Heavyweight Champions--Who would be the best in MMA?

Throw McCall in there.

If you gave him rudimentary grappling skills, what's anyone going to do to him?

He's quite large for MMA on the whole, and with smaller gloves his powers going to be pretty scary.

I'd throw Jerry Quarry in there too. Hardcore scrappy mother ****er.

 

Johnson would be like Quinton Jackson in MMA. Big, unbelievably strong black guy wrestler type.

 

:rofl

 

Dempsey did wrestle, as well as streetfight, and compete in bare knuckle fisticuffs. It's well known how, when he was desperate for money, Jack would go into saloons and announce "I can't sing, and I can't dance, but I can lick any SOB in the house!" If his challenge was accepted, bets would be placed. He rarely lost these barroom brawls. (This is part of his mass appeal; the fact that he could do it in the ring as well as the street.)

Jim Corbett beat the **** out of Joe Choynski in streetfights, before he kayoed him in the ring. (This was before Choynski trashed Jack Johnson in three.) Corbett might be a dark horse candidate. Foreman had superhuman strength. (Considering how easily he shoves around hulking growth substance enhanced bodybuilder types like Holyfield and Morrison with boxing gloves on, what would happen if he was wearing equipment that enabled him to grip his opponent?)

 

That's funny... why?

 

I wanna see that young gorilla like Foreman get his hands on someone in MMA.

 

Whoever they want to be sucessful, it is not real

 

Vince McMahon scripts it my friend, otherwise it would be very boring

 

Tough to say, because we don't know how they would adapt to grappling.

I'd favour the strong, rugged fighters over those who boxed and moved. Guys like Frazier, Marciano, Jeffries, Tyson, maybe Sullivan, maybe Liston...those types of fighters. They have a lower centre of gravity than the tall fighters like Lewis, Ali and Klitschko and that surely could only help defending against takedowns and that sort of thing.
I think they'd make naturally better wrestlers too. I can only assume a Jeffries, Frazier or Marciano would have a more natural aptitude for grappling than an Ali or Holmes, based on strength and more of a willingness to fight in the trenches.

That's my 2c anyway.

 

'88 Tyson.