Who had the greater influence on young athletes coming up, Michael Jordan or Muhammad Ali?

Weak defences? On the contrary, Ant!
At their times defensive players were very very rough because the rules of the game allowed that. Maradona was hit very hard to a leg when he was at Barvellona suffering a terrific injury. Today if a player falls down or is dropped the referee immediately whistles to stop the game. Rules are changed

 

I’m gonna say Jordan only because there were so many conservative people who didn’t like Ali ...he received death threats ....but it’s really close . I know grown ass men who are named after Muhammad Ali ( several)

 

Did you ever see Pele in the 1966 World Cup Mark?
It was obviously much easier then.

 

Jordan was not even the most influential basketball player. Bird & Magic took a dying sport and make it absolutely huge. Jordan inherited it from them. Basketball has declined in popularity since then.

 

There is probably no way to tell.

 

Lance Armstrong for cycling.

 

I don’t think there’s any comparison.
There are countries in the world where Basketball doesn’t mean a thing including the UK.
Ali was probably the most famous person in the world at the height of his powers.

 

For better or worse, Ali transcended boxing or sports. Jordan, not really.

 

What a bizarre list really.

Only people porn post-1980 think Tyson is one of the two greatest boxers or most influential boxers.

Neither Montana nor Walter Payton are considered generally as the greatest at their position nor influential.

The same goes for Jolting Joe.

The same goes for Borg and McEnroe.

And I mean these guys can't pass the muster regardless of whether your criterion is 1) the greatest at their sport (or even position) or 2) influential as pioneer figures within sport or outside of the sport.

 

Defenders were worse back then. Some call them rough, more appropriate would be "clumsy". Replace Maradona with Messi and he would look even better.

My top h2h would look like this:

#1 Ronaldinho (2003-2006) "There was a period in Ronaldinho's time at Barcelona where he was almost unplayable" - David Beckham
#2 Messi
#3 C. Ronaldo
.....
#X Maradona
#X Pelé

 

Ali

 

In terms of their impact on their respective sports, there’s really no comparison. Jordan helped basketball grow into a truly global sport. The sport and the NBA became massively more popular and successful because of him.

 

The game might have not been played at the pace of now but defenders were far better at actual defending back then.
Today they’re all “footballers” but most of them can’t actually defend.
There is not a defender around now apart from probably Van Dijk who is remotely of the ability of Bobby Moore.

 

Neither one had any influence whatsoever in my life