I Feel Fine wrote: The greatness of Ali's opposition in his 60s title reign is after all concentrated most especially in Liston I, Patterson and to a lesser extent Terrell, which means that this format is more favorable to Tyson whose title reign is a bit more balanced. Ali has three great slots (though one of these is an automatic loss since we agree that Liston II was a dive), one above average slot, three average slots, three subpar slots. Tyson has basically ten average slots. This benefits Tyson head to head, despite the fact that their list of opponents balances out and is all together about even, and it especially benefits Mike when with a great deal of bias it is presumed that Ali's average opponents will mostly lose close fights, based on little more than a gut feeling... or when it is presumed that the Liston of the first fight quits against Berbick for no reason, as though Berbick would be the frustrating opponent that Clay was... and this of course is all forgetting that Tyson was a paper belt holder for at least some of that time, not a legitimate champion, and this is, again, forgetting that he fought Douglas. Talk about lack of context.
What was I thinking when I started this thread?
- Proper question would be what were your parents drinking when they made you up. Should be patented, distilled, and airdropped enmasse into enemy states rendering them toothless and incompetent within a generation.
Ali was not considered an all time great by the close of the 60s by most credible lists, Fleischer's being most prominent. Tyson was considered an all time great by many at the close of the 80s, often cited as the best ever in a sort of default acquiescence to the brilliance of his shooting star. The difference is that Ali had a stench of several fights of dubious character and results, whereas Tyson's were all blow outs without question.
Holmes near the same age as Liston was for Ali with much more acclaim and fanfare in spite of having his perfect record mullered by Spinks. Spinks himself a vastly better champion than the weak Patterson, God bless him. Floyd wrapped in cotton wool for his title run with the worst balance of any heavy champ in history and the weakest chin of any champ not named Leon on top of being cursed with a back needing traction in a hospital bed.
Terrell was the only truly credible prime contender that Ali beat, but one could easily argue that Tucker, Thomas, Biggs were bigger, stronger, more dangerous opponents than the skinny Terrell, nicknamed the Octopus because his fighting style was so limited.
This notion that Ali "cleaned out the 60s" simply doesn't wash since all you have to do is look at the prime contender types that Frazier was fighting then in conjunction with the 60s elimination tourney names.
That Ali makes a greater comeback from personal out of ring setbacks to stake his claim in the pantheon is without question and a separate thread. The purpose of this thread header was to compare and contrast what many consider to be the finest examples of prime heavyweights in history. Prime being a narrow window of time by definition.
No different from running a Dempsey/Louis or Louis/Rocky comparison natural era peers or comparing Jeffries title comp to Johnson's as another natural era comparison. Modern comparison would be to match Lewis against the Klitschkos since they have the overlap of a new era of heavyweight dreadnaughts that has seemingly changed the division forever.
Oh really now, is this some of the "homework" you mentioned above? Exactly how insane are you?
Miserable fail.
