.........if their prime years had n't got interrupted ? Different circumstances for all three men of course. Ali's and Sugar Ray Leonard's primes were soley curtailed by inactivity. Tyson was already going downhill before his spell in the Big House. This was down to lack of discipline and distractions. So,let's imagine that Tyson kept focused on boxing and also never went anywhere near Desiree Washington,and messrs Ali and Leonard never had those lay offs in their middle twenties. Had they got as good as they could be or would they have got any better ?
The only one who I could see getting better than what we saw is perhaps Ali. The trade off would be that his decline would have been precipitated earlier.
Tyson couldn't afford to lose the team of D'Amato, Jacobs and Cayton. Tokyo took place before his career was interrupted, then Ruddock went the 12 round limit in Mike's final outing before incarceration. "Prison preserves you" is an oft repeated axiom among inmates. It may actually be that Tyson's hiatus even extended his post incarceration career a bit. However, he'd already sustained a loss of support as great as the death of Blackburn was to Louis before his conviction. [Blackburn and Jacobs died at about the same age, by the way.] In both the cases of Louis and Tyson, the combination punching seemed to have disappeared when they lost their mentors. [Patterson never lost that aspect of his boxing, and still demonstrated excellent combinations against Ellis in 1968.] Not only did Tyson need to stay away from Desiree Washington, he needed to stay away from Robin Givens, Dung Dong King [damned African-Koreans!:hey-sorry, I was just watching an uncensored version of Blazing Saddles], and all the other parasites D'Amato, Jacobs and Cayton would have picked off of him for him to continue focusing on boxing as he should. He needed an influence like Floyd Patterson to be passed off to by Cus. Ray Leonard was in a position to dominate the welterweight division as long as he cared to, but no, he was not going to improve at that stage. Beyond Hagler, there was really nothing to enhance his public resume after Hearns I. Department store sporting goods sections were already awash with SRL endorsed products even before the 1970s were over. From Ranzany to Hearns I, Ray was as good as he was ever going to get. When he quit, he was on the brink of destroying Roger Stafford [who had really pissed him off, and gotten him extremely focused in training]. Don Curry, Colin Jones and Marlon Starling would have been his next victims [Moochie via lopsided decision], and Breland didn't have the punch resistance to survive him. Yes, he extends his record, but he does not improve beyond what we had already seen him display. Ali's an interesting case. Yes, he very definitely could have gotten better as his physical strength, stamina and punch rate capacity continued to increase, but there were very few in the late 1960s who might have tested him sufficiently to make those athletic improvements evident. Bonavena in Tokyo on May 24, 1967 would have been interesting though, as Ringo had the toughness and stamina to extend him as Chuvalo did in Toronto. Machen also likely takes him the distance, although nobody would give Eddie a chance at winning. For knowing how good Ali might have gotten during the years of his hiatus, we'd have needed to see Ali-Frazier I for Muhammad's title in 1969. If Joe peaked by then [as he did in reality following Bonavena II in December 1968], and Ali did not backslide from lack of competition [which he may have been able to avoid through getting extended by the likes of Bonavena, Machen, and possibly Ali admirer Henry Clark, the first heavyweight contender to expressly idolize Ali], then Frazier had what it took to bring out whatever the best was that we could ever have seen from the GOAT. Manila actually did reveal some improvements in Muhammad we wouldn't have seen during the 1960s. He wasn't the athlete he was prior to his exile, but his punch rate in the Philippines startled a lot of observers. During the 1960s, he danced to conserve energy, because as he then put it, "Punching wears me down." In Manila, we saw him produce something different precisely because he was past his peak, something we possibly never would have seen in the late 1960s. If anybody could then have extracted that kind of display from Ali though, his opponent in Manila would have been the man to pull it out of him. What's ironic about Manila is that Muhammad stopped Joe precisely because he was past his peak, not in spite of it, having been forced to punch it out. Peak for peak, I'd expect to hear the final bell almost every time between these two. Ali-Frazier I & II during the late 1967-early 1970 time frame might have revived boxing years earlier than Muhammad's subsequent comeback did. Summing up, Tyson and SRL do NOT evolve any further as competitors, while Ali might very well have, especially given properly resistant opposition.
I can't really see any of them getting MUCH better than they already were at their physical peaks. Obviously,their primes would have been extended a few years. Especially Muhammad's and Rays,as their styles guaranteed longevity more so than Mike's.
