Is Muhammad Ali the Michael Jordan of Boxing?

guess it depends on the region and part of the world, it's a big world and it's human nature to be ethnocentric but I always ask people from other countries about Bruce Lee and Muhammad Ali and they always know of them at least. I never ask about Michael Jordan but maybe they know him too. I don't know, it's s strange thing, you get men like Ali and Bruce and they just hit a chord across the globe and no one is really even sure why but they do.

I agree.
For Basketball, 5+ people of all the top ten stats lists for the german league are americans.
Still the popularity of Basketball is not that bad, its quite high on the top sports list in Germany, but soccer is of course very far away on top. And the biggest rise in popularity did not come with Jordan, but with Schrempf and Nowitzki.
Maybe today Jordan is more known here, in the nineties it felt to me that Ali was on another level still.
Of course, if you ask german basketball fan, they will tell you the opposite :)

Bruce is also big in Germany.
 
Muhammad Ali is the Wayne Gretzky of great excuses to avoid going to war.
 
There’s never been a bigger sports personality than Ali. Even MJ wasn’t close.

MJ isn’t going to Iraq, negotiating the release of 15 US prisoners and getting it done when his own government couldn’t just because he’s MJ. Only Ali could pull that off .
 
There’s never been a bigger sports personality than Ali. Even MJ wasn’t close.

MJ isn’t going to Iraq, negotiating the release of 15 US prisoners and getting it done when his own government couldn’t just because he’s MJ. Only Ali could pull that off .
yup, and what was his guarantee that they wouldn't have killed him or held him hostage? Never get these people who call him a coward.
 
jordan was far more dominant than ali ever was. if you wanna talk larger than life personalities, then sure.
 
No because Michael Jordan didn't have 1/100th the charisma of Ali.

Floyd Mayweather is probably a better comparison to Jordan - two extreme winners with serious personalities and degenerate gambling tendencies.
 
Again, people think Ali was a political figure outside of the ring only, no, he also changed the game. If not for Ali, boxing wouldn't be as popular as today, and the boxers wouldn't earn money as much as they do today.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muhammad_Ali_Boxing_Reform_Act

Muhammad Ali Boxing Reform Act

The Muhammad Ali Boxing Reform Act, commonly referred to as the Ali Act, is a federal law that was introduced in 1999 and enacted on May 26, 2000 by the 106th Congress to: (1) protect the rights and welfare of boxers; (2) aid state boxing commissions with the oversight of boxing; and (3) increase sportsmanship and integrity within the boxing industry (See 114 Stat. 321(3)(2000)).


Then you didn't see Ali's prime.

Just a small glimpse of Ali's prime;



In his prime, he finished Sonny Liston twice, which at the time, was considered as scariest boxer ever, Liston was an idol to George Foreman. Even Tyson said he was the scariest boxer he ever know, more scarier than even himself.

If you want to talk about post-prime, then let's talk about Jordan's Washington Wizards days.

lmfaooooo with all due respect, fuck off. i know more than enough about muhammad ali, i don’t need you to try and give me an education. jordan dominated the NBA (in arguably its most competitive era) on both sides of the ball to a superhuman degree. won defensive player of the year and led the league in scoring. he also never lost a championship series in his career. it’s literally not even close.

we might both know boxing, but i also know basketball. jordan is probably the most dominant athlete in the modern history of professional sports
 
Bad comparison.

MJ raised an entire sport to global prominence. Look at the numbers of new basketball participants in countries that never had it until MJ's time. The dream teams, etc Most of basketball's great modern players will attest that their idol was MJ. He also inspired the greatest sports brand, dollar-wise, in world history. And when he hit his prime his teams won 6 world championships and he was MVP in all 6 of those finals.

Ali was regarded as a villain by at least as many in the United States as those who considered him noble. I don't hear great boxer after great boxer today saying Ali was their inspiration to get into the sport. He was a transcendent talent in his prime but it's also debatable if an early win was a guy taking a dive and Joe Frazier beat Ali in his prime. He's one of the all time greats though to be sure. I still love going back and watching his fights and I miss those days....
 
No because Michael Jordan didn't have 1/100th the charisma of Ali.

Floyd Mayweather is probably a better comparison to Jordan - two extreme winners with serious personalities and degenerate gambling tendencies.

Jordan dominated easily the most competitive era of the NBA. Bird, Johnson, Hakeem, etc were all-time greats. As for charisma, Jordan was like The Beatles at their peak. Everywhere he went, it could be 3AM and crowds of people were waiting just to see him. I don't think you know much about basketball or American sports if you think Jordan was considered uncharismatic.
 
. I don't hear great boxer after great boxer today saying Ali was their inspiration to get into the sport. He was a transcendent talent in his prime but it's also debatable if an early win was a guy taking a dive and Joe Frazier beat Ali in his prime. He's one of the all time greats though to be sure. I still love going back and watching his fights and I miss those days....
To Boxers? LOL, are you serious?

He was an idol for other people who doesn't even box, not only to boxers.



Boxers? There are a lot of them,



Even the MMA GOAT;



Lebron is already being compared to MJ, And Wilt Chamberlain can say that they changed the basketball rules because of him, but not MJ.



Even Wilt Chamberlain v Ali would be better, at least that guy would give a better fight to Ali in the ring due to his big size, and that's it.



No basketball player can be compared to Ali.

Jordan dominated easily the most competitive era of the NBA. Bird, Johnson, Hakeem, etc were all-time greats. As for charisma, Jordan was like The Beatles at their peak. Everywhere he went, it could be 3AM and crowds of people were waiting just to see him. I don't think you know much about basketball or American sports if you think Jordan was considered uncharismatic.
Basketball is a team sport.

Jordan couldn't do anything by himself,

He would keep losing as he lost to Detroit Pistons in the early of his career, and he couldn't do anything when he played in Washington Wizards.

No basketball player's charisma can be compared to Ali's. For that, he is right that Jordan would look uncharismatic if you try to compare him to Ali.

Some people might don't like Ali in USA. But when you look at World Wide, no one care about MJ other than basketball fans.

Ali is a far bigger character and a figure world wide, there is no comparison.
 
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Bad comparison.

MJ raised an entire sport to global prominence. Look at the numbers of new basketball participants in countries that never had it until MJ's time. The dream teams, etc Most of basketball's great modern players will attest that their idol was MJ. He also inspired the greatest sports brand, dollar-wise, in world history. And when he hit his prime his teams won 6 world championships and he was MVP in all 6 of those finals.

Ali was regarded as a villain by at least as many in the United States as those who considered him noble. I don't hear great boxer after great boxer today saying Ali was their inspiration to get into the sport. He was a transcendent talent in his prime but it's also debatable if an early win was a guy taking a dive and Joe Frazier beat Ali in his prime. He's one of the all time greats though to be sure. I still love going back and watching his fights and I miss those days....

Not true... I can't count how many boxers / combat sports athletes cited Ali as their inspiration / role model.
 
As for charisma, Jordan was like The Beatles at their peak. Everywhere he went, it could be 3AM and crowds of people were waiting just to see him. I don't think you know much about basketball or American sports if you think Jordan was considered uncharismatic.

One of the dumbest arguments I've ever heard. You don't have to be charismatic to be a massive celebrity and have people flock to see you. Floyd Mayweather, the guy I compared him to, has huge crowds waiting to see him too.

But I never said Jordan was uncharismatic. I said compared to Muhammad Ali - who is probably THE MOST CHARISMATIC PERSON TO EVER FUCKING LIVE, he is not charismatic.

You may be a fast runner, or very strong at the gym. But if I compared you to prime Usain Bolt or Brian Shaw, you're not very fast or strong at all. Easy concept to grasp.

There's enough moronic posts on here, please don't add to it. Read a post and really think about it before you reply, you dumbass lol smh
 
Let's talk about how many times Jordan lost to Detroit Pistons?

This is even prime Jordan.

Even if we ignore Jordan's past-prime Washington Wizards days, he was still losing to Detroit Pistons even in his prime.



If you are going to make excuses about his team was not good enough, then you would also admit that this is a team sport (which it is), Jordan relies on others to win, and Jordan doesn't win anything by himself unlike the boxers, who win individually, not in team sport.

he absolutely wins regular season awards and finals MVP’s by himself. 6-0 in the finals with 6 finals MVP’s, 5 regular season MVP’s, 10-time all NBA and 9 time all-defense. early in his career (i.e. before his prime) he lost some playoff series, then he hit his stride and smoked the entire league for a decade.

lebron didn’t win a ring until year 8 or 9 either. once he broke that seal, he dominated everything in sight.

jordan was drafted in ‘84. he lost to the pistons in ‘88-‘89-‘90. he was still far removed from his prime and the pistons won it all two out of those three years.
 
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jordan is probably the most dominant athlete in the modern history of professional sports
He is in the opinion of most sportswriters and historians. He was the highest rated athlete of the 20th century per the major publications. The only team sport athlete who has a case as arguably being even more dominant than Jordan is Gretzky. Gretzky actually managed to edge him in a shoot-out (readers' poll) that Yahoo! Sports held last year. It was surprising to me because usually the more popular athlete tends to win in the polls and Jordan is much more popular worldwide.

Gretzky was so unbelievably dominant though that he'd still hold the NHL's all-time scoring record even if you threw away all of his career goals (he literally has more career assists than his nearest rival has total points). His stats & achievements are mindboggling and many of his records in the NHL still stand.

GOAT of GOATs Final: Who is the Greatest Athlete Of All Time — Wayne Gretzky or Michael Jordan?
Wayne Gretzky is the GOAT of GOATs
 
He is in the opinion of most sportswriters and historians. He was the highest rated athlete of the 20th century per the major publications. The only team sport athlete who has a case as arguably being even more dominant than Jordan is Gretzky. Gretzky actually managed to edge him in a shoot-out (readers' poll) that Yahoo! Sports held last year. It was surprising to me because usually the more popular athlete tends to win in the polls and Jordan is much more popular worldwide.

Gretzky was so unbelievably dominant though that he'd still hold the NHL's all-time scoring record even if you threw away all of his career goals (he literally has more career assists than his nearest rival has total points). His stats & achievements are mindboggling and many of his records in the NHL still stand.

GOAT of GOATs Final: Who is the Greatest Athlete Of All Time — Wayne Gretzky or Michael Jordan?
Wayne Gretzky is the GOAT of GOATs
i hold jordan in a higher regard just because of his defense. he’s arguably both the best perimeter defender and scorer in the history of the sport which is utterly ridiculous.

as a pure offensive player, gretzky is certainly superior in his respective sport.
 
I don't hear great boxer after great boxer today saying Ali was their inspiration to get into the sport.
Not true... I can't count how many boxers / combat sports athletes cited Ali as their inspiration / role model.
I agree Ali was inspiration for many great athletes.

Even Mike Tyson said Ali is his inspiration for boxing.


time stamp: 16:20
 
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jordan was far more dominant than ali ever was. if you wanna talk larger than life personalities, then sure.

If basketball was a 1:1 sport like boxing it's doubtful that Jordan would have even been #1 much less a dominate #1.

We can't really compare team sports to individual sports.
 
Ali is wayyyyyyyy more known (gloably) and important then MJ(with all due respect). Skillwise I'd say he is more Wiltt Chamberline then Jordan. Jordan would be Floyd
 
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