Who was the greatest

The winner is the one who poisons the other’s water bottle before the fight! :smiley:

Seriously… either one could clearly render the other essentially helpless by landing one good blow. Whether it’s a KO, a shattered knee… whatever, the fight would be decided by that one blow.

Both are probably savvy enough to know what that blow is, and go for it at every opportunity.

Either one is fast enough to get that blow in before the other can dodge, grab, or block, as far as we know.

Thus, assuming no weapons and no opportunity to ambush each other, the fight will most likely be decided by some combination of ferocity and chance. I’ve seen this happen over and over.

I think I’d give Ali the edge in ferocity. His business was to actually pound on guys until they fell down, while enduring a pounding in return. How often did Lee actually do that?

If chance prevented the landing of the deciding blow early on, I think Ali’s size would work against him in the long run, due to fatigue. It might take a while, but ultimately Lee has less mass to haul around.

Ali would have the advantage if the fight became more of a wrestling match (it probably wouldn’t, though), because of his strength and mass. He could pick Lee up and throw him into things, or hold him in a bearhug or something and pin him down with his weight. Lee could not do the same to Ali.

More often than you’d think, considering Bruce Lee died from a seizure which was the result of the pain meds he was taking. He didn’t do it the same way Ali did, but don’t for one second think he didn’t take a pounding doing all those stunts and fights himself.

Lee actually did fight Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (the latter was a student of Ali’s) in a movie that, AFAIK, was never released because Lee died before it could be finished. I’ve only seen the footage once, but from what I rememeber Abdul-Jabbar did a lot of kicks and such because hey, his legs are long.

Was grappling a part of Lee’s martial arts practice? If so, I would give the advantage to Lee. All it would take is a take down and something as simple as an armbar to completely desrtoy someone’s arm.