It depends what comes under the umbrella term of "athleticism". If you include all physical attributes, then he's incredibly athletically gifted. If you take away certain aspects, like the 'hard-nosed, never been down' aspect of his boxing totality then I think he's very, very good, but not special. Roy Jones is special. LeBron James is special. It's down to the fast twitch muscles and other sh*t like that. Bernard's real gift, his greatest aspect, is his boxing brain. His longevity obviously has to be taken into question, but I think his clean living has as much to do with that as genetic propensity/athletic ability.
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