A lot of posters always post as if champs were always destined to be champs, their greatness unavoidable, like Ali was born with his face on boxing's Mount Rushmore. But the Wlad Williamson thread got me thinking about how ATG's career's could have been completely derailed. Wlad: If the fight had continued, losing was a definite possibility. He was trying to get his confidence back as well as position himself for another title fight. His brother had already recommended retirement. If he'd lost that fight, I think he may very well have retired, and either way I don't think he ever would have gone on to become an ATG Vitali: While I would lean toward picking VK against Lewis in a rematch, I could easily see Lewis winning a rematch. Substitute a second defeat by Lewis for his win over Sanders, and then throw in his injury problems and political interests, and VK may never see the point in continuing his boxing career and basically goes down as his era's Tim Witherspoon. Lennox Lewis: Loses the close decision in the Mercer fight. Loses his positioning for a title bout, titles are collected by Holyfield or Tyson, who avoid him until they retire. Lewis maybe picks up a belt a few years later but never fights Holyfield or Tyson and isn't highly regarded. Tyson: The fight against Tony Tucker was closer than people gave credit for. Tucker claims he could barely use his right from having broken it, and that he would have otherwise ko'd Tyson. He did rarely use his right in the fight. I could see him beating Tyson, which would have given him unified belts, and stopped Tyson right as he was starting to become huge. Tyson goes down to be remembered more like David Tua than Mike Tyson. Holmes: Barely got the decision against Norton to get his first belt. He loses that, and even if he gets a belt later on, he'd have been lesser regarded and unlikely to duplicate his long string of victories, considering his numerous close calls (Witherspoon and Williams for scoring, Shavers for near knockout). Becomes just one of the better boxers out of a bunch of 80's alphabet belt holders. Ali: You name it. Fight is waived off in first Cooper fight, which is probably what would happen in the modern era, and he doesn't get to fight Liston at least for a while. I'm inclined to think Ali would have become champ anyway, but his marquee is diminished from the loss. Then on to his second reign. Norton gets the decision in their second bout, which many think he deserved, which stops Ali from getting a title bout with Foreman. Maybe Ali retires or picks up a belt less dramatically later, say from Jimmy Young who beats Foreman. Ali goes down as his generations Floyd Patterson. Louis and Marciano: Tons of would be contenders went into the armed services for WWII or pre WWII instead of boxing. Those era's are often considered weakened for that reason, maybe one of them beats Louis much earlier or derails Marciano entirely. These are the ones that come most to mind, there are a bunch of different possibilities, but its interesting to think how the ATG's we think of as inevitable could very easily have had a different fate. And the Tony Tucker's or Ken Norton's of the world could have been their era's Tyson's or Ali's.
