Which do you rate higher. Ali's title reign 64 to 67 or tyson s 86 to 90?

Ali beat Liston, so that's enough to put him above.

Tyson's defences were maybe a slightly better crop on average, so it's close.

 

I'm assuming the cut off date is just before Tyson-Douglas.

 

alis, the reason being he doesnt need a "cut-off date" to artificially make his reign look better.

tyson did a title 2 years younger than ali, which needs to be taken into consideration of course, and brings them close. But if we are being honest, if Ali had got his shot a year or two earlier against patterson, he'd have take the title without trouble too.

 

Tyson's run prior to Douglas was pure destruction. He's got just about anyone covered for this sort of time period.

 

This is true. But I've probably wasted 10,000 hours of my life on here explaining why Tyson-Douglas does count, and it's impossible to make progress on that one.

 

yup, tyson, bad longevity. At some point his conceit tore a whole in his skillset.

Now ali was conceited too, very much. But he KNEW he was conceited, and knew it was a timebomb if he let it hurt himself. He was a fullfledged man at a younger age than tyson.

 

Old man Liston taking a dive from a phantom punch in the first round and then getting up and trying to resume fighting when he got tired of waiting for the ref to start counting only for the timekeeper to stop the fight and award Ali the win doesn't rank higher than Tyson taking out old man Holmes the way you should blast out past prime old champions. At least Holmes made the effort before been overwhelmed.

 

Yes champion at the time Liston is so comparable to retired ex champion Larry Holmes

 

I think Liston and Patterson are better than anyone Tyson beat during that time - Holmes could be argued given that he actually did decently after Tyson. I think Tyson looked more dominant till Douglas though. After some thought I think it's closer than it seems at first. But still: Ali.

 

Just gave me an idea for a new thread, which was the bigger accomplisment, a 2-rounds-in-2-years Liston vs a retired, slightly soft Holmes.

 

You talking about Ali's title defenses here but anyway the Holmes that Tyson beat was better than the Liston that Ali defended against. That Liston clearly did not make any effort and took a dive so to say that one farce of a defense ranked higher than all of Tysons 9 defenses is crazy.

 

Listen...Lots of folks say that if Ali never came back after his last fight with Zora Folley on March 22, 1967...that we wouldn't be talking about him...Yes?...No?