Who Would You Bring Back today: Prime Ali or Tyson?

This.

And this. Chambers DID just give Adamek the business. and He couldn't carry the Holmes' that beat Butterbean's spitbucket :deal

 

Props to everyone who chosen Ali!!!

 

Tyson, for pure explosive electrifying entertainment.

Ali was a great man & great boxer no doubt, but too many of his fights were negative spoiling stinkers.

 

Kally, if you're trying to say that in terms of physical attributes, ability, skills and general entertainment that:

Lewis/Tyson/Holyfield/Bowe > Ali/Foreman/Frazier/Liston

Then by all means put your nuts on the table, go forward with doing so and vote accordingly on the other poll. :deal

 

too many of his fights were negative spoiling stinkers

^^
Yes, I guess his Fight of the Century was a little boring, and the Thrilla in Manilla there wasn't even a knockout, and the rope-a-dope wasn't an ingenious tactic but rather a real disappointment to the fans, and I guess the then most feared fighter in the world Sonny Liston quit on his stool because Ali was stinking up the place with his negativity and had nothing to do with the fact that the youngster was putting on a masterclass. He was only involved in a mere handful of fights of the year and I guess he was undisputed heavyweight world champ a record 3 times but the real acid test was that he didn't build his reputation knocking out second-tier fighters in the first round..


I have never heard somebody calling Ali's fights negative spoiling stinkers before and hope I never will again

 

loads of Ali's fights were boring. yeah, he had some great fights and great performances, but lets not try to rewrite history.

i liked sonny, he had a great story that could stir many emotions...but he was slow and plodding. you have to admit he is overrated?

 

A few, in my opinion, a small minority, could be described as boring at a stretch. I guess that's what it is: opinion. I think Ali's style was always absorbing. But they certainly were not negative spoiling stinkers.

I think it is probably easy to say Liston was over-rated with the hindsight of the Ali fights. Liston was like Tyson in many ways, seemingly indestructible at the time Ali fought him. He is regularly rated amongst the top punchers boxing, I probably wouldn't consider him over-rated, he destroyed a decent champ in Floyd Patterson and was beaten by probably the Greatest and fastest HW of them all.

 

Collie,

Why don't you give Tyson credit for cleaning out his division, though? It's incredibly rare that two ATG heavyweights meet in their primes and even get the opportunity. Through his own stupidity or ridiculous accusations and a terrible defense team, Tyson lost his in 1991. As champion, he fought only the highest rated contenders of his era and ran through them either by devastating KO or very wide decisions (acceptable for seemingly anybody else). That's all a Heavyweight can do: There's no divisions to jump or fighters to chase.

 

Both lose to Klitschko.

 

Tyson would be destroyed by the super heavies of today, hell he was destroyed in his prime by a bum.

 

Tyson has to rely on head movement and handspeed to get on the inside and do enough damage without being damaged back. You're talking heavyweights who move much lighter today than they did and have a much more definitive style that takes into account their reach advantages.

Ali has to rely on being the smaller man in the ring, something he wasn't used to and something he struggled with when he came up against good big men like Ken Norton. His jab while fast, isn't really going to make the difference when he's having to jab upwards to reach most of the guys around today and his power/conditioning would just be "average" by todays standards.

Now, if you take the heart of Ali and the discipline and training that Tyson had as a youth under Cus D'Amato and give those aspects to todays fighters, no doubt you have a bigger/better fighter.

I'd love to see the heart, courage and competitive nature (as well as sly dialogue) transplanted from Ali into one of the young fighters today but in pure "Prime vs Prime" - Ali loses to Klitschko, it's an unfair fight, you're asking a guy from 40 years ago to compete against modern fighters who all use modern training, nutrition and agility techniques.

There is a reason every single athletic sport has it's records progressively broken, if you believe that the explosive power generated in athletics doesn't map to boxing, then you're an idiot.

 

I give Tyson credit for being a powerful, exciting force when he emerged and for winning the title convincingly. But I think against a relatively weak champion. That being said he couldn't do anymore, but once he got the belt his premature decline started. I think his lack of dedication and discipline was a weakness in his game and that he (unfortunately) caused his own downfall, so to speak. And I think that any time he did come up against a really good HW (i.e. Holyfield or Lewis, probably the only two in the 90s who could lay claim to some greatness) he came up short. He bit Holyfield's ear off for crying out loud. I think Larry Holmes was 39 (past his peak) and coming off a 2 year break after losing his titles to Spinks when Tyson beat him, so that victory may not have been quite as good as some may think.

And blueray, sorry, not sure what you mean, possibly that's my newbie obtuseness

 

not because of the Ali fight, just overrated full stop. sonny had big power but, he was slow as hell, and didn't really have much in the way of talent. he was raw and powerful, that's it. he did beat some good fighters, i'll give him that, but other than that, no.

patterson was scared stiff of him and lost those fights before the first bell had sounded.

i buy into the tyson story of a scary heavyweight who could walk through walls because he was fast and powerful. he was a beast in his prime. not as great as some try to make out, but still a great fighter.

i love sonny's story, it's one of my favorites, but i don't buy in to all this **** about him being an invincible monster. he wasn't.

 

both beat Ali. vitali beats tyson, but tyson rapes wladimir in no more than 3 rounds.