Muhammad Ali in another 1960's sport (football, baseball, basketball)

Wilma Rudolph dusted him in a race at the Olympics.

 

I could see him excelling in darts. Although, he would have his work cut out for him if he went up against Ricky Hatton. But not to worry if a fight broke out because Hatton's mom would knock out the patrons from time to time when they got out of line.

 

I'm not sure there's such thing as generalized athletic ability that's fungible from one sport to another. For instance in high school I did very well on fitness tests but was ****ing terrible at most actual sports. (When we did racket ball for week I was so bad I skipped class so I wouldn't embarrass myself in front of the hot girls, but when we did fencing I was so much better at it than everyone else I got the nickname "Zoro" for a little while.) You've heard of gym fighters? I was a gym athlete.

I remember reading in article about this very subject (how various elite boxers might have done in other sports) in one of my boxing magazines as a kid, and it quoted some football coach as expressing an opinion that Ali would have been an excellent wide receiver.

I also ran across this a few months ago from Wikipedia:

"Norton was an outstanding athlete at Jacksonville High School. He was selected to the all-state team football team on defense as a senior in 1960. ... As a result, the "Ken Norton Rule", which limits participation of an athlete to a maximum of four track and field events, was instituted in Illinois high school sports."

 

http://www.thesuperstars.org/

It's not quite exhaustive, but there are years of results from Superstars at the above link, including a lot of famous boxers.

The two overriding conclusions:

• Boxers generally suck at multi-event competitions
• There is little obvious correlation between the perceived athleticism of a boxer based on their ability in the ring, as compared with their actual performances in other sports/events

Some notably quick boxers were actually pretty mediocre in a straight sprint - Howard Davis and Ray Leonard failed to even break 12secs in the 100y dash. Meanwhile, Earnie Shavers won his 100y in a pretty impressive 10.6. Tommy Hearns was pretty quick; Mark Breland was not. Marvis Frazier actually performed a lot better overall than his old man did years earlier.

I don't know whether Ali could have been successful in other sports. I suspect though if he had overwhelming talent in other areas it would have manifested itself at some point in some way (even if just urban legend). He way well have been focused on boxing, but he must have at least tried other sports at some time and had the opportunity to show something.

 

I heard something about that years ago as well. But I think he was in love with her or something, so even though he still may have lost, maybe he held back a little.

 

I remember reading Hauser, either in his Ali book or later in an interview, talking about his surprising lack of footspeed.

 

If professional wrestling counts as a sport, he'd have been great.

 

Ali didn't look good bouncing a basketball. Most fighters aren't good at multiple sports players at the high school level. Did Ali even get a varsity letter?

These days, we do see many x football players not good enough to play professional give boxing try.

 

You mean he was great at grabbing and clinching whenever an opponent got near?

 

I don´t know about curling, but he should have excelled at badminton and ping-pong due to his reflexes and speed.

"He was so fast, he´d parry his own serves!"