You see that even people who are good street fighters routinely get their ass handed to them when put up vs a top tier pro. And I'd say street fighting is much closer to boxing than basketball. Look at how Kimbo Slice fared. Or how Joe Savage fared against a washed up Bert Cooper.
I think people may not be asking the right question. Similiar to Cus Amato thinking he can train Wilt to beat Ali. Given let's say 6 months, if Wilt would train with a top trainer could Wilt beat Ali? What style would you have Wilt fight Ali? Personally if I believe if he had half the talent (probably wouldn't take much to get better than Wilder) of a pro boxer with his physical gifts he would be a force to be reckoned with. Although he would never have Ali's talent no matter how long, Ali would never have Wilt's physical gifts. I could see Wilt using Wladimar's stance with his torso havinig of his left side more angled to the front, and his boring style keeping his left arm out long keeping his opponent far, (any kind of force on his jab or hook would be murder with his stregth) would be a good approach for him. I can see someone getting within his arm's reach, but also training Wilt to use his ridiculous physical strength to push someone away if they in. Similar to how Wladimar neutralizes his his opponents when they get in on him.
The one factor we don't know is Wilt's natural boxing ability or if he possessed any sort of boxing talent. Would he have 2 left feet or would he take to boxing naturally (I have a feeling the latter). Obviously the fight would be on the assumption of the very least that he looked good throwing punches or some kind of indicator he could be good. If he had Shaq's boxing ability then he should never go in the ring. I just saw the De LeHoya/Shaq fight first time, Shaq looked horrible but I am not surprised I once say him throw a punch at a player in a game and missed while that player had his head turned away. On a curveball of this thread put Ali's brain in Chamberlain's body and the domination would be unbelievable. On ring IQ I put Ali top tier. On choosing a physically gifted body individual's body regardless of boxing ability that would be Wilt.
Someone who's never boxed, never learnt the punches, never learnt how to protect himself, never learnt anything about boxing. Yes get in against the best Heavyweight of his day. What could go wrong? RJJ was a boxing master with those athletic advantages. He made very few errors. You're comparing him to a novice who wouldn't know what the **** he was doing. He'd be very easy to hit, wouldn't know how to punch and wouldn't know how to pace himself.
Taking punches to the face is both an innate capacity and a learned ability. Dudes walking in off the street generally do not have the former and certainly do not yet have the latter. Those who punch and get punched for a living have both, no matter how chinny some internet posters may label them.
yes it is, I've seen some trainers who wouldn't bother to teach anything until they saw the guy get into the ring and they could see him get hit and then find out if he would come back the next day. Getting hit in the ring is different than getting hit in other sports. A football player gets hit extremely hard sometimes, but usually it's one big hit. In the ring a guy might get hit 30 times in a round by a jab that he can't stop. It's a mixture of pain, frustration, and fatigue.
This is probably true. Can't speak for Wilt, but a lot of athletes in team sports are contractually forbidden to take part in activities where they'd be at the risk of sustaining a serious injury, like skiing, motor racing, hang gliding etc. I'm sure boxing would come under that too. Imagine if Cristiano Ronaldo declared that he was going to challenge Tyson Fury. As if Juventus would allow their highly paid star asset to get beaten up by the frickin' heavyweight champion of the world.
