Greater physical freak of nature: Manny Pacquiao or Mike Tyson?

Nassem Hamed was as much of a freak as Manny was, if not more. His style was even more unconventional. His problems were different. What other Heavyweights would keep up Tyson's peek-a-boo style at that weight and build? How many have since or before? You can't coach a moron to be a grandmaster, similarly the style would be out of bounds for many heavyweights historically. It can be argued both ways, each had a freakish style that only they made work inside the ring.

 

That seems like circular reasoning to me. You've already recognized his physical talents which you said are direct manifestations of his psyche and schooling.

The fact that Roy Jones developed an avoidant approach post trauma should never ever be used to detract from his physical gifts. He did not become a lesser physical freak from what happened to someone else.

 

Meh ... Mike had amazing physical talents - his mentality and background allowed his team to maximise it. They utilised his psychological make up to extract the upper limit of his physical gifts. His physical talents are not direct manifestations of the psyche and schooling but are significantly contributory to just how invincible he seemed to be for the short time that he was at his best.

With Roy, what I said in no way implies that he was lesser of a physical talent. I merely said the mental approach directly affected his physical output, thus affecting how he expressed his physical capability. Tyson didn't have such an issue, to his own detriment even. I qualified it to say, build apart, and I will now add in stylistic differences, both fighters are extremely high on fast twitch fibre and explosive power, to the level where I would rank them side by side. Their psyches and physical dimensions make them express the physical talents in completely different ways.

 

Manny was a pharmacy freak

 

Probably but you still need to be genetically gifted and work incredibly hard to reach the levels he did.

Gyms are full of juiced up slobs and puff the magic dragons.

 

The thread reads "greater physical freak of nature". You are confusing the topic by introducing extraneous elements. You already have everything needed to judge and answer the question without going into psychology. Regardless of the extent his psychological makeup actually allowed him express his physical talent the talent in the end was expressed.

 

Tough to say, i would say Tyson because he is unique in one way, incredibly coordinated and agile for his size.
Obviously extremely quick and powerful.


Pacquiao also quick and powerful but with extraordinary stamina.

The doping is kind of a moot point when it comes to tyson because his prime was in the pre-tested era and its not like there were a bunch of tysons running around, which there would have been if it was just steroids.

And his "gift" was never just the explosiveness anyway, plenty of explosive athletes out there. It was the agility and coordination of a welterweight in a 220lb package.


However with pacquiao its more of an interesting question. His workrate and energy is incredible, and was maintained despite a gain in muscle mass which is practically impossible, provably so when examining the careers of convicted dopers that went up in weight but still sacrificed energy levels and workrate, the bounce and responsiveness in the legs etc.
Is that genetics? Or was it simply access to better doping regimens than his contemporaries, who by the 2000s were now being tested for PEDs. Creating an uneven playing field?

Or is it maybe both? A genetic gift for responding especially well to things like EPO and cardarine?

But those energy levels at 40 years old in his 27th weight class are NOT normal. How does a guy keep throwing every shot at full power and speed for 12 rounds at 80+ punches a round? Constantly moving, bouncing and feinting at an advanced age with 20 extra pounds of muscle?

 

Just checked, and HW at the Junior Olympics is 180 lbs. Which is a lot for a 15 year old of course, but if he really was 190 lbs at 13 (which always has seemed a bit fanciful to me) much of it must have been fat.

 

HW in the junior Olympics goes up to 91kg or 200.6lbs

 

Don’t know if they’ve changed it since but for the ‘81 Jr Olympics Mike competed in - per supplied clip - the threshold for HW was definitely 81 + kgs.

 

81kg is the minimum, so a fighter can be over that weight, apparently there's a French commentary on Tyson's 1982 junior Olympics that says he's 95kg

 

Tyson for me.

Tyson was fighting fully grown HWs at 18 years of age and knocking them out every couple of weeks.

Pac man was fighting other under privileged kids in the Philippines at the same age every few months.

 

Yes, it does. My bad.

 

It's actually pretty frustrating that there isn't a tale of the tape for the junior Olympics that lists weights, it doesn't help that whenever Atlas talks about it a lot of his sentences start with "I think"

 

Both juiced to the gills; Tyson from a much younger age, though. Pacquiao was clearly more athletic. Tyson's stamina sucked.