Drago
Bankspieler
Shaquille O’Neal Could Have Been Heavyweight Champion
Shaquille O’Neal is an American basketball player who is known as the most dominant center of his generation. I know that many would scoff at my suggestion that someone who had never boxed in his life could have become a world class boxer. O’Neal is adept at dunking balls and grabbing rebounds, not throwing blows or dodging punches. To think that an athlete from any sport can lace up the gloves and beat real boxers is an outrageous idea and not what I am arguing. I believe that if he started at a young age and was traditionally trained as a boxer, Shaq had the physical tools to become a dominant world heavyweight champion. In his current form, or at any point in O’Neal’s life, he would be defeated by the top heavyweights of today because he would have no idea what to do. Boxers are made not born. All great boxers started out as a raw product and grew into their boxing prowess because of either extraordinary gifts or a tremendous competitive edge and work ethic. O’Neal possessed rare advantages over other fighters that could have been polished into a fighting machine.
If you look at today’s boxing scene, Nicolay Valuev is looked at as a beast of a man, dwarfing his competitors with his stature of 7 foot, 330 pounds. Valuev is not particularly skilled, agile, quick, or talented. He is able to have success almost exclusively because of his large size. O’Neal stands at 7 foot 1 inch and 325 pounds. As you can see they are comparable in size, only Shaquille is extremely fast and agile for his size. He is renowned for his strength as well, able to out muscle any other basketball player on the court to get to the basket. O’Neal possesses more raw physical and athletic ability that would produce a quality boxer than current WBA Heavyweight Champion Nicolay Valuev. If you had given Shaq years of training, he could have developed the basics. Instead of tossing down slam dunks, he could have been swinging clubbing right hands on the chins of fellow boxers. Imagine someone with the enormous size advantage that Valuev possesses, only with hand speed, foot speed, power, and agility. That combination would have given any boxer in history some problems.
I know that many others will put their foot down and refute that a basketball player would do anything but hit the floor when going against a real professional boxer; after all, being good at one sport has nothing to do with being able to have success at the sweet science. However, I am curious to see how much support that I receive with my statement. Respected boxing historian, Bert Randolph Sugar, often says that the greatest heavyweight today is Ray Lewis of the Baltimore Ravens, insinuating that America’s best modern athletes are going into other sports instead of boxing. Shaq picked basketball because he had the opportunity to make more money for a much less brutal sport. There are some physical marvels that appear that they would have excelled and many different sports. I will always believe that men like Shaquille O’Neal, Ray Lewis, and Wilt Chamberlain would have been excellent boxers if that was the path that they decided to take in life.
Shaquille O’Neal is an American basketball player who is known as the most dominant center of his generation. I know that many would scoff at my suggestion that someone who had never boxed in his life could have become a world class boxer. O’Neal is adept at dunking balls and grabbing rebounds, not throwing blows or dodging punches. To think that an athlete from any sport can lace up the gloves and beat real boxers is an outrageous idea and not what I am arguing. I believe that if he started at a young age and was traditionally trained as a boxer, Shaq had the physical tools to become a dominant world heavyweight champion. In his current form, or at any point in O’Neal’s life, he would be defeated by the top heavyweights of today because he would have no idea what to do. Boxers are made not born. All great boxers started out as a raw product and grew into their boxing prowess because of either extraordinary gifts or a tremendous competitive edge and work ethic. O’Neal possessed rare advantages over other fighters that could have been polished into a fighting machine.
If you look at today’s boxing scene, Nicolay Valuev is looked at as a beast of a man, dwarfing his competitors with his stature of 7 foot, 330 pounds. Valuev is not particularly skilled, agile, quick, or talented. He is able to have success almost exclusively because of his large size. O’Neal stands at 7 foot 1 inch and 325 pounds. As you can see they are comparable in size, only Shaquille is extremely fast and agile for his size. He is renowned for his strength as well, able to out muscle any other basketball player on the court to get to the basket. O’Neal possesses more raw physical and athletic ability that would produce a quality boxer than current WBA Heavyweight Champion Nicolay Valuev. If you had given Shaq years of training, he could have developed the basics. Instead of tossing down slam dunks, he could have been swinging clubbing right hands on the chins of fellow boxers. Imagine someone with the enormous size advantage that Valuev possesses, only with hand speed, foot speed, power, and agility. That combination would have given any boxer in history some problems.
I know that many others will put their foot down and refute that a basketball player would do anything but hit the floor when going against a real professional boxer; after all, being good at one sport has nothing to do with being able to have success at the sweet science. However, I am curious to see how much support that I receive with my statement. Respected boxing historian, Bert Randolph Sugar, often says that the greatest heavyweight today is Ray Lewis of the Baltimore Ravens, insinuating that America’s best modern athletes are going into other sports instead of boxing. Shaq picked basketball because he had the opportunity to make more money for a much less brutal sport. There are some physical marvels that appear that they would have excelled and many different sports. I will always believe that men like Shaquille O’Neal, Ray Lewis, and Wilt Chamberlain would have been excellent boxers if that was the path that they decided to take in life.
,sonst wär das ja:idiot:
