chris98251 wrote:Obviously you never watched him with Foreman, Ali would have had the reach on Tyson also, he would have jabbed and frusterated him to making a mistake. He would have taunted him as well, Tyson would have lost his composure.
In some arenas athletes have got bigger and stronger, does not mean better, Pro Football and Pro Basketball being examples, Pro football you have position specialists now, not long ago most were four down players. NBA has a few one on one players, not team basketball, most players lacking even the ability to make foul shots above 70 percent or play defense. Baseball has also turned into a specialized sport, Used to be common for a guy to pitch complete games, now you have short relief, long releif, closer, and a clean up guy after the closer throws more then 15 pitches. You have guys real good at specifics of the game, not better at the game in my opinion.
Boxing has lost it's audience as well with newer fighting sports, people want the blood and kick the shit out of you that it brings in every fight, those kind of beating are not the norm in Boxing these days.
Every single fighter Tyson went against had a reach advantage. Sometimes approaching a foot of wingspan. Tyson may not have had any art to his fights, but playing at art would have gotten him killed. His only way to win was get inside a big man's reach and devastate. Ali would present big problems for Tyson, simply because Ali danced around plodders, though Tyson was a lot faster early on than most remember. But Tyson would give Ali problems, out at arms length Tyson simply did not present much target when his hands were up.
We tend to immortalize Ali because he fought in the golden age of heavies, and Tyson is doubted because he had no worthy opponents. Style wise, I think a fight between the two at their peak would have been ugly. Power vs stamina would have had fans yelling at Ali for 5 rounds to stop running away.