How Could Ali Have Beaten Wilt?

[Longhaul]

- -Yeah, I know, it's tough being an Ali fan these days when he's no longer jumping around screaming he's the greatest.

None of those you mentioned were ever posed with contract in hand to fight a professional fighter. However, I gave you the example of Babe Ruth who indeed was scheduled to fight Gunboat Smith until the Sox capitulated to his preseason contract demands.

I also gave examples of Jim Brown and Ernie Ladd being floated by the media to fight the preban Ali, but they never made it to contract.

Wilt did thrice though the 2nd and third times he had learned from the first time that the nba was willing to up their contract offer to stop wilt from fighting.

Btw, in the 30s Cub star Hack Wilson was scheduled to fight a White Sox player known as the meanest man in baseball who had been fighting pro in the off season. The commish and owners went full apoplectic to an made pro boxing a ban for life of any player engaging in such.

Get yer ol nanny to read this to you for context, and maybe some day you too can wear big boy britches!!!

yeah I know what you mean my grandma wanted to fight the neighbor over kicking her dog he was younger and much more athletic but her courage came from knowing she had taken on gunboat smith and his younger brother tug after a long night of drinking where she gave as good as she got.To the day she died she claimed Billy Conn backed out of a contract to fight her and instead fought some bum Louis.I heard talk of her making Tony Zale **** his pants one day in Woolworths when she called him out.

[Longhaul]

Mr queen I would love to have you to be able to pick out any of today’s athletes that you keep in your spank bank and have them go three rounds with a seasoned amateur.Better yet have you go into the ring with a novice who’s only learned the basic fundamentals.Who the **** has a nanny are you some spoiled rich boy.Does your nanny spank you when you are bad.

[QueensburyRules]

- -Sonny, I had a longtime sadly unfulfilled offer to fight Popkins.

I know a sissy when I see one though my culture forbid picking on innocent sissies or any other innocent, and most emphatically never grrls!!

Popkins was not innocent, in fact convicted and needing special officiating to bump him down the road in his elder years.

[GhostofDempsey]

Wilt gets knocked the **** out with first hard counter punches.You guys are in fantasy land if you think he could last until the cards.Put him in with that 7” Russian that was the tallest champ ever and he would knock the stilt out

Ali was not a KO artist. Wilt was one of the strongest athletes in the world and in top form. With proper training he could be trained to last the distance, however, I think Ali's muscle-memory, conditioning, and overall advantage in experience make Wilt look like an amateur against a pro, and Wilt spends much of the fight throwing but not landing cleanly. Ali keeping him off balance and winning on the scorecards.

[QueensburyRules]

- -Plenty fair to say Ali would win, but clearly Herbert had serious doubts and the impetus in backing out of the first fight.

Be very interesting what the opening and closing odds woulda been. Alas, boxings mantra is to let no epic fight be fulfilled save by accident.

[billeau2]

I always try to look at precident... I was hoping that Too Tall would tell us something about this possible exchange... But it was not to be. First off Too Tall had boxing experience before the ring. And as Queeny says, he probably had an epiphany realizing that the politics, etc was such, football was the better path to travel.

I think Ghost's idea is the most logical: Wilt would give a good account but lose on the finer technical points of boxing...those points committed to muscle memory. Yet Queenie and Lefty making the point that Wilt was no ordinary Bballer switching sports, should be considered. I would put Bill Russell in this category as well: a very smart man, high IQ, very strong, very athletically able... a guy who would be a quick study for sure.

Some posters have made the point that fighting is not identical to sports...a great point. Boxing has become more and more a sport...Bigger gloves, fewer rounds, fighters doing less things in the ring, etc. Ali is fighting at a time where there is a golden age for the heavyweights, guys are fighters but come in to the ring athletically prime...Guys like, Shavers, Norton, Lyle, Little Hercules (Weaver), Foreman, were athletically built, strong athletes with a lot of resistance to get through...But they were smart fighters also.

Ali and Frazier were a little more "throwback" imo. Both men were much more fighter than athlete. Frazier beat you through attrition and a left hook that could shake the coast! Ali could take a punch laced with dynamite! I think Ali respected Marciano for this reason... Like Marciano Ali was the type of guy that created a high bar and made it personal not to go down from a big punch, to survive the hurt and pain and deliver.

In the final analysis experience is a big factor in these contests. An oarsman with skinny arms can oar a boat a lot better than a man with arms of steel... Wilt would have to be a real quick study and learn to box enough to use his reach.

[Longhaul]

- -Plenty fair to say Ali would win, but clearly Herbert had serious doubts and the impetus in backing out of the first fight.

Be very interesting what the opening and closing odds woulda been. Alas, boxings mantra is to let no epic fight be fulfilled save by accident.

who said this if I had been an oddsmaker I’d have made Ali a 10-1 favorite but I truly believe I had the chance to score a one punch knock out.The stilt himself.Sure doesn’t sound like he was going to use all this athletic skill cus claimed he had let alone follow the game plan you posters laid out for him .You ever want to read something funny about This proposed fight Jim Brown and Arum both spoke of it when Wilt turned white when Ali was screaming at him timber timber at the astrodome conference.

[Longhaul]

And for those of you who claimed Ali had no athletic skill must not of seen this Olympic athlete in his younger years fighting he was never the same after his exile because of the draft.in 1999 ESPN released their list of the top 100athletes in the 20th century Ali was number 3 Wilt was 13.Not my opinion just what ESPN came up with.For the record I was a smoking joe fan not an Ali fan.

[LITTLE JOE]

Wilt was a freak athlete no doubt and unfortunately somewhat forgotten to the younger generation when the all time basketball greats are brought up.However, would have tired out after a few rounds and it would be all over for him. Playing basketball is different than boxing. The stress of doing something different than what your body is used to tires you out quickly.

[BKM-]

Ali was not a KO artist. Wilt was one of the strongest athletes in the world and in top form. With proper training he could be trained to last the distance, however, I think Ali's muscle-memory, conditioning, and overall advantage in experience make Wilt look like an amateur against a pro, and Wilt spends much of the fight throwing but not landing cleanly. Ali keeping him off balance and winning on the scorecards.

I guarantee that Wilt or any of those ball sport athletes, no matter how great a shape they're in, would gas quickly and dramatically in a pro boxing match.

Their muscles aren't used to this kind of vigorous and brutal physicality because it requires a different kind of stamina that they don't have, more importantly the shock and panic from taking punches would set in quickly and they'd get massive adrenaline dumps.

The old saying that Boxing is mostly mental would be more factual in a case like this than ever before.