I always loved Smoking Joe Frazier. I like fighters that dictate the fight and that always come forward. He would take 2-3 punches to land that hook to the solar plexus or chin. I like fighters not technicians.

You like fighters that bite the ears off his principles.

Marvin Hagler.

Thunder Lips. Possibly Sugar Ray and maybe even Tyson.

Ali is the most complete fighter of all time, but I don't know how he would have stood up to Tyson's upper cut. With his speed and footwork, Ali would make Tyson miss 99.99% of the time, but Tyson only ever needed to land the one. Who knows...

Foreman's jab could knock you out.

Ali, mouth and class, all in one. And a good boxer.

Actually I had come to think that boxing has become passe, what with all the attention on MMA these days. If that is the evolution of pugilism, it shouldn't be long before we're back to gladiators in collesiums, just in time to coincide with the decline and fall of America.

Well then - lets just go ahead and get it these duels to the death started.

Michelle Bachman v. Debbie Wasserman-Shultz. Biden v. McCain and so on. Sex, age and weight classes. PP View these Hunger Games. Profit madly.

favorite, Tyson...

best? if you go by record, its Willie Pep, not Ali, Pep fought over 200 matches, and won over 200 of them as well... the guy was a freak... artistic, flow, intuition and deception, Ali all day, not a man before, or after, that even comes close...

Frazier, Robinson, Leonard, Hearns, Haggler, Duran, Louis, Fraiz, way too many great fighters to really narrow it down.... but honestly, i dont think anyone of them could have beat Tyson in his prime, even Ali....

Tyson for me too.

Gotta add in Johnny Tapia for me, just cause of growing up in ABQ.

For me it is a tossup between Cassius Clay and Mike Tyson. 2 different styles but both in their prime were amazing. Would have been great to see them battle it out.

Rope a dope is a pussy move....go toe to toe like a real Man.

Hit man Hearns was fun to watch, though he had a glass jaw.

C'mon now. The proper foot work required to pull off Rope a Dope is in, of itself, extraordinary. C.C. had it in spades. Nobody moved like Ali and nobody ever will. Like I said, Ali is the greatest pure boxer of all time, but Tyson only needed that one punch (Foreman as well). As good as Ali was, I'm not so certain he could go a full bout moving on his feet without getting hit by that one Tyson punch. Tyson near the ropes and locked up = pure murder, so Ali would have been forced to center ring for most of the fight. I'll add that Tyson wasn't all upper cut; his strong left was ruthless. It put WAY more men down than his classic his upper cut. Tyson could work in very small spaces; was hyper- quick on the inside and could throw his entire body through his punches at point f'in blank range. You can run in circles for rounds upon rounds, but eventually he'd catch you inside and near the ropes. Nighty night.

Rocky Balboa

Ali!

Ali by a long shot but I have favorites in almost every weight class.
Watch the documentary When we were kings about the Ali /Forman fight in Africa for look into the genius of Ali.

Tyson was the opposite of Ali. Purely a fighter he was programmed by his handlers to be an assassin in the ring . If you watch his fights up to the Buster Douglas fight his opponents feared him, you can see it in their eyes and body language. It was only when Tyson lost that mental edge did he become beatable. They are all on you tube and fun to watch.

Watch the Boom boom Mancini , Duk Koo Kim fight to see one of the biggest hearts in all of sports history. Kim stood in the ring and fought like a tiger and it killed him.

Another fun one was the hands of stone Roberto Duran comeback against Iran Barkley. The 70's 80' were boxing a heydays

I always liked Tommy Hearns.

Growing up in Tacoma, I got to meet some of the boxers that came out of Tacoma Boys Club then went on to have good Olympic and professional success.

Sugar Ray Seales, Leo Randolph and Johnny Bumpus come to mind.

LEONARD-HEARNS: Sugar Ray Leonard had the gold medal and the smile everyone loved. Tommy Hearns was a fearsome puncher with a right hand that knocked opponents senseless. They met in their prime on Sept. 16, 1981, outdoors at Caesars Palace in a fight that will live in boxing lore.

It was a fight that had everything, including classic ebb and flow, but Hearns appeared heading to victory when he changed strategy and began boxing Leonard in the middle rounds instead of trying to knock him out. At the end of the 12th round, trainer Angelo Dundee screamed at Leonard "You're blowing it son, you're blowing it."

His face swollen and his chances fading, Leonard turned puncher, landing a series of vicious punches in the 13th round to stop Hearns and give him his first loss.

"I always felt the end results are what counts," Leonard said after.

Some good stuff.

My memory isn't long enough to go back to Lewis, Robinson, and some of those guys I agree, sort of, that Ali was "The Greatest". That said, I have heard enough folks who knew boxing better than I that boxes in the lighter weights like Leonard were very much highly skilled artists while at the heavyweight level you brought in raw power.

I prefer skill and thinking over raw power.