Would Prime Bo Jackson be a good boxer?(Foreman’s power + Tyson’s explosiveness)

This question was proposed previously about major boxing fan Jim Brown. Charlie Powell was a phenomenal all around athlete with a good boxing record, and in a televised March 1959 bout, he halted number two ranked HW Nino Valdes in eight, but before the year was out, he was crushed in a matter of seconds by the deadly punching Mike DeJohn, also on television (and that disaster at DeJohn's hands has frequently been on YouTube, a bout I've posted here multiple times).

It's simply not known if Bo Jackson had the reflexes, punch resistance (including against cuts and swelling), but Charlie Powell is widely regarded as the Bo Jackson of boxing.

 

Impossible to tell for me. Would he have had some aspects helpful to a good boxer? Yes. He also appeared a bit dense to be a boxer, would have liked to see him learn to wrestle and do MMA, though.

When superathletes from other sports have a go at boxing it generally pans out poorly. Canseco was a freak athlete and boxed like a total wimp.

 

Yes, and Bo Jackson's naturally muscular and then further cultivated weight trained development might've both severely hindered his punching power, slowed him up, and his stamina was never tested for the most aerobically demanding of all contact sports.

Deontay Wilder probably could've played professional basketball in the NBA, and RJJ actually did play basketball for pay on the same day he won a match.

No question that if you're looking for an athlete from a team sport to succeed in boxing, then the aerobic demands and exceptional reflexes required for basketball, a sport where players run for 45 minutes on a nightly competitive basis, might be the most suitable athletic background. For his height, his weight is common for a basketball player.

Boston Celtics legend Larry Bird was by far the NBA's best conditioned player of the 1980's, and at 6'9" he weighed 220. He was recognized as an extremely tough kid, and if you met him during his career, you'd instantly know he wasn't someone you wanted to mess around with. He did get into fist fights on the court, and could take bare knuckle punches as well as dish them out. (If you ever saw him play live, he'd take ten steps to everybody else's one, always running around while everybody else was jockeying for position.)

Upon Bird's decline, the hardest tall trainer in boxing was probably the 6'7" 210 pound Dennis Rodman, a legendary rebounder who always slammed the door completely on Shaq until the Worm's own physical decline. Rodman's workouts and hard charging practices pushed his teammates to consistently apply themselves much harder than they otherwise might have. A tremendous physical specimen, he became the NBA's first player to win multiple championships with two different teams. He prevented other ATG's from ever winning it all, like Charles Barkley, Karl Malone, Patrick Ewing and John Stockton.

 

That’s that fellas name, always want to point him out to those asking the NBA or NFL athletes chances based on pure athleticism. Ali was very unauthentic (by football standards, sprints, strength etc) and yet?

 

Holmes played football in middle school, and wrestled pretty well, too. Ross Puritty was also a footballer before his pro career (from what I remember).

 

Jordan was said to be the greatest athletic sportsman ever because of how great he played basketball yet he totally sucked when he tried to make it as a baseball player

 

There was a Heavyweight by the name of Henry Milligan who fought in the 80s/90s who was supposedly a great athlete who excelled at multiple sports at one of the Ivy League schools. According to Wiki, he never trained for boxing prior to graduating college, but still managed to have at least some success in the sport, beating guys like Orlin Norris, Michael Bentt, and Henry Tillman in the amateur ranks. Seen very little of him in action, but I doubt he was as fast or strong as Jackson, who was an absolute freak.

No telling exactly how far Jackson would have made it in boxing, but I'm pretty sure he would have had some success. Just to take a wild guess...maybe something similar to Seth Mitchell.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Milligan

https://boxrec.com/wiki/index.php/Henry_Milligan

 

Bo is possibly the greatest pure athlete of the past hundred years and more.
And if he STARTED boxing at seven-eight years old and trained until his ultimate best by his twenties. Yes its very possible with his extreme genetic physicality, he'd probably would be an ATG.
But, boxing is so much different than other sports.
That's why Joe Frazier did so terribly in that " Greatest athletes contests from the 70's ( Please some of the old timers, remind me what the show was called, can't remember the name to save my life at this moment)
Frazier was horrible against other professionals athletes whose sport they participated in was more in line with the nature of the show ( weight lifting, running, swimming, etc)
But how many of those athletes would actually survive a couple rounds against Joe Frazier? Even that diminished version of himself?
Bo even with his extreme physicality wouldn't be a match against prime Mike Tyson if he started late.
Running fast , bench pressing a mountain, breaking Louville sluggers like match sticks wouldn't help him at all against Mike Tyson in a boxing ring.

 

A fighters greatest attribute is between his ears, you can have all the athletic ability in the world and still get your head kicked in.

 

You're trying to think of the inaugural Superstars Competition from 1973, where Frazier nearly drowned in the 50 meter heat, and got upset by pole vaulter Bob Seagren in weightlifting. But in the second UK version of Superstars for 1974, John Conteh became the first overall winner from boxing, whose size and physique very closely approximated Olympic Decathlon competitors, and when it was revived in 2012, Anthony Joshua finally duplicated Conteh's feat. Joe Bugner finished third overall in 1973, as did Davey Boy Green in 1977. (Interestingly, in the 1980 UK competition, Daley Thompson only finished third.)

Subsequent boxers who competed in the American version after Frazier included Jerry Quarry, Ken Norton (a tremendous overall athlete who had some success in it, and finished a distant last place in the half mile run), Earnie Shavers (like Norton, an excellent overall athlete), Vito Antuofermo (who was simply too small to be competitive), Floyd Patterson (a terrific physical specimen who hadn't competed since Ali II, but was still training for expected future bouts) and Ingo (wearing a tee shirt to cover his gut, but not surprisingly crushed Patterson and everybody else in the rowing event).

After Frazier, boxers (and those from other sports) were much better prepared for what they'd be dealing with.

 

No.

Boxing athleticism is unique. Usain Bolt could run a 100 meters in 9.58 seconds but could he move as quickly in the ring as Muhammad Ali? Not a chance. The movement type is completely different. Boxing footwork requires a completely different type of coordination. So a sprinter can't necessarily move with the speed of an Ali or Tyson.

Let's use Bolt again as an example. Bolt played cricket growing up which is somewhat similar to baseball. The fastest delivery (baseball equivalent of a baseball pitch) was about 100 miles per hour. Yet when Bolt has played cricket as an adult, he was bowling (pitching) around 75-80 miles an hour. Even if he dedicated his life to cricket, i doubt Bolt could bowl a 100 miles per hour like Brett Lee.

Boxing athleticism is unique. No other sport has the equivalent of boxing's handspeed (except MMA). No other non combat sport has the equivalent of punching power. Earnie Shavers wasn't a great athlete but he was a monstrous puncher.

I doubt Bo Jackson could be a great or even a good boxer.

 

Thank you.
I saw the show when I was a pre teen. Couldn't
remember the name to save my own life.

 

It wouldn't matter if he could bench press 1000 with a 100 inch vertical and a 3 second 40 yard dash. Unless he could take a punch and had the heart to keep going when hurt, he wouldn't make it as a fighter.

 

He was a freakish athlete, but it’s hard to say.

Who knows if he had the nuances and could pick up the skills to be a good pro boxer?