Who was a bigger superstar: Ali in the 70s or Tyson in the 80s-mid 90s

Well, Jesse Owens won gold medals at the 1936 Berlin Olympics in the 100m, 200m, 4 x 100m relay, and long jump.
In the midst of a time and place where the superiority of the Aryan race is propagated.

 

Certainly big & debatably bigger…I just like the prestige & symbolism of a fight as something bigger.

 

Ali ,,,as the saying goes needed no introduction anywhere in the civilized world. It's not even close!

 

Ali came along at just the right time and his evolution from a heel to a face was what made him compelling.

 

Ali's appeal and celebrity all over the world sets apart imo.

 

Tyson made the opposite evolution in his career. We forget the polite, good sportsman that Tyson was while Cus was still around, the polite interviews he gave where he discussed boxing history, etc. We tend to just remember the "I'll eat your children" phase of his career. And now in retirement he's turned back into a face.

 

Ali was almost always a tongue in cheek heel because he wanted to make people laugh.

 

Both were utterly enormous superstars. Not since Ali did everyone in the household know a boxer, wives included. Non boxing followers at work would be talking Tyson every Monday around the water cooler after he poleaxed another poor soul in dramatic fashion. I wish i had $100 dollars for everytime somehow raved on about how they'd get in there for short space of time and take whatever fighter X got for his one of two rounds.....especially after Spinks and his 91 seconds.

It almost got annoying and it was as if people didn't understand he'd put thousands of hours of training in for dozens of bouts year after year but it was a huge talking point. Sure, they are going to travel around the backwoods and throw millions at people who couldn't knock the skin off a rice pudding with a run up

But Tyson was on everyone's lips. Even when it was clear he no longer had it countless people thought he was going to rise from the phoenix and devastate everyone for god knows how many years.

But Ali was Ali as well. The two more well known and revered boxers in my lifetime by so much distance there's simply no third place even for a guy like SRL or other.

 

Floyd Mayweather is the closest there's been. You ask a non-fan to name famous boxers, you're going to get Ali and Tyson, maybe Mayweather, maybe Foreman, and that's about it.

 

I reckon you are right. Mayweather and Foreman the next two but that's not taking into account we missed Joe Louis mania. He would have been monstrous after defeating Schmeling with the world on the brink of war.

 

Funny story about Foreman -- my wife didn't know who he was. He was some old man who sells grills to her. I had her watch a KO reel.

 

That would have been funny!!!!

 

Tyson was always on the edge of exploding .. on his first aired fight vs Ferguson in the post fight interview he said he wanted to drive the bone of Jesse's nose through his brain out of nowhere in the in the middle of the interview and Lampley and Alex Wallau both froze on air incredulous as they visibly processed what they heard come out of his mouth .. he was a very smart, raw street animal, like a pit bull, trained to perform but absolutely capable of going postal at any moment ..

 

For me, Ali in the '60s was bigger than Ali later or Tyson at any time.