Who is THE NAME in boxing?

[Jip]

When you say basketball, everybody thinks of jordan. When you say golf, everybody thinks of tiger woods. When you say swimming, everybody thinks of phelps. In football it is harder, messi, maradona, pele?

Who is THE NAME in boxing? Some might say Mike Tyson, cause in his prime he was themost entertaining boxer to wat h ever, more than ali, more than pacquiao.
Muhammad Ali. SRR?

[SaadOffTheDeck]

Now it's Mayweather. Was Ali. Biggest ever was probably Dempsey.

[KiwiRider]

Now it's Mayweather. Was Ali. Biggest ever was probably Dempsey.

Yea Jack was the man. Ali excelled in self promotion and took over from Dempsey.
Rocky is hyped by the movies and legend after his career ended.

If you asked who is it right now, it would grudgingly be Moneyweather and when he is gone again I would say Joshua unless he loses.

[watsupdoc87]

Now it's Mayweather. Was Ali. Biggest ever was probably Dempsey.

Yea Jack was the man. Ali excelled in self promotion and took over from Dempsey.
Rocky is hyped by the movies and legend after his career ended.

If you asked who is it right now, it would grudgingly be Moneyweather and when he is gone again I would say Joshua unless he loses.

Rocky Balboa is not a real person

[KiwiRider]

Now it's Mayweather. Was Ali. Biggest ever was probably Dempsey.

Yea Jack was the man. Ali excelled in self promotion and took over from Dempsey.
Rocky is hyped by the movies and legend after his career ended.

If you asked who is it right now, it would grudgingly be Moneyweather and when he is gone again I would say Joshua unless he loses.

Rocky Balboa is not a real person

Are you sure? Our American friends think he is, I saw it on Leno

[watsupdoc87]

Yea Jack was the man. Ali excelled in self promotion and took over from Dempsey.
Rocky is hyped by the movies and legend after his career ended.

If you asked who is it right now, it would grudgingly be Moneyweather and when he is gone again I would say Joshua unless he loses.

Rocky Balboa is not a real person

Are you sure? Our American friends think he is, I saw it on Leno

Not real but still the fukin man!!!

[KiwiRider]

Rocky Balboa is not a real person

Are you sure? Our American friends think he is, I saw it on Leno

Not real but still the fukin man!!!

Yeah!
He retired at 49-0 but then he came back to fight that ginger martial arts guy, I think his name was Chuck, fight of the century!!
Some say that beneath Chuck's beard is another fist, Rocky should have done his homework but his trainer died

[Sequitorian]

Now it's Mayweather. Was Ali. Biggest ever was probably Dempsey.

Yea Jack was the man. Ali excelled in self promotion and took over from Dempsey.
Rocky is hyped by the movies and legend after his career ended.

If you asked who is it right now, it would grudgingly be Moneyweather and when he is gone again I would say Joshua unless he loses.

Rocky Balboa is not a real person

We live in a post-reality world ... (just ask Jim) ...

[Oiky]

Dempsey, Ali & now mayweather

[Syntax Error]

From a purely anecdotal point-of-view, it's a toss up between Ali & Tyson for me.

Almost every lay person I know who has no interest in boxing knows who Ali was & who Tyson is.

In fact, I often hear people who know nothing about boxing saying, "I feel like I've gone 10 rounds with Mike Tyson"; this is 30 years after his prime & more than a decade after he last fought.

[gp.]

It's Ali. No question at all.

Even now probably more people know who Ali is than know Mayweather. In 20 years far more will know Ali than Mayweather.

[SteveO]

Muhammad Ali - a global icon.
One of the most photographed men in history.

[Tanzio]

Now it's Mayweather. Was Ali. Biggest ever was probably Dempsey.

[Tarkus]

Tyson and Ali are the only two global historical legends that transcended the sport. Nobody heard of Robinson outside the boxing fan community.

[Syntax Error]

I think George Foreman deserves a mention too.

He didn't transcend the sport like Ali & Tyson did, but his name is all over kitchen grills all over this planet, to such a degree that, much like the vacuum cleaner is often referred to as a 'Hoover', despite the fact that most vacuum cleaners aren't made by them, the same can be said for electric grilling machines.

Most people I know call them "George Foreman's"!

My wife was shocked when I told her that George Foreman was actually a heavyweight boxer who used to be heavyweight champion of the world, but now she knows all about him & I suspect that with the advent of smartphones & Google, many people with those grills have looked up Foreman to find out where he came from & who he is.

[BitPlayer]

He was great for sure, but I've never seen a single person not into boxing history talk about Sugar Ray Robinson.

[Ossyrules]

Syntax has nailed it in both his posts

Ali is an immortal. The legend of Ali lives on as strong as any other icon in their particular sport. Remarkable story.

Then there is tyson who is truly notorious. What these two have in common are that average joe knows who they are. Floyd Mayweather isn't even on the same scale as these guys. Thankfully for the boxing world the Mayweather era is nearly at an end, leaving a gap for a new positive face for boxing.

My wife didn't realise big George was a boxer. My wife also met mark foster (British swimming Olympian) in Marbella. She said he was the one off strictly come dancing!!

[asdfjkl]

Matters what generation you're from, and it matters in what way you're looking at it.
AJ is a far better boxer, who clearly shows much better numbers as either of them, on top of that, he's a heavyweight, Mike Tyson openly admitted he very much doubt if he could win against either Klitschko.
Mike Tyson somehow is the youngest heavyweight champion ever.
Muhammad Ali proved the world wrong, btw, in a similar way Tyson Fury did and who knows will do again.
I love George Foreman his story for example, becoming a world champion, don't box for over a decade (!), come back, become world champion again!

That's also why it's so terrible that Lance Armstrong used doping to win his prices and even continued after he got caught.
He also had an amazing story with his cancer, but sadly he's like most top Americans, a drugs/doping user.

For me, Johan Cruijff is at least as important as the other football players you named. In fact he made an amateurclub who almost got kicked out of it's division a 3 time CL winner in a row within 5 years. Meanwhile, he almost made the Netherlands the world champion while in the beginning they struggled with Luxembourg! After that he moved over to Barcelona, who hasn't won a single price in well over a decade and made them champion in that same year while he couldn't even play the first few matches (and Ajax couldn't win the CL any more when he left)! When he was 36 he made Ajax champion and when Ajax said, now you're to old, goodbye! He became angry and went to Feyenoord (that's like going from Manchester United to Liverpool), guess what? Feyenoord became the champion!

It was Cruijff his youth acedamy who made Ajax the CL winner again in 1995, it was Cruijff his youth acedamy in Barcelona who developed guys like Xavi, Iniesta, name them, that era, who also won the CL easely.

So yea, Pele and Maradonna might have been better as a player, but had far less influence on football if you look at it in the complete picturel.


It's like Emanuel Lasker and Bobby Fischer, Fischer was the best chessplayer of the world for about 3 years in his entire life, Emanuel Lasker was the best chessplayer in the entire world for over 25 years in a row!
Garry Kasparov was the highest ranked FIDE (chessrank) player of the entire league between 1984 and 2006!
Somehow everybody remembers Fischer because he was an autistic guy who less or more teached himself how to play chess and played the world championship of chess while America didn't allowed him to and actually won in a dominating way!

It's the story that counts, that's why people consider Senna to be the best racingdriver ever, he didn't win the most, he just won against the top cars while driving a car who was far worse himself.

[gp.]

No it doesn't matter what generation you're from. That's the point. You are looking for the person who generation after generation will know. It doesn't matter how good they were, and it doesn't matter why people know them.

[asdfjkl]

No it doesn't matter what generation you're from. That's the point. You are looking for the person who generation after generation will know. It doesn't matter how good they were, and it doesn't matter why people know them.

People will always forget sporters over time, I can name piles of absolute world top contenders that barely anyone has ever heard of.

Wait 20 years and ask a 20 year old who Muhammad Ali is and they won't have a clue.

Ever heard of Larisa Latynina?
Paavo Nurmi then?
Matt Biondi then?

[gp.]

No it doesn't matter what generation you're from. That's the point. You are looking for the person who generation after generation will know. It doesn't matter how good they were, and it doesn't matter why people know them.

People will always forget sporters over time, I can name piles of absolute world top contenders that barely anyone has ever heard of.

Wait 20 years and ask a 20 year old who Muhammad Ali is and they won't have a clue.

Ever heard of Larisa Latynina?
Paavo Nurmi then?
Matt Biondi then?

Yes, that's the point. Very, very few are remembered. Ali hasn't been forgotten though, and he won't be. His name will remain as "the Greatest", even if he wasn't. In the same way as Pele will be mentioned whenever people speak about football or Babe Ruth or Joe DiMaggio when they speak about baseball. I assume. I know nothing about baseball but thought mentioning Don Bradman and cricket would just confuse people.

[Ossyrules]

No it doesn't matter what generation you're from. That's the point. You are looking for the person who generation after generation will know. It doesn't matter how good they were, and it doesn't matter why people know them.

People will always forget sporters over time, I can name piles of absolute world top contenders that barely anyone has ever heard of.

Wait 20 years and ask a 20 year old who Muhammad Ali is and they won't have a clue.

Ever heard of Larisa Latynina?
Paavo Nurmi then?
Matt Biondi then?

Yes, that's the point. Very, very few are remembered. Ali hasn't been forgotten though, and he won't be. His name will remain as "the Greatest", even if he wasn't. In the same way as Pele will be mentioned whenever people speak about football or Babe Ruth or Joe DiMaggio when they speak about baseball. I assume. I know nothing about baseball but thought mentioning Don Bradman and cricket would just confuse people.

I'm with you GP, that's the whole point.

Ali was a boxer in the 60/70s, 50 odd years ago, but his name as his story live on. Adskljl when you say it's about the story, you are right, but then you contradict yourself by saying nobody will remember Ali in 20 years.

Ali, Tyson, that's possibly it in boxing as the others are so old it's more the fanatics that remember them.

Senna, pele, maradona, bradman, Jordan, babe Ruth, the Beatles, usain bolt... these Calibre of people are the immortals in their own field that won't be forgotten

[gp.]

I just asked my 15 year old daughter (British), who knows nothing about sport and cares less, to name any boxer at all. The only name she could come up with was Muhammad Ali.

[victor-romeo]

Now it's Mayweather. Was Ali. Biggest ever was probably Dempsey.

I'll go with the Mayweather part of your statement, too bad Mayweather isn't fighting GGG, and yet public is so into spectacle that this Mcgregor crap probably has more interest for them than a GGG fight would.

[davie]

Muhammad Ali

hands down