Hypothetical: Boxing legends all at their peak year

mellon wrote:

Who's Coleman?

Gary?

no

drivel

it's usally accepted the liston fights were fixed

drivel

i remember weeks of build up in 'papers

george was possibly going to kill clay

it was that bad a fight potential for clay

guy was a runt

not even a moron offers frazier nowdays as serious

back in '68/'69, sonny was 3rd ranked contender with clay stripped

the top 2, frazier & ellis, were told by their management to run a 100 miles away if sonny turned up asking for a fight

even ancient age, sonny was too big & strong for frazier's manager to consider taking on, and joe had 1st ranking & just had to face puussy-fisted ellis for wba

total fuucking drivel

norton was 6'3 / 215+

& most perfect physical specimen of heavyweight of '70s

he got short-changed having to fight larry when not interested as he expected clay or spinks for all the gold

larry hammered to a standstill by an uninterested norton, but larry/don got belt

larry ran 100mph away when rematch asked

moron

he fought like archie but left it too late to wreck larry

he coudn't be asked to fight sonny 3rd time unless sonny back as 1st rank

sonny unfortunately dead then

ask sonny's sparing boy back in '69 how tough sonny was :

george foreman

george briefly talking sonny

( i'll have to dig out rob steen's book for more - plenty great stuff )

http://www.boxingscene.com/george-foreman-discusses-friendship-with-sonny-liston--47293

If anyone cares about American heavyweight boxing anymore, at least watch Stiverne vs Wilder.

Wilder winning would be huge for the American heavyweight boxing scene (as he is a human KO-ing machine), and would setup a future showdown between him and Wladimir Klitschko down the line.

May I 2nd that

Sir

I doff my cap

I only wish Deontay had 10 more pounds of muscle in his legs

ventolin^3 wrote:

George Foreman was big and strong but had no skills

drivel

i remember weeks of build up in 'papers

george was possibly going to kill clay

it was that bad a fight potential for clay

Kill him by brute force, not boxing skills.

Your romance of the old day fighters is drivel. Some may look so good because other fighters back then were so weak.Norton at 6'3" is small compared to Klitschko's 6'7".Ali could never just stand there with his gloves in front of his face and let Klitschko punch himself out. Foreman was big but not strong enough. You know this is true.Klitschko only lost twice in his life, both due to injuries and for both he was winning the fight when it was stopped.Klitschko fought late into life and was still champ.Klitschko would neven never never lose to LEON SPINKS! That guy was a light heavy with NO SKILLS!Ali was great for that era but only memory distorted history would lead one to believe he'd be great now. He'd still be very good but not great particularly if either Klitschko were around.

lol lol lol lol wrote:

ventolin^3 wrote:

total fuucking drivel

norton was 6'3 / 215+

& most perfect physical specimen of heavyweight of '70s

The retard Ventolin is back!

The "perfect physical specimen" Ken Norton couldn't take a punch.

Having a glass jaw is, um, a BAD THING in boxing.

http://youtu.be/8Fb0Qidm9Fghttp://youtu.be/gbqsroUJovs

Norton looked in great shape lying down, semi-conscious.

Norton was a tough guy but he had absolutely no boxing skills at all.

Did anyone ever watch this guy fight. It was ridiculous and weird.

George Foreman had maybe one good victory to become champ. His record over quality people was missing. Physically he looked impressive, I'll give him that.

Ali losing once and maybe even twice (by judgments of many) to Frazier is another stain on his record.

But remember LEON SPINKS, the stink of that match knocks him off the greatest list.

All that nonsense did get to me.

When you start saying how great Sonny Liston was you are recreating history. He had One successful defense of his crown. He was a criminal who was ONLY 6' 1/2".

When Ali fought him he was a drug abusing hack who might have even took a dive.

Todays K brothers are huge (6'6 1/2 & 6/ 7 1/2") skilled and athletic. They are NOT the lumbering giants of yesteryear. Watch videos if you doubt. Ali could dance but didn't have knockout power of these guys. Either one would have killed Ali. He might have danced away for the first half of the fight but he didn't dance forever.

Read about the great second Liston fight with Ali which is often claimed to be his ticket to greatness:

Liston trained hard for the rematch, which was scheduled to take place November 13, 1964, in Boston, Massachusetts. Time magazine said Liston had worked himself into the best shape of his career. However, there were again rumors of alcohol abuse in training.[42] The extent to which Liston's heavy drinking and possible drug use may have contributed to his surprisingly poor performances against Ali is not known.[11]

Three days before the fight, Ali needed emergency surgery for a strangulated hernia. The bout would need to be delayed by six months.[43] The new date was set for May 25, 1965. But as it approached, there were fears that the promoters were tied to organized crime and Massachusetts officials, most notably Suffolk County District Attorney Garrett Byrne, began to have second thoughts. Byrne sought an injunction blocking the fight in Boston because Inter-Continental Promotions was promoting the fight without a Massachusetts license. Inter-Continental said local veteran Sam Silverman was the promoter. On May 7, backers of the rematch ended the court battle by pulling the fight out of Boston.[44] The promoters needed a new location quickly, whatever the size, to rescue their closed circuit television commitment around the country. Governor John H. Reed of Maine stepped forward, and within a few hours, the promoters had a new site: Lewiston, Maine, a mill town with a population of about 41,000 located 140 miles (230 km) north of Boston.

The ending of the fight remains one of the most controversial in boxing history. Midway through the first round, Liston threw a left jab and Ali went over it with a fast right, knocking the former champion down. Liston went down on his back. He rolled over, got to his right knee and then fell on his back again. Many in attendance did not see Ali deliver the punch. The fight quickly descended into chaos. Referee Jersey Joe Walcott, a former World Heavyweight Champion himself, had a hard time getting Ali to go to a neutral corner. Ali initially stood over his fallen opponent, gesturing and yelling at him, "Get up and fight, sucker!"

When Walcott got back to Liston and looked at the knockdown timekeeper, Francis McDonough, to pick up the count, Liston had fallen back on the canvas. Walcott never did pick up the count. He said he could not hear McDonough, who did not have a microphone. Also, McDonough did not bang on the canvas or motion a number count with his fingers. McDonough, however, claimed Walcott was looking at the crowd and never at him. After Liston arose, Walcott wiped off his gloves. He then left the fighters to go over to McDonough. "The timekeeper was waving both hands and saying, 'I counted him out—the fight is over,'" Walcott said after the fight. "Nat Fleischer [editor of The Ring] was seating beside McDonough and he was waving his hands, too, saying it was over." Walcott then rushed back to the fighters, who had resumed boxing, and stopped the fight—awarding Ali a first-round knockout victory.[45]

The fight ranks as one of the shortest heavyweight title bouts in history. Many in the small crowd had not even settled in their seats when the fight was stopped. The official time of the stoppage was announced as 1:00 into the first round, which was wrong. Liston went down at 1:44, got up at 1:56, and Walcott stopped the fight at 2:12.

Numerous fans booed and started yelling, "Fix!" Many did not see the punch land and some of those who did see it land, didn't think it was powerful enough to knock Liston out. Skeptics called the knockout blow "the phantom punch." Ali called it "the anchor punch." He said it was taught to him by comedian and film actor Stepin Fetchit, who learned it from Jack Johnson.

There were some, however, who believed the fight was legitimate. World Light Heavyweight Champion José Torres said, "It was a perfect punch." Jim Murray of the Los Angeles Times wrote that it was "no phantom punch." And Tex Maule of Sports Illustrated wrote, "The blow had so much force it lifted Liston's left foot, upon which most of his weight was resting, well off the canvas."

Some found it hard to believe that the punch could have floored a man like Liston. Hall of Fame announcer Don Dunphy said, "Here was a guy who was in prison and the guards use to beat him over the head with clubs and couldn't knock him down." But others contend that he wasn't the same Liston. Dave Anderson of the New York Times said Liston "looked awful" in his last workout before the fight. Liston's handlers secretly paid sparring partner Amos Lincoln an extra $100 to take it easy on him. Arthur Daley of the New York Times wrote that Liston's handlers knew he "didn't have it anymore."[46]

Former champions Jack Dempsey, Joe Louis, Floyd Patterson and Gene Tunney, as well as contender George Chuvalo all stated that they considered the fight to be a fake. Ali biographer Wilfrid Sheed opines in his book, Muhammad Ali: A Portrait in Words and Photographs, that Liston planned to throw the fight by using an actual knockdown as the opportunity to do so. However, Sheed says that the punch that knocked Liston down "may have been genuine, but when referee Joe Walcott blew the count and gave him all evening to get up, Liston's rendition of a coma wouldn't have fooled a possum.”

While Liston publicly denied taking a dive, Sports Illustrated writer Mark Kram said that years later Liston told him, “That guy [Ali] was crazy. I didn’t want anything to do with him. And the Muslims were coming up. Who needed that? So I went down. I wasn’t hit.”[47]

moron

he was as big as clay, busted his jaw & got decision

live on tv

all 3 fights with clay

delayed v larry

ken was too damn big for clay to mess around with

he was as big as george, maybe stronger but got spooked

what are you driveling ?

kenny wouda been huge fighter today

he punched in brutal hard bunches off cross-arm guard

a guard only a guy with immense strength trys

moron

he was hugest specimen as serious contender since valdes 20y before & rocky ran away from valdes

george terrified anyone not called sonny

fool

clay was little more than a hobby-jogger in '71, won rematch in '72 when serious & fighting off fumes in '75 when 1/2-dead from george

fool

get a clue

he fought leon to avoid ken who he knew woud probably kill him in 4th fight

clay got stripped for fighting leon-bum

ventolin^3 wrote:

he was as big as clay, busted his jaw & got decision

You really don't know much about boxing. Ali broke his jaw and won the fight, not Norton!

Norton had such poor defense that he lost to every hard puncher he fought (shavers foreman).

He did well against Ali because Ali was a dancer and didn't punch hard for a heavy weight champ.

Now tell me again who the "moron" is?

(That great era of boxing is more myth that fact - todays boxers would have destroyed them)

All this talk about the heavyweights is great. But some of the best fights I remember watching as a kid were between the lighter guy's.

Halger, Hearns, Duran, Lenoard. Who really was the best out of that 4 ?

I guess they all did some running in there training so it fits into a running forum.

Jack Johnson

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Johnson_

(boxer)#mediaviewer/File:Johnson_jeff.jpg

Jack Johnson would have been a good fight to see against Ali or W. Klitschko

honestly, the thing about Ali is that he found ways to win, different ways, and he lost some as well, but of all the greats Ali is set apart by winning different ways against different styles and over time with resilience

it would be hard to bet against Ali, better to just watch

Ali v. W. Klitschko: I think Ali at his prime would have had better footwork and hand speed and would have made it look like he was winning the fight and outpointed Klitschko, very similar fight to Leonard/Hagler where Leonard wins on points in real time, but when you watch the fight again you realize haggler probably deserved it

Ali's speed would help in during the first half od the fight as long as he ran away from wladmir and snipered jabs from a distance. But Wladmir would knock him out by the end of the match. No problem.

Index wrote:

Jack Johnson

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Johnson_

(boxer)#mediaviewer/File:Johnson_jeff.jpg

Jack Johnson would have been a good fight to see against Ali or W. Klitschko

honestly, the thing about Ali is that he found ways to win, different ways, and he lost some as well, but of all the greats Ali is set apart by winning different ways against different styles and over time with resilience

it would be hard to bet against Ali, better to just watch

Ali v. W. Klitschko: I think Ali at his prime would have had better footwork and hand speed and would have made it look like he was winning the fight and outpointed Klitschko, very similar fight to Leonard/Hagler where Leonard wins on points in real time, but when you watch the fight again you realize haggler probably deserved it

Who in the hell is Coleman? lol

Larry Holmes is very underrated and would have probably beaten any heavyweight in his prime. His jab was very difficult to deal with. He didn't lose a fight until age 36. And even those loses to Spinks were highly questionable.

Tyson is overrated. Not a good fighter when he faced skilled heavyweights who could neutralize his attack. In all of his high profile loses (Douglas, Holyfield twice, Lennox) he was beaten senseless in virtually every round. He wasn't competitive at all in those fights. A great knockout artist, but not a great fighter.

Ali was difficult to hit, but he had a lot of wasted movement. Against Holmes that would not work (and didn't work when Holmes annihilated him, although Ali was way past his prime)

Marciano was actually underrated. He was a brawler, but very smart and skilled and understood how to break down every opponent. He would crouch so low, he was a baseball catcher prior to boxing, and that gave him great leg and ab strength.

Wanna go way back Jack Johnson was a master who could do it all. But he fought in a completely different era. Hard to compare.

I will agree that Holmes was underrated and Tyson overrated. Honestly don't know much about Marciano, at 5' 10" small. Jack Jonson was only 6'. Klitschko has held the heavy weight championship the 2nd longest and no one has defended his championship with more knockouts than Klitschko. He has rarely lost even a single round. No champ has come even close to his record. He is 6' 6 1/2" and very athletic.If he was an American Black, with his winning record, and abilities and size everyone would acknowledge him as the greatest boxer ever. But as a European white guy, Americans aren't impressed that much.

BillyJack wrote:

The Klitschko's were amazing tough skilled boxers who couldn't be touched

Here's Wladimir Klitschko being touched:

I think that a young Tyson would have touched him even more.

Who is Coleman