Was there any boxer in history more athletic than Mike Tyson?

[donnydarkoIRL]

Jones Jr. springs to mind.
Muhammad Ali is certainly there.
Pernell Whittaker

[ElTerribleMorales]

Holfield, the shape the guy still gets in today, is just freakish

[The Promoter]

I think calling Tyson a great "Athlete" is probably a mistake by my definition, I would say at his best he was almost a perfect "fighting machine". When I think of Athletes I think of people who can do many things, where their skills can transend to many different sports. If it were not for boxing could Mike Tyson have played pro or semi-pro basketball ala Roy Jones Jr.? Mike had freakish handspeed, great endurance, a great chin and was a disciplined fighter...Mike Tyson was a fighter through and through, but I would hardly call him "athletic" although he had the physical gifts that translated into a great fighter....again my opinion.

[rjj tszyu]

As soon as I read the name of this thread Roy Jones Junior came to mind!!

[kingfrnk]

Roy Jones comes to mind. Speed, power, agility.
Lennox Lewis had remarkable coordination and speed for such a big guy.

If u ever saw what Mundine did on a rugby field you'd see how athletic he was, blindingly fast over the turf. He used to do all sorts of back flips and shit when he scored.

Roy Jones was a great ( still is) athlete, but I have seen 175 guy's that hit harder than he ever did, his speed was blinding and he had great agility, but I never saw a HW with the physical attributes of a Mike Tyson and Mike carried around alot more weight than Roy. Mike was a better athlete. As far as Mundine I don't know who he is but over here in the states we had a guy by the name of Bo Jackson that played football ( American), I can't decide who was a better overall athlete him or Tyson but it's close and that's my top two in any sport.

Roy wasn't a natural 175 pounder, he was a natural 160-168 pound fighter, and his record was 22-0(21) ko's going into his championship fight. I wonder how far up Mike Tyson's power would have carried him in terms of changing weightclasses, most of the bigger guys who weren't just there to be knocked out handled his power in his prime.

James Tillis
Bonecrusher SMith
MItch Green(who hung on, but survived).

Please Bo Jackson definitely was up there, but not Mundine, he isn't as quick as Roy was in his prime, Mundine is a good athlete for sure, but Deon Sanders was a great athlete who excelled at 2 sports
Wilt Chamberlain
Lebron James, 6-8 240-250, 4.4 40 yard dash, 44 inch vertical jump, he would have been a monster at Football, which he was in highschool before he quit for a basketball career.
Antonio Gates: Great at basketball and football
same with Gonzalez for the chiefs.
Randy Moss: amazing speed, would have been an incredible basketball player, and was one.
Michael Jordan: 6-6, 220, 4.3 40 yard dash, 42 inch vertical, great athlete
Michael Vick: 560 pound bench press at 212 pounds!! 4.20-4.27 40 yard dash, great shuttle, 40+ inch vertical time as well, he was at least as good of an athlete as Bo Jackson.

To sum it up any NFL or NBA team has right now an athlete better then any boxer who has ever lived.

when u put it like that yea. but those are very different sports. in boxing u only have to fight 12 rounds for 3 minutes and get a 1 min break every round. but in NFL u have to play a full hour with extra equipment on and run up and down a field, and also tackle men that weigh atleast from 190- 300 pounds. and in boxing all u have is gloves on. and in NBA you have to run up and down a court 15 minutes str8 basically, so you would have to be in better shape to play basketball and football than boxing.

so yea NFL and NBA athletes are in better shape than boxers. but still 2 different sports

[Andre]

Harry Creb the human windmill wasnt the most athletic, but naturally he sure must have had some inner strength and vigour.
Those were long fights back then and most accounts say he never let up for a second.
Fought with only one eye for a few years too.
When he went into hospital to do repair work on the good eye and he died under the anestetic

[gyrokai]

Carlos Boldomir





















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[Snakey]

Roy Jones comes to mind. Speed, power, agility.
Lennox Lewis had remarkable coordination and speed for such a big guy.

If u ever saw what Mundine did on a rugby field you'd see how athletic he was, blindingly fast over the turf. He used to do all sorts of back flips and shit when he scored.

Roy Jones was a great ( still is) athlete, but I have seen 175 guy's that hit harder than he ever did, his speed was blinding and he had great agility, but I never saw a HW with the physical attributes of a Mike Tyson and Mike carried around alot more weight than Roy. Mike was a better athlete. As far as Mundine I don't know who he is but over here in the states we had a guy by the name of Bo Jackson that played football ( American), I can't decide who was a better overall athlete him or Tyson but it's close and that's my top two in any sport.

Roy wasn't a natural 175 pounder, he was a natural 160-168 pound fighter, and his record was 22-0(21) ko's going into his championship fight. I wonder how far up Mike Tyson's power would have carried him in terms of changing weightclasses, most of the bigger guys who weren't just there to be knocked out handled his power in his prime.

James Tillis
Bonecrusher SMith
MItch Green(who hung on, but survived).

Please Bo Jackson definitely was up there, but not Mundine, he isn't as quick as Roy was in his prime, Mundine is a good athlete for sure, but Deon Sanders was a great athlete who excelled at 2 sports
Wilt Chamberlain
Lebron James, 6-8 240-250, 4.4 40 yard dash, 44 inch vertical jump, he would have been a monster at Football, which he was in highschool before he quit for a basketball career.
Antonio Gates: Great at basketball and football
same with Gonzalez for the chiefs.
Randy Moss: amazing speed, would have been an incredible basketball player, and was one.
Michael Jordan: 6-6, 220, 4.3 40 yard dash, 42 inch vertical, great athlete
Michael Vick: 560 pound bench press at 212 pounds!! 4.20-4.27 40 yard dash, great shuttle, 40+ inch vertical time as well, he was at least as good of an athlete as Bo Jackson.

To sum it up any NFL or NBA team has right now an athlete better then any boxer who has ever lived.

Just so you know Mundine was an awesome Rugby League player, a good basketball player (Australias basketball league tried to sign him after he left league) and an alright boxer. So id say thats pretty athletic.

[Truth]

Who got the stats that Vick benches 560 I call BS on that plus he never ran in the 4.2s his best official time (since coaches hand times are terribly innacurate) was a 4.36

[danieladamsmith]

Was looking at this guy's greatest fights on DVD an the combination of speed, power, agility, etc is insane. We all know his weakness was in between the ears but he was on another level when it came to god given talent, oh my goodness what that guy wasted.

Sugar Ray Robinson

[Jimanuel Boogustus]

Athleticism... Hmmm that's a toughie but a great question at the same time.
Because athleticism is something that IS entirely measurable, I think I might of devised a crude system of assessing & comparing a fighters Athletic ability.

To begin with... I could break this down into two main categories:

Hand Speed over Punching Power & Strength over Mobility which I shall name Balletic Ability (I think I'm naming my own abilities here )

If you use these two categories to comprise separate lists of fighters and then cross reference those two lists, it should look something like this (these are just vague examples btw):



Hand Speed over Punching Power The amount of power delivered with speed or visa versa but with no bias to either
1. Mike Tyson
2. Manny Pacquiao
3. Roy Jones Jnr
4. Shane Mosley
5. Naseem Ahmed
6. Sugar Ray Robinson
7. Muhammad Ali
8. Floyd Mayweather
9. Sugar Ray Leonard

Balletic Ability remember that this is my comparative assessment of a fighters strength over his mobility, no bias to either
1. Muhammad Ali
2. Roy Jones
3. Floyd Mayweather Jnr
4. Naseem Ahmed
5. Sugar Ray Robinson
6. Manny Pacquio
7. Sugar Ray Leonard
8. Shane Mosley
9. Wladimir Klistchko

I think becuase Boxing is primarily a combatant sport, in relation to cross-referencing the two categories, the bias should naturally favour ''Speed/ Power'' as supposed to ''Balletic Ability''. With that being said, a list of the top athletes in boxing (in no order) would appear to look something like this: (Again, this is very vague)

• Roy Jones Jnr.
• Naseem Ahmed
• Sugar Ray Robinson
• Shane Mosley
• Muhammad Ali
• Manny Pacquiao
• Floyd Mayweather

Now, where it becomes very interesting is where & how you establish the bias with regards to weight. By that, obviously I mean how you distinguish between fighters of different weight divisions.

This I would do by utilizing a new catagory; Stamina over Weight. This is simply because IMO it is acceptable to assume that the fighter who is able to consistently carry the highest level of Athleticism (consistency in form of any kind) while having to carry the highest amount of bulk on his frame should be deemed the most Athletic P4P.

So with that in mind, the most obvious picks for me would be:

1. Muhammad Ali
2. Roy Jones Jnr.
3. Manny Pacquiao/ Sugar Ray Robinson can't separate the two

However, if were were speaking in terms of simple Speed over Power then Mike Tyson is your man

[Truth]

a bit off topic but since people have brought in athletes from other sports HERSCHEL WALKER how many people do u know who built up a frame like that by doing bodyweight excercises and to reply to an earlier posts saying that you need to be more in shape to play football than box is criminal. Football requires little more than the need for a slight ability to be able to recuperate in the 30 seconds between each play. Boxing is much harder because it taxes the aerobic system as well.

[generalbulldog]

a bit off topic but since people have brought in athletes from other sports HERSCHEL WALKER how many people do u know who built up a frame like that by doing bodyweight excercises and to reply to an earlier posts saying that you need to be more in shape to play football than box is criminal. Football requires little more than the need for a slight ability to be able to recuperate in the 30 seconds between each play. Boxing is much harder because it taxes the aerobic system as well.

Exactly. Boxing is an hardcore cardiovascular exercise. Let's stop comparing NBA or NFL players to boxers, it's two different sports. NBA and NFL players while being athletic for their sports also get significant rest time, with only playing half of the time, in spurts, having timeouts, halftime as in the case of the NFL and in the NBA it's not like they are running 48 minutes nonstop, they also get little bit of extended breaks like when a foul is called, timeouts, halftime, ball being out of play, etc. In boxing they are constantly moving with their hands held high and also throwing punches for 3 minutes, with a short 1 minute rest between rounds. IMO boxing is just more taxing when it comes to cardiovascular activity, not to mention the damage the body accumulates from the opponents blows.

Just because a guy does well in a particular sport does not mean he does well in another, you can speculate all you want, but that is all it is speculation. Everyone remembers when Michael Jordan tried to play baseball? Everyone was saying he's going to be greater than Babe Ruth or just as good and that baseball would be easy for him to play because it's not physically demanding as basketball, well how did that work out?