How do you see the Ali-Wilt Chamberlain fight going?

Wilt would've had a chance if he had a background in boxing, but you can't just learn in a year and be as far progressed as someone like Ali. Especially not that Ali.

 

Come on man, Muhammad Ali if he didn’t play around would break his nose in about 10 seconds and Wilt would probably wonder what he was doing there, he ain’t touching him ain’t a handful he’s target practice.
Against Patterson? Patty would rip his head off with a hook people don’t realise how much of a different species those guys are, Wilt can run fast, jump high and dunk but he’d get sent to the morgue in the ring.
Get Wilt at 12 with his ethic towards basketball and direct it at boxing you’d have yourself a helluva a fighter if he had the heart.

 

In a real boxing match Wilt would’ve got the tar beaten out of him and I say this as a huge fan of Wilt’s.

Wilt knew better than to get in the ring with Ali.

 

Punchstat would given Wilt 30 points, 23 rebounds and 4 assists.

That wouldn’t be enough over 15 rounds.

 

Ali would have toyed with him.

 

Being able to do 200 fingertip pushups won’t help anyone fighting Ali or Patterson or even Leon Spinks. First solid blow, which Wilt won’t have the ability to roll with, causes him to cower and the fights over soon later.

 

It would look the opposite of Ali playing a one on one basketball against Wilt. Ali would Ko him within 3

 

As Ali said when the fight was initially conceived.
Timberrrrrr!!!!! After he ko'ed Chamberlin.
Ali would be able to predict the minute he stopped him.
Not just the round.

 

What about vs Patterson?

 

In a time machine, the 6'8 Lebron James goes back to 1958 to challenge Sonny Liston. He threatens to "beat the tar out of the midget Liston".

 

Still a pro fighter vs a pro basketball player.
In a boxing ring, Chamberlin wouldn't last
against many second /third rate pro heavyweights and
much less against a world class pugilists like Patterson.
Chamberlin's ego would've gotten himself embarrassed.....
So many pro athletes from different sports especially 30-40 yrs
ago thought just because the were great in Football /Basketball
etc they could get in a boxing ring and do well because of their
athleticism.
Damn near everyone one of them failed misarably .....

 

Lol. Lebron babies and whines about the contact he get's in todays N.B.A
(Imagine him playing during the Detriot Pistons "Bad Boys" era with his mentality now)
Leborn unlike Chamberlin is a smart man, and wouldn't dream of getting close to a boxing ring
against any pro boxer over two hundred pounds.
Sonny Liston meanwhile is laughing in the grave.....

 

Not if Ali didn't want him to. Ali could've taken Wilt out at any time, which is no shame on Wilt. That said Ali just for the sake of putting on a show I don't see him stopping Wilt in one round, but instead embarrassing Wilt for several rounds before knocking him out.

What started out as a friendly exhibition turned into something else, since Cus and Jack Hurley managed to convince Wilt that with several months of training he could beat Ali in a serious match. At first Ali thought Wilt was joking, but when Wilt said he was serious Ali was offended and started treating the match differently and the people close to Wilt quickly convinced Wilt not to go through with the match. Even Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, who wasn't on good terms with Wilt advised Wilt not to fight Ali.

Here is a piece with Wilt giving his take on the match with Ali falling through.

Wilt Chamberlain wasn't kidding when he said he had a contract to fight Muhammad Ali in an Exhibition at the Houston Astrodome if Ali had beaten Joe Frazier.

Prior to his title match with the challenger disclosed in a telephone interview with this reporter.

"I'll beat Frazier and then they can bring on Wilt Chamberlain."

The 7-foot-1, 275-pound center of the Los Angeles Lakers probably would have made quite a gate attraction against Ali.

"It's unfortunate - or maybe fortunate - for me that Ali didn't beat Frazier and the fight fell through," said Chamberlain.

"I have been thinking about boxing for a long time. I definitely had aspirations for boxing."

Granted, Wilt is an excellent athlete: narrow in the hips, broad in the shoulders, muscular in the legs and, as everyone who has played basketball against him will attest, very hard in the elbows.

"If he took up bowling he could be a bowling champion," says his friends. "He could be an Olympic high jumper. If he went into boxing he could have become the heavyweight champion."

But as a 34-year-old-fighter, with no boxing experience, Wilt Chamberlain now merely would be the world's biggest punching bag.

Presently every muscular amateur with a slow metabolism who weighs over 200 pounds and once laced on the boxing gloves sees himself in the ring battling for the heavyweight title.

He can picture himself standing nonchalantly in a neutral corner while the promoter jumps up from the ringside seat and tolls out a million dollars in ones.

During the Golden Gloves tournaments from coast to coast there was a rush of heavyweights unmatched for noise and incompetence since Joe Louis toured the country knocking out people with on hand and with the other awarding them lifetime memberships in the Bum of the Month Club.

But Wilt Chamberlain fighting Muhammad Ali?

Anyway, at 7-1, Wilt insists he fears no man.

"If you never got hit, you don't know what there is to be afraid of," he says.

"I don't know what fear is. I got my nose bloodied a couple of times playing basketball. It hurt. But it was momentary."

Wilt admits he never put the gloves on against anybody who tried to hurt him and he never tried to hurt anybody himself.

He is unlikely to beat up opponents on a basketball court because he has decked a couple of guys and the word is to be nice, don't fight with Wilt.

"Some people think I'm a pacifist and wouldn't hurt a butterfly," he says.

"I guess it's true. I really don't think I could go out and beat a guy bloody."

There are those who would pay to see things happen the other way around. Wilt Chamberlain is not the most popular athlete.

The big man in basketball is paid to win championships, and Wilt hasn't won too many.

That's why at one time he honestly wanted to turn from basketball to boxing.

He has never had as much adulation as he would prefer in his sport. That was largely because of the overwhelming talents of Bill Russell.

But this season Wilt came back with determination from last year's knee operation and averaged 20.7 points per game while playing the full 82-game schedule.

Wilt also led the league in rebounds with 1,493. Now he is rarin' to go against the Chicago Bulls in tonight's opening round of the National Basketball Association playoffs.

In the ring, Wilt may lack everything. On the court he is deficient in only one department - free throws.

Unattended and less than 12 feet from the basket, L.A.'s notable high rise project is about as accurate as a curve ball in a wind storm.

In one two-game stretch, Wilt missed 24 foul shots.

Some players and coaches maintain that he might be too relaxed when he arrives at the line.

"Maybe if he jumped instead of standing still when he tried a free throw it would help," a sideline coach observes.

But if he jumped too high, wouldn't there be as risk of Wilt going right through the roof of the arena?

Not even a punch from Muhammad Ali could bring such devastation.
https://imgur.com/VXOskRk