Best heavyweight ever?

[JaiDee]

(travis bickle @ May 28 2010,16:39) wasn't shoeless Joe Jackson the greatest baseball player ever then?

I'd go with The Babe every time

[f0xxee]

Wally Lewis.

[BlueBallz]

That Cus DAmato bullshit is just that-pure 100% unalduterated media bullshit fables. I know I know some of the people VERY clsoe to that situation. Tell me who was Tysons first real trainer?? Anyone that says (or thought) Kevin Rooney doesnt know dick!

In the boxing biz we call Tyson the classic "front runner" i.e. superman when things are going good but falls apart when faced with adversity. He was/is a bully and ALWAYS had a lot of dog in him. Holyfield beats him EVERY TIME. You know why? Holyfield wasnt intimidated/scared of him. He could take his best shot and come back firing. When you do that to a bully they fall apart and want to be your best friend.

Tyson a GREAT fighter = MYTH!!! Ali would have beaten him every time as well. He could take a punch and was much too strong mentally for Tyson.

[JaiDee]

(BlueBallz @ May 28 2010,20:25) Tyson a GREAT fighter = MYTH!!!  Ali would have beaten him every time as well.  

with you one million percent, BB  ......  Ali would have toyed with that idiot and had him running in circles for a few rounds before he floored him with a quick combo to the head.  And there would've been no re-match, Tyson would never get in the ring with someone that good again; remember, when he was fighting there was NO ONE out there for competition.

  he was a bully from the rough part of town who had some size and no brains and could take a punch, and learned how to box a little bit .....yawwwwwnnnnn, there are thousands just like him growing up in the mean streets of cities all over the world.....he put in his time beating up on weaklings and getting gaudy numbers but when it came time to face real people like Holyfield and even Buster freaking Douglas  fer Crissakes he folded like a house of cards.

 Biting Holyfields ear off was the same as Roberto Duran saying "no mas, no mas'' .........a pussies way out of a fight; getting beat up by a stronger bully than you and crying to the ref or biting someone's body parts just to have the fight ended because he was too scared to go on and had no clue how to beat him.

[Lefty]

IMO, a heavyweight who may have been the most physically gifted was Sonny Liston. He was only 6' tall, but had an 84" reach and 15" fists. The largest ever until recent 7' tall heavyweight Nikolai Valuev. Liston had one of the most powerful left jabs ever and some believed he was actually left handed but used an orthodox stance. He was not well managed or well trained from a lot of what I have read. Had he been in his best condition there is a good chance Cassius Clay would not have beaten him the first time. The 2nd time they fought, Liston received death threats prior to the fight from black muslims and being a fairly simple son of sharecroppers, believed them, and hence we had the infamous phantom punch fight, with Liston taking a dive in the 1st round. Had Liston been properly managed and trained so as to be in optimum condition, history could have been a lot different.

My favorite boxer of all time though was the colorful light-heavyweight Ray "Windmill" White, the fighting carpenter from Ventura, California.

[manarak]

Best heavyweight ever?

ummm.... Riga?

[Lefty]

(JaiDee @ May 28 2010,16:48)

(travis bickle @ May 28 2010,16:39) wasn't shoeless Joe Jackson the greatest baseball player ever then?

I'd go with The Babe every time

No less an authority than Ty Cobb said that the best natural hitter he ever saw was Shoeless Joe Jackson. Cobb was very self centered and not one to offer praise toward other players just for the heck of it.

[PigDogg]

(JaiDee @ May 28 2010,01:48) I'd go with The Babe every time

Because he was also a great pitcher.

I'm not a big boxing fan but wasn't Rocky Balboa the best?

[seamus]

To be honest I would have liked to have said James J Braddock

[BlueBallz]

Sonny Liston was Tyson BEFORE Tyson. He was managed by the mob as a lot of fighters were back then. The first fight was on the level. Many thought Ali would get clobbered. He was too athletic for Liston. He frustrated him and evetually began to hit him quite hard. He made Liston quit on his stool.

As for Tyson biting Holyfields ear off in the second fight, someone very astute, in the biz, and a family friend PREDICTED Tyson would get DQ ed. It was also his first trainer. Tyson is a thug and a mutt. Good fighter in his day but a typical BULLY. You know when Lennox Lewis eventually pounded him I actually got aroused. I have to say that Aluminum Mike took his beating like a man that night in Memphis!!!

[JaiDee]

Swaying off the original topic a bit here,  but Ted Williams has to enter into this discussion now when talking great hitters; he hit .406 in 1941, the last player to ever top .400..... but the best part was that he had the .400 secured even before game time and he STILL told his manager to play him when he could have just sat and had the record.....he went 6-8 in a freaking doubleheader {!}and upped his average by 6 points!!


How many major leaguers would do that these days? 9 out of 10 would take a seat for the day and land the trophy  

     He and Joe Dimaggio, another great hitter and certainly just as good as Ted, both lost some prime years as well when they volunteered to go off and fight in WW2; Ted was only in his 4th season when he left and again, how many of today's players would do that??  {Pat Tillman, RIP}

 Shoeless Joe was a career .356 hitter, certainly one of the greats as well.  Ty Cobb is the best ever in terms of percentages at .367.  


      On the mini-series "Baseball'' by Ken Burns, they interviewed Billy Crystal {often} and one story he told was that he met Ted Williams years after he had retired at some function. Crystal told him he had seen him play as a young boy at Yankee Stadium, and that Ted had struck out looking at a pitch from Whitey Ford.  He thought about it for a moment and told Crystal; "that pitch was high and outside''.  


*Little -known fact; Williams homered on the last at-bat of his career.....to this day the seat it landed on is painted bright blue against all the other red seats in right field at Fenway Park.

[JaiDee]

(seamus @ May 29 2010,01:21) To be honest I would have liked to have said James J Braddock  

I agree man, Colonel Braddock was a tough dude!!

[JaiDee]

(BlueBallz @ May 29 2010,01:22) Sonny Liston .....
 The first fight ...........Ali

STILL the only relevant thing to have ever happened in Lewiston, Maine......a real craphole of a mill city just a stone's throw [a small stone] from the New Hampshire border.

BB, the boxing expert around here......why the hell was that fight held in freaking MAINE??

[kahuna]

Float like a butterfly and sting like a bee...Ali...Ali...Ali...Best heavyweight boxer ever...

The Say Hey Kid himself...Willie Mays...Best all around BB player ever...

[thaibound]

(deepthroat @ May 27 2010,23:32) you don't think Wilt C deserves consideration as the greatest bball player of all time?

wilt in his prime vs shaq in his prime, one on one -- who wins? that guy starts for me.
put either of them, one on one, against MJ and they'd never manage to dribble the ball close enough to the basket to make a shot. MJ's the guy i'd build my franchise around.
make bill russell your power forward and let timmy (or karl, up to you) ride the bench, because no how, no way do you put an all-time team together and *not* have russell starting.
what if dr. j had played his entire career in the nba....
what if they kept track of blocked shots while russell was playing...
what if wilt had spent as much time on free throws as he did on free pussy...
best point guard? if i'm playing against the lakers this year, i'll take steve nash. but all-time...?
do you believe in magic?