Freak athletes of Boxing history

You sure about that? Freakishly fast hands and reflexes, excellent whole body coordination, and even if sprinting speed wasn't great, his ability to change direction in a split second reflex was really good. Combine that with excellent stamina and being 6'3" and you'd think there would be plenty of sports he could excel at.

Here's a humorous random thought -- ping pong. Not really a sport per se, but whatever. With his reflexes and hand speed, you'd think he'd be able to be an incredible ping pong player.

 

Funny that you thought of ping pong before you thought of tennis lol. Could imagine him being good at baseball, or a good QB if he was raised playing football.

 

Dempsey
Armstrong
Liston
Foreman
Tyson
Jones
Pacquiao

 

Like?

 

6ft3 isn’t really “freaky” and happening to be fast and 6ft3 isn’t all that at HW. I’m saying he isn’t from the same of mold of say a RJJ or Hamed not that he isn’t a “freaky athlete” where did I say he wasn’t? He is, He’s just not like those guys who to me really maxed out all the things we usually considers athletic. Langford to me also belongs there by all accounts he was an alien.

 

Rocky Marciano. What he accomplished with his size and reach certainly approaches the Freak of Nature category.

 

I won't give anything away but real life things that happened tho i bet one was a little exaggerated or maybe didn't LOL

But he shines thru as a brute strength kind of man that's for sure.

 

I saw Ali run in one of those celebrity 100m/100 yard? races years ago. He clocked something like 14 secs or so IIRC.

 

I’m not sure Qawi qualifies as a freak as such, but watching the little 5ft 5 inch Dwight bouncing overhand rights off 6ft3 George’s head with wild abandon in a HW fight was a freakish sight indeed!

 

Unfortunately no CT - just going by sheer memory. However, I will see if I can find something online.

 

I also saw it, and as I recall, Ali finished a distant last. He was more distance oriented, having learned his manner of running from Archie Moore (who he outsprinted up a hill at Moore's training camp then ran out of gas as the old Mongoose passed him saying "Pace yourself! You'll last longer," a lesson Ali always retained.

 

Thanks man, I’m glad you saw it also. I tried some time back to find something online re the race but came up with nothing.

Just a quick search now still turns up nothing.

Ali def. didn’t frame himself for sprinting. As I recall, he appeared a bit lumbering in his efforts to run against the clock and he wasn’t young young at the time. I don’t even know that he was properly attired for the event.

Aside from his performance in the sprint, Ali had one of the best set of functional legs for boxing - very well developed thighs and calves the potentials of which were realised in his insane mobility.

You could probably take an elite sprinter who would be hard pressed to replicate Ali’s leg movement for even just a few rounds.

I recall reading that Liston had to have his pants specially tailored to accomodate his over sized thighs - but when Ali came along his own thigh measurement was actually at least on par with that of Liston’s if not in fact larger.

Manny PAC’s calves are also notable for their size. On the flip side, a fighter like Hearns could be fully cognisant but his skinny legs, in their own right, would sometimes betray him.

Finally, despite his legs being disproportionately small as compared to his well developed upper body, the record reflects that Bob Fitz’s legs must’ve still served him reasonably well.

The physique on appearances doesn’t always translate to what we might expect in the sport of boxing.

However, even without knowing his confirmed prowess as puncher, Fitz’s upper body, including broad shoulders and sinewy arms suggested a perfect build for slinging well leveraged, powerful punches.

 

Wilma Rudolph beat him at the Olympics and we know Joe Frazier came dead last in his 1973 sprint contest.

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Announcer : “Joe Frazier…who’s been having his problems in some sports”.

That comment was as brutal as one of Joe’s left hooks. Okay, not so good at the weightlifting or the swimming BUT poor old Joe had also already lost the title to Foreman in that same year. Talk about a pile on.

 

That tall guy Hayes who won the race was Usain Boltesque as he won the race from behind there. 11.5 for a non sprinter wasn’t a bad time either.