Ali or Tyson who was the fastest?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-yh5y2tbyuc

Shouldnt matter that Dempsey's white. Either way he doesnt measure up to Tyson, Ali, or Patterson.

One of the quickest combinations that Ive ever seen Tyson throw was against Jose Ribalta Round 8. Heavyweights were never supposed to punch like that.

Though Ali appears to be faster and I give him the edge I think it has also to do with style.

 

tysons hand speed was faster.....it looks just as quick and unlike ali's flurries where he threw fast just to throw, alot of tysons shots were bombs coming in quick succesion.

alis foot speed was superior though without question

 

Tyson was quick no doubt however I give it to Ali.

Ali threw and landed lead rights often against good fighters. The lead right from an orthodox stance is a long punch and to get away with this consistantly suggests he had insane handspeed.

 

Tyson was throwing hard, quick punches with weight behind them. Ali was throwing arm punches. Tyson is without doubt the quickest handed power puncher.

 

I dont know, i always thought Tyson pretty much had the best hand speed i'd ever seen from a heavyweight.

 

Ali was faster, but Tyson had more snap/strength behind his shots. But Ali could throw a lot more at once and do so more consistently over the course of a round or fight. Tyson had some good timing, but Ali's timing was the source of a lot of his knockouts.

 

Their on the same level. No reason to split hairs.

 

Ali hands down

 

Prime Ali was faster. He was faster than any heavyweight, except perhaps Patterson.

Tyson was incredibly fast though, and actually followed through on every punch. With bad intentions.

 

Speed in boxing is measured two ways: hand speed and foot speed.

Hand speed measures how quickly a person can get off a punch. Foot speed measures how quickly a person moves around the ring.

Ali is the clear winner when it comes to foot speed. He had speed that a man of his size wouldn’t normally possess. Ali had quick hands as well, but his hand speed was nowhere near as lethal as his foot speed.

For years Mike Tyson’s hand speed has been overlooked. He packed such lethal punches that few people noticed his speed. In his documentary, Mike Tyson states that he studied quick exciting boxers and he modeled his style after them.

Watch a few clips of Tyson throwing punches and you’ll see what I mean. Tyson would whip out five or six hooks and uppercuts in the blink of an eye. It was extremely rare to see a boxer beat Mike Tyson to the punch.

Mike Tyson was not the fastest when it came to foot speed, but he used what he had to stalk opponents and punish them.



Advantage - Tyson

Mike Tyson faster than Ali?!!??? I can hear the moaning now.

That’s right I said it. Tyson was faster in the ring for all practical purposes. Muhammad Ali relied on his foot speed as his main defense. That foot speed failed him SEVERAL times.

Ali took SEVERE punishment from Oscar Bonavena, Joe Frazier and Ken Norton. Anyone who applied a decent amount of pressure to Ali could nullify his quick feet.

Tyson fought from a traditional stance so he didn’t waste nearly as much motion as Ali. When he avoided a punch he did so with a lightning quick snap of the head. When Ali avoided a punch it often involved a lean, a foot shuffle and a trip to the corner store.

Tyson's persistent pressure and precision punching nullify Ali’s foot speed.

 

Tyson had the faster handspeed though there's really not that much in it. Probably only Patterson and maybe a prime Dokes would be on the same level as them. Ali had the faster feet no doubt. Can't ever imagine Tyson doing a Ali Shuffle but then Tyson was quick enough to cut off the ring against a moving opponent as well as any heavyweight I've ever seen.

 

This is true.

Nobody mentioned how Ali was measured as the fastest puncher ever, at least at HW? The frame by frame breakdown or him vs. Sugar Ray Robinson where he was deemed 25% quicker, or in "When We Were Kings" one of his shots was times at, if memory serves, 1/1000s of a second.

The examples against Bonavena, Norton & Frazier were all after his exile, a couple while still ra bit rusty. Anyway nobody could rationally use post peak or post prison Tyson to consider how fast he was, so how can you use this slowed Ali vs. Tyson?

That is not a fair & rational comparison of who was faster.