt Chamberlain". He was a legitimate Monster. Whether with his gifts & size he could have trained to beat Ali-at the last minute, in boxing-is dubious. There's a guy who had made himself scarce who believes that Ali would have as much chance against Ali as say Sammy. About as crazy as saying the opposite. But Wilt was a unique character & talent.
Dunno why, but the still frame for the vid conjures up recollections of the Duran vs Hearns face off. Maybe their trunks are similar…? And, as irony would have it, Sammy only had one eye, which was basically the later case for Greb also…<cue eerie Twilight Zone intro theme>…..
NBA great Bob Lanier was asked once about his most memorable moment in his NBA career was, he said: " My rookie year I played my first time against Wilt and was jostling him and being physical wanting him to know I belonged, then Wilt picked me up under the arms and moved me like a cup of coffee, I hadn't been lifted up like that since I was 8 years old, it was scary . I was 6'11' and weighed 265
Yeah thanks, there are so many stories about Wilt lifting & moving people-often very large-around like they were children. He & Andre the Giant competed to lift Arnold & "win" by making him seem the lightest. Arnold was one who spoke about the weight he moved in the gym. But what he did in real life was even more impressive. Some stories about him, myths that underrate or trivialize him, first hand accounts about his unreal strength even long after retirement are [url]HERE[/url].
Wilt Chamberlain was inducted into the HoF in two sports; basketball, and volleyball. And I really haven't heard of such a thing (as a player, not a coach, promoter, "contributed to the popularization of sports", etc.).
Rich, Sammy should’ve fought Wilt like Robert Redford did against Ted Cassidy in Butch Cassidy. But even if only to the nut level, it still might’ve required too a high kick for diminutive Sammy to pull off.
I personally saw Wilt grab Walter Dukes, the seven foot center for the Pistons, by his jersey and shorts and toss him two rows into the court side seats.
I’ll see your Wilt and raise you a Jim Brown — halls of fame in football and lacrosse, where many still consider him the best player of all time. He won the lacrosse version of the Heisman Trophy (best player in the country) award in college. (He was also second-team All-America in basketball.) Jim and Wilt were too bad, bad men. Of course there’s the story of Jim challenging Ali to a fight and Ali saying ‘Jim, you don’t want to do this’ and Brown not relenting and getting laid out. Maybe Wilt heard that story too, haha. (Another athlete on this tier might be Dave Winfield, who was drafted in baseball, basketball and football — which he never even played in college. In baseball, he was MVP of the College World Series … as a pitcher, a position he didn’t even play in the pros.)
Wilt was also a great track star. The U.S. Olympic Committee wanted Wilt to try out for the decathlon but he opted to play for the Globetrotters instead.
I heard-I believe from Brown-that Ali offered to let him hit him, & Brown took maybe just 3 mighty swings, all of which Ali evaded, & thought better of joining the fight game. Not that Ali even hit him.
