Is Muhammad Ali the Michael Jordan of Boxing?

fuct. said:
You made a point without realizing. People outside of the US have heard of Jordan but they don't give a fuck about him. Ali is an icon for the progression of the civil rights movement, Jordan is a hoop guy.
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You must mean you don't give a fuck about him? The rest of the world clearly does (and a lot more than Ali over the years, I might add!).
 
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Ali like Jordan are considered by many as the goats of their sports when neither really was.
 
there really is no comparison as men and the different sports they played. Team sports and individual sports are just different. I'm no authority on basketball but from what I hear, sure, MJ was a champion's champion, a guy who was just what he said, "a thouroughbred". As far as excellence he's comparable to any elite great champion. His work ethic might even be better than Ali's, who fought about 25 percent of his career underprepared and/or well past his prime. But, the real problem in comparing them is their personality and their views, Ali cared about his public, MJ doesn't care how many people get shot down for wearing his sneakers. No comparison. Had Ali not been as damaged as he was, we would have seen a very different second act from the man.
 
Wilt may have been the greatest athlete period. No one like him.
 
I’m confused.
Did Ali have 4 guys in the ring helping him ?

<WhatIsThis>
 
gotta say mayweather is a better comparison. unbeaten, both have legendary stamina and both were criticized for never being tested by the another true great in their prime.

ali is more like a kareem. they were both the best but they were perfect and they had a lasting cultural impact after they left their respective sports.
 
fuct. said:
You made a point without realizing. People outside of the US have heard of Jordan but they don't give a fuck about him. Ali is an icon for the progression of the civil rights movement, Jordan is a hoop guy.
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THIS. Outside of America, a lot of people know him but dont give a rats ass. He's more famous for being on a training shoe in this country than anything else
 
Cariñito said:
Jordan's surpassed that you foreigner.
When MJ dies, this world will stop just like it did for Michael Jackson 2pac and Ali.
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The world didn't stop when Ali died... The guy was old and had been sick for decades.

Michael Jackson's death didn't send shockwaves across the world like Lady Diana's death either... He was looked at as a freak many years prior to his passing.
I assume a lot of people thought that he was terminally ill anyway.
 
defjaam said:
The world didn't stop when Ali died... The guy was old and had been sick for decades.

Michael Jackson's death didn't send shockwaves across the world like Lady Diana's death either... He was looked at as a freak many years prior to his passing.
I assume a lot of people thought that he was terminally ill anyway.
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MJ was 50x more popular than fuckin Diana ever was.
Only person more popular than MJ was Jesus Christ himself. And you can Google that shit.
 
There absolutely no comparison. MJ almost singlehandedly raised the profile of basketball from one of the lower leagues to probably the second most popular in the world. His image, for better or worse, is associated with the most sought after athletic wear.
 
Cariñito said:
MJ was 50x more popular than fuckin Diana ever was.
Only person more popular than MJ was Jesus Christ himself. And you can Google that shit.
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I was there, I don't need google for everything.

It's not about who was more popular... Diana's death was probably the most talked about globally in the past 30 years or so, and I don't give a shit about the british royal thing. MJ's death came out of nowhere, but it wasn't THAT shocking.

Also it's debatable wether MJ is the most recognizable character since Jesus... In other places of this world they might say it's Mohammed... Or Buddha.... Or Shakespeare... Or Gandhi.
There's a big world outside the basement that you live in, you know?
And even if we limit it to pop culture, I could drop James Dean...Muhammed Ali...Elvis Presley.
MJ was the biggest celeb during his time, but not much different than Justin Bieber is today - you even have the direct comparisson on insta... MJ, 6 million followers opposed to Bieber, over 180 million followers.
It may shock you, but a lot of todays teenagers have no clue who Michael Jackson is or how he looks... So you can guess how it's going to be 20 years from now.
 
Cariñito said:
MJ was 50x more popular than fuckin Diana ever was.
Only person more popular than MJ was Jesus Christ himself. And you can Google that shit.
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Relax, first what you say is false and secondly who gives a flying fuck anyway
 
defjaam said:
I was there, I don't need google for everything.

It's not about who was more popular... Diana's death was probably the most talked about globally in the past 30 years or so, and I don't give a shit about the british royal thing. MJ's death came out of nowhere, but it wasn't THAT shocking.

Also it's debatable wether MJ is the most recognizable character since Jesus... In other places of this world they might say it's Mohammed... Or Buddha.... Or Shakespeare... Or Gandhi.
There's a big world outside the basement that you live in, you know?
And even if we limit it to pop culture, I could drop James Dean...Muhammed Ali...Elvis Presley.
MJ was the biggest celeb during his time, but not much different than Justin Bieber is today - you even have the direct comparisson on insta... MJ, 6 million followers opposed to Bieber, over 180 million followers.
It may shock you, but a lot of todays teenagers have no clue who Michael Jackson is or how he looks... So you can guess how it's going to be 20 years from now.
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I agree that Princess Di's death was the most talked about event of the bunch in roughly the past 30 years. At least here in the US it was. Though, like you, I really didn't give a shit about it either.

On the Bieber subject. He isn't the household name that Jordan is around the world. The only reason it may feel like he is is because he's here now. He's current, active, and seemingly at the peak of his popularity. He took full advantage of the times we're living in and that's the social media age. An age where anyone with an internet connection and social media account can be their own content publisher. Jordan and Ali were pre-social media era athletes, obviously. So, comparing a current active musician in Bieber who is still churning out new albums and going on tour versus a nearly 20 year retired athlete in Jordan, who is a pre-social media era athlete from last generation, isn't a fair comparison. Which one of them do you think will be trending all the time these days? It'll be Bieber, not Jordan. Also, just because a celeb has social media accounts doesn't necessarily mean you can directly compare them accurately. For instance, some celebs/individuals joined these social media platforms from day 1 while others were late to get on board. Secondly, not all celebs/individuals are actively campaigning daily on social media platforms (that is, marketing & promoting). Some, like Ronaldo & Bieber, have year round social media campaigns going on. These variables make accurate comparisons even harder. Then there's the fact that not all people even have social media accounts.

Another thing that needs to be mentioned here is that social media following is only a single metric used to determine fame/popularity. What it actually measures is an individual's global reach and the degree of influence it bestows upon them. ESPN has devised their own formula that factors in an athlete's combined social following (FB, Twitter & IG) along with their confirmed endorsements and search rank popularity according to Google Trends (how often they're searched for on Google worldwide). This works well for ESPN because all of the athletes they're ranking inside their Fame 100 are currently active athletes, or aren't far removed from it, within their respective sports. We're now 20 years removed from Jordan's peak popularity (which was somewhere between 1996-2000 and it peaked again when he retired in 2003). The king of social media right now is Cristiano Ronaldo, hands down. It's not even close. He has the largest global following/reach of any individual on both Facebook & Instagram. And on Twitter, he currently ranks #5. Having said that, is Ronaldo a household name around the world? It depends. Many people of the older generation likely wouldn't even know him by name nor would they be able to recognize his face, I'd bet. He's clearly not as established as Jordan and the same goes for Bieber. With Jordan, people immediately recognize him as the global icon that he is.

In closing, Jordan transcended his sport and was a commercial industry darling. He transformed the whole industry along with basketball, and basketball is an international sport, as a reminder to those here who like to pretend that he's only famous in America. Michael Jordan is globally synonymous with greatness across the entire sports world. It's not just basketball (you need look no further than the title of this thread for proof of that). Ali was the premier iconic athlete of the 20th century until Jordan took the mantle at the turn of it and became the sporting world's gold standard. Let's not kid ourselves here, everybody still wants to be like Mike. Everyone from Floyd to LeBron to Brady.
 
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CodeBreaker said:
Is Muhammad Ali the Michael Jordan of Boxing?

2000-ESPN-Magazine-Ali-Superman-cover.jpg
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Uhhhh what?

Ali was and still is revered all around the world as someone who stood for the rights of his people and his principles, even at the cost of his prime years.

MJ was a self serving dude.

Now when it comes to accomplishments within their respective sports, that's a different story.
 
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