Was Muhammad Ali the fastest heavyweight of all time?

Since to my knowledge fast handed heavyweights such as Patterson,Dokes,Tyson, and Hide 's handspeed has not been measured on the same instrument I don't see how a definitive conclusion could be reached on this subject?

 

True. The only thing we know is that under test conditions Ali was quicker than SRR with his jab. In my estimation based on what I’ve seen first hand I believe Ali to be the quickest hwt in my lifetime. His jab was so quick fighters generally had no time to slip it.

 

Yes I read the result of that test.

 

For sure. There's no definitive conclusion

 

Ali was under test conditions, SRR not really. For all we know it was from the SRR-Moyer fight. Do you have any more detail? Did SRR also jab a balsa board?

 

No. From what I read they used film footage of both fighters and then synchronized both so the relative film speed was the same. Again this was done via experts at one of the major film laboratories. I do not know what fight or fights of SRR were used to make this comparison. However I am sure the film was well chosen as Jim Jacobs was involved and they used filmed fights from his collection.

 

If that was indeed the case then fair enough. Ali must have been incredibly fast as SRR is also not far off the top of the pile in this category. I always assumed Ali did the test, then it was compared to Sugar's jabs in one of his fights.

 

That's exactly what happened. Seems like a very imprecise, unreliable experiment.

 

You have no idea if the test was either imprecise or unreliable. Professional labs tend to perform accurate experiments

 

Do you have any sources identifying the professional lab that timed Robinson's punch and explaining the methods used for selecting the punches to compare?

 

Which os obv. pure nonsense. Some guys simply do not have it with numbers, logic or simply what they are talking about in general. No proportion of common sense in this comparison.
Discrepancy would be in range of percentages, not factors.
What they should have been done is take jabs from a suitable camera angle and check the time for the shot to elongate max (plus optional back to inital). If you know the correct arm lenght, you should get some distance/time, but you can make an error due to different initial position the jab was thrown from.

 

I'd be more inclined to say that Muhammed Ali was the most fluid heavyweight In history.

 

There were two tests:

SI tested Ali’s jab speed which was told in there July 5 1969 issue.

Jim Jacobs had a film of Ali’s jab tested via a “Synchronizer” via Kodak laboratories a few years earlier in comparison to a film of SRR. This was where Ali’s jab was found to be quicker than SRR jab. This story can be found in the February 1969 issue of BI.

 

Call me biased if you want but for me there was only one GREATEST!! That was Muhammad Ali.
Was my greatest moment in the sport when I got to shake his hand

 

Ali is rated typically the greatest of all hwts. Been that way the past 45 or so years.