I agree with several of his picks including Lewis over Ali. I would favor Lewis mainly due to his combination of size & skill. He had the tools and attributes to beat any heavyweight out there IMO.
i think it would, but Joshua would end up losing, he wouldnt be able to keep Vitali off him for the full 12 rounds and he isnt going to stop him
There's an easy explanation for some of those head-scratching picks. Bias. Floyd has never really liked Mike Tyson or Ali for that matter. He does like Joshua and has offered to work with him before.
Mike has insulted Floyd severel times in the past, but what's his beef with Ali? He was already a sick man during Floyd's childhood.
Floyd may not like that people rate Ali so highly in general. He may feel threatened by it because he's "TBE" and all.
I'm actually a pretty big Lewis fan, I think he's one of the top 5 HWs in history but I don't know. Its hard picking against a prime Ali. I'm trying to think what Lewis did that Ali never saw before.
He can both punch and box.
Ali's never been in with someone as big & skilled. Lewis would be significantly heavier in the ring on fight night, much longer, a couple inches taller, physically stronger and arguably the most powerful guy he's ever faced (aside from Foreman). For Ali to give up that many advantages when he was used to having size and/or reach over his opponents would be very difficult to overcome. If the stats are accurate then Lewis would've had a half foot of reach on Ali. The latter relied a lot on his pull counter to get respect but that's not going to work well against a much rangier opponent. Ali's also never seen an inside game like Lewis has. Floyd probably views it similar to the way I do. When 2 great fighters face each other usually it's the bigger one that wins more often than not.
That's because Lewis is a boxer-puncher. Ali's a pure boxer (out-boxer).
I really don't think he was trying to piss anyone off. Just giving his picks.
Lewis would be a very different proposition for Ali. Every physical advantage there is would be in his favor. It's hard enough to overcome one or two of them but Ali would have the whole deck stacked against him in that regard. Lewis is a full weight class bigger. He could use his half foot reach advantage to force Ali to come to him. Ali's used to dancing around on the outside against guys with less or similar reach to him. He wouldn't be able to do that here. Even if he could get past that ridiculously long reach of Lewis the threat of his murderous right hand will always be there. Whenever they got close Lewis could just lean on him and beat him up on the inside. He's a lot heavier. Ali had no inside game, Lewis is nasty in close.
