Anthony Joshua vs Francis Ngannou & Joseph Parker vs Zhilei Zhang

Which light heavies, cruisers, and heavyweight greats could have played in the NBA or NFL?
Which NBA and NFL players would have been boxing greats?

 

Bout 80% of the 90s Knicks might as well have been boxers.

And the 80s Celtics weren't boxers, but they sure had the faces of guys who get punched in the face for a living.

 

There really are MANY comments out there saying it was staged and Frances took a dive. A few others I've read say that Frances was robbed because the ref waved it off without a 10-count.

Jeyyyysus Christ! Must be flat Earthers.

 

I figure It’s MMA fans that we’re sure AJ was gonna get laid out. A lot of them don’t understand basic shit about how things like punching power and accuracy works.

 

Again, you're a very unintelligent person and the son of a thousand whores, so i have no intention of having a discussion with you

Asking for names loool

what a pathetic easily confused fools

 

Yeah, JOM is answering it from a Canadian perspective as a guy with very little knowledge of basketball.

I'm saying it as a New Yorker, the mecca of basketball. And as a lifetime hoops fan.

Only a handful of NBA players in history can fight. Despite their size and athleticism, the NBA has the worst fighters of the three major American sports.

The heavyweight division is NOT NOT NOT losing talent to the NBA.

Best case scenario for basketball, maybe a guy like Artest could have been a fringe contender heavyweight had he 100% dedicated to boxing instead of hoops.

But do I think the NBA ever deprived us of some potential Lewis/Bowe level talent? HELLLLLLL NOOO!

 

I'm of the belief that great athletes end up in the sports they were intended for.

I don't sit around contemplating how Tom Brady or Russell Wilson would have done as baseball players - I believe both were intended to be NFL quarterbacks.

I think every heavyweight in history who was intended to be special made their way into our sport.

 

Weird, borderline childish take imo but hey everyone has it's own belief. My big beef with yours though is how would you explain the huge drop in American talent at Cw and Hw in the last 10/15 years or so? Sure, the US is not dominating as much as it used too (and it's a good thing imo as a lot of countries stepped up their boxing game and boxers from eastern Europe are now able to turn pro), but it seems it is still the dominant country in weight classes above lightweight, save for the two heaviest ones which is mindboggling. Maybe it's a coincidence or maybe my intuition about less American top fighters in cw and hw is not even accurate, but the NFL/NBA theory is just too plausible and sensical for me to discard.

 

The point is "talent" is not transferrable that way. You have good reflexes, speed or whatever. Great. Just throw the guy in the gym with a trainer and magically they are a good boxer. Of course if you take Lebron James and teach him how to box he's going to pick it up faster and be much better than some guy randomly picked out of the phone book. He still aint beating Lennox Lewis, nor would Lennox be an all time great basketball player simply because he decided on it as a sport.

 

I would put it down to more of a decline in boxing's cultural relevance than the NFL/NBA taking away potential heavyweight stars.

The NFL/NBA is not some recent phenomenon in the U.S.

What is more recent is boxing's overall decline in America.

 

My point exactly.

 

Your point about Lebron picking boxing much faster than a similar sized guy is pretty much the perfect counterpoint to your whole argument. If US college/high school had boxing programs instead of football and NFL ones, you can bet that at HW or CW, it would overwhelmingly consist of what is now their football abd basketball teams.

 

LeBron has the most delusional fanbase of nutlickers of any athlete on planet Earth.

I've never heard Messi or Ronaldo fans saying that those guys could have dominated in other sports.

LeBron fans think that clown could have been the GOAT in any sport - American football, boxing, track n field, you name it. They think if Bron put his mind to it, he could do it.

LeBron is a pussy. He doesn't have the toughness to have made it in on an elite level in the NFL, LET ALONE our sport! Christ sake! He'd shit himself.

 

I don't necessarily agree with Whiskey on that particular point.

LeBron would pick him up boxing better than your average 6'7 outta shape fat slob, simply for the fact that he's a professional athlete with a pro athlete's stamina.

But I'm sure there's a lot of in-shape guys of Lebron's size who wouldn't be able to play a lick of basketball, but could take to boxing better.

 

There's not a single great American heavyweight in history that came from no damn college boxing program.

You guys are calling me foolish and yet proposing and asserting some asinine things, and it's coming across that you have NO fucking clue what you're taking about.

The decline of boxing in the US had nothing to do with an increase in popularity of the NFL and NBA.

The NFL has been bigger than boxing in the U.S. since the 60s. It's nothing recent.

These two leagues are not robbing us of potential great American heavyweights.

Boxing GREED and CORRUPTION are robbing us of great American heavyweights.

 

Athleticism in the two sports are not connected.

I've seen clips of Iron Mike hooping. He can't. At all. Slow and uncoordinated as fuck as a basketball player.

Yet arguably Mike is the quickest and most athletic heavyweight of all time.

They are not the same.

 

james could have easily made it to the NFL. he would have been a five star recruit if he chose football over hoops coming out of high school.

 

The point about his fanbase remains the same.

Just saw one yesterday say that if Lebron trained he could challenge AJ.

No other athlete has a fanbase that says such retarded shit.

Jordan fanboys can be insane, but they're more tolerable because they keep it STRICTLY to basketball. Jordan fanboys know that Mike can't fight.

LeBron fans think this motherfucker could have been an Army sniper if he wanted to.

 

Tony Gonzalez, Antonio Gates and Julius Peppers were basketball players. 3 hall of famers. There are dozens of basketball players who could have played at a high level in the NFL if the risk/reward was worth it. it aint. same for boxing.

why in the fuck would you send your kid to a boxing gym if he was trending toward being bigger/more athletic than the average kid his age?

 

Although you can't pick any specific one to cross over, it's crazy to think the nfl/nba doesn't have ton of guys who could make noise.

This should be obvious.

Obviously athletic ability translates. Of course not completely as certain things seem to be more random and natural for some guys vs. others.

Anthony Joshua was a track athlete who converted to boxing at 18, deontay Wilder a football/basketball player, etc. Of course if you took 100 guys slated to play d1 football and basketball at 16 and made them all box there would be some serious contenders.

 

Peak Olajuwon would have dream shaked the fuck outta Riddick Bowe

 

In 94 he single handedly destroyed NYC. What's one more New Yorker to him?

 

My favorite thing they say is that Jordan “couldn’t go left” or “couldn’t shoot 3s”. And that he “played against who’d get cooked today.”

Shit is wild.

 

I'm not really disagreeing. There's a difference between translating and transferring. I've already said that if boxing was a huge deal in the U.S. boxing would be in better shape overall (especially at HWY)

I'm not saying boxing takes some kind of god like innate ability to be good, just that you can't transfer a man to one sport or the other just based on athleticism or "dedication". At the very least not on at the highest levels.

 

Yeah and it's still a different ball of oranges. How may guys on this planet were more athletic and talented as MJ? He was mediocre at minor league baseball. Would a young motivated blah blah Jordan be way better if he simply "chose" baseball. No doubt. Would he be an ATG like he was in basketball or even close? Somehow i doubt that.

Now instead of baseball he opted for the getting punched in the face business. How well would he have done? Fact is nobody can say for sure, but mu guess is also not at an ATG level.

Sure, that's one man. There are perhaps thousands of guys who had more abilities and surely are/were. Yu just don't take you talent and work ethic and move it to another table like a waiter bringing a tray.