Never getting to see Ali in his prime do to the 3.5 year layoff Tyson not having Hagler or Mayweather's work ethic and not seeing just how great he could of been Bo Jackson's career getting cut short
Funny thing about the prime years Ali missed. At the time his career was temporarily halted he had already beaten just about all of the major challengers for his belt. He most likely would have spent those 3 1/2 years fighting relatively young fighters who were just starting to get good or were ranked but relatively unproven. Look at all of the men against whom Frazier defended his belt before the FOTC and you can get an idea as to what I'm saying. Speaking of Smokin' Joe, Ali most certainly would have fought Frazier before 1971 and Joe would have had less of a chance then. Other than another eight to ten somewhat mundane successful defenses we really would not have missed much. It is for this reason I chose the Tyson option. I would have loved to have seen a focused Iron Mike without all of his life's problems, self caused and otherwise, going up against Holyfield, Bowe and others of that era.
The Bo Jackson phenomenon was something special, and unlikely to be seen again. Think about this a moment. A 6'1" 235 pound freak of nature, who was so fast he could literally run up a wall, throw a baseball from the outfield to home plate and throw opponents out in the process. Hit a home run of almost 500 hundred feet! Break a pro baseball bat like it was a twig. Faster than most pro wide receivers and cornerbacks in history, though he generally out weighed them by more than 30 lbs It's a shame his career was side tracked at it's zenith with that debilitating injury. (Ironically because of his unnatural strength, his hip literally exploded from the stress) More than likely would've been the 2nd athlete in the football and baseball hall of fame. (The 1st in the modern era, or of the last 70-80 years) That is my pick for most disappointing situation in sports history.
Yep. He has a bunch of uneventful title defenses until eventually age and wear allows Frazier or Norton to dethrone him. A more interesting hypo with Ali is to give him the boxing longevity of someone like Holmes and get rid of the Parkinsons/CTE. He might have had a Holmes-type senior career throughout the 80's. Yep. This would have been real interesting. As to Bo Jackson, he'd have been a HOF'erf in both baseball and football. Pretty wild.
Bo obvioulsy wasn't Willie Mays and he obviously wasn't Barry Sanders, but he played baseball and football at such a high level that if he didn't get injured the HOF voters would have looked at his work in the other sport and would have voted to put him in both if not for injuries.
For as great as Mike Tyson’s career was I really think he had it within his power to do better. Just an opinion though.
