Which bummed you out more?

I think probably did see Ali in his prime albeit briefly.

 

Concur with McGrain - Tyson would never have managed to stay on the tracks. Even if Cus lived 10/20 years longer, he would've always managed to get in his own way.

In many ways, prison and religion might have saved his life.

Ali was relatively physically prime, but he was trying new things in the ring in terms of timing and shot selection. I have no doubts that had he maintained the same level of fight consistency and his level of training, he would've held the title and beat the likes of Frazier, say late '69, Norton and Foreman. He could've arguably held the title until perhaps a Foreman rematch or even up and until Larry came into prominence. I genuinely think he could've surpassed Louis' title defences.

 

Tyson for me, mainly because I was too young to remember the early Ali exile years.
And I was a great fan of Tyson in the early years.
Was I pissed off that Tyson didn't keep on being successful and a long term champ... too bloody right I was!

 

All of that is true. Tyson had con-man in him, too. Habitual liar.

 

The Tyson dedication thing is probably largely a myth. Except for Douglas he kept breezing through opponents until prison. So maybe it was more to do with Douglas?

Not that different even after prison. It was Holyfield who got in his way, otherwise he did what he'd always done for the most part, even if age of course did start to come into the equation and the years in prison of course did him no good. But it's not like he started to struggle with every decent fighter after Spinks, like Ali did after Manilla. Apart from these two it was mostly easy.

Prison took some of his best years and might have robbed of us of some good fights, though. It did rob of us of him against Holy, with both in their primes and that's a shame.

Ali's exile robbed of us of seeing him vs Frazier at would likely have been his absolute peak. That's a shame. As for Tyson vs Holy in their primes, it was prison which robbed of us of that.

 

Tyson had discipline but so did guys like James Toney those skills don’t come cheap, you fight under the lights, you fight (not paddy cake) in the gym and you do both very frequently. Tyson needed to be in perpetual motion always fighting always training look at Toney’s 160-168lbs run and how often he fought but after that? He was a real fighter but he had a “another day at the office” about him all the work it took to get there is very hard to want to continue with MT went one step further and became the worlds most well payed hobbyist boxer I suspect the weightlifting was to keep up his image of Cus’s spartan gym junkie without any of the real work… with every “victory” the complicated layers of his style got shrugged off whim like gnats, by Ruddock he was just another HW look how he fought… Tyson to me was since Joe Louis and to date the greatest boxer I’ve ever seen at HW but he plain got beat by Douglas for my 0.2$, Douglas figured him out, maybe he was not fully “there” mentally but his style had prominent flaws that’d be there in the rematch and others after Bus had MT not gone to prison would’ve used the same blue print. MT had he’d been willing to apply himself to a new style or modify things he could’ve Joe Louis 2 but unpopular to many MT basically hit his ceiling, we saw about as good as was ever gonna do.

 

Poor Mike.

 

Tyson for me. One of the only heavyweights ever to be able to emulate the styles and energy of a smaller fighter imo. I personally think Ali always loses to Frazier. Only difference being that his movement would more frustrating at first, however he wouldn't be sitting down on his shots nearly as well. Frazier would always be a nightmare style for Ali imo.

 

That Ali did not continue his career until the Tyson or Lewis era. He had plenty left in the tank.

 

Ali basically beat every major fighter from his era.

He was way too old when prime Larry Holmes came along.

 

Click on 'change my vote',Quinton, mate.

 

True, Ali was in his prime, say 64 - 67 but that doesn’t preclude him still having some improvements left in him.

I will say that his leg speed and stamina were already at sublime levels. Discrete values that may well have seen some measure of deterioration even during his period of exile even if he had fought through same - but then Ali may well have compensated for same in other areas.

As to Tyson, he was already moving away from Cus’ influence and directions while D’Amato was still alive. I dunno, but that fact seems to be often over sighted.

What was missing in Mike’s overall game was a necessary degree of self management - an attribute that is often a cornerstone for greatness.

On the flip side, Mike was pristinely guided and trained for a long enough period for him to absorb same into his own standards and character - rather than be held by the hand and led every step of the way. It seems he never arrived at said self autonomy.

D’Amato himself waxed lyrical about the importance of character, stating that it can even overcome an opponent who is otherwise better skilled.

Just imo, but a lot of great fighters didn’t get the ideal start and associated support in boxing that Mike did.