Heavyweight Champ With Lowest IQ

[Offic.Scorecard]

I agree, none of the champs were exactly stupid. But here's a preliminary vote for Joe Frazier having perhaps the lowest IQ of the bunch.

First of all, I can't imagine him doing well on an IQ "test."

But interviews are a half-decent indicator, and the ones he did with Ali -- obviously among the very smartest HW champs ever -- always seemed to leave old Joe looking a pretty slow, kind of out there, missing the point, taking things too literally and too seriously.

Ringside at the first Leonard/Duran fight, Frazier was asked by an announcer, "Does Roberto Duran remind you of anyone?" Frazier responded, "Charles Manson." The announcer clearly was trying to suggest that Duran's fighting style was reminiscent of Frazier's own, but of course he missed that.

(In Frazier's defense, the facial resemblance of a bearded Duran to Manson wasn't that far off.)

No man, on the contrary, his Manson quote was great because he reframed the question and answered it as if the question was about Duran's look. Not only that, but he also drew a parallel between his ferociousness with, well... Manson's lunacy. So it was a very intelligent and timeless answer. Now about his interviews with Ali... Frazier just wasn't a confrontational type of person and was an introvert without charisma, the complete opposite of Ali. That's all to it. Not being confrontational isn't a lack of intelligence. I have no intention to brag but it was never in my nature neither, so I had to learn and get accustomed to answering the rudeness with rudeness without feeling guilty for doing so, and I have an above the average IQ.

[billeau2]

Intelligence

People don't often understand Intelligence. People express it in different ways. You can take an islander who does not even use written language, who has made his body such that he can dive and stay under water for almost ten minutes at a time....some more. Does that take intelligence? lets see what is intelligence? It is adapting to the environment.

So when a mathmatical minded individual can demonstrate an idea abstractly, that might become a technological break through, we stereotype that as intelligence. If we had this discussion in the 1700s abstract mathmatics would be considered a trivial pursuit next to learning languages and rhetoric.

To me the one constant is the one thing that cannot be improved upon, learened, and used by an artificial entity (at least not yet). That would be creativity. We love to speculate how fire, the thumb saved our butts, but to me? The guy who was chased by a tiger, saw a long twine and a rock and figured out that if he put that rock in the twine he could have a distance weapon against the Tiger, is the real hero.

To be a professional fighter one must have a relatively intelligent concept of the body and how it extends into physical space.

[Luccio]

Mike Tyson may have been one of the most intelligent heavyweight champions of all time.

i'd like to hear the logic behind that statement...

RING IQ, Deontay Wilder is probably outside of the ring clued up. But his ring IQ is pretty much straight forward.

disagree. wilder has one of the better ring iqs in heavyweight championship history.

wilder clearly has a better ring iq than mike tyson, anthony joshua, rocky marciano, joe frazier, ken norton, andy ruiz, joseph parker, chagaev, povetkin, akiwande, jess willard.
jack johnson, jack sharky, primo carnera, herbie hyde, francisco damiani, tony tucker, gerry coetzee, ernie terrel, floyd patterson
sony liston etc

and i think its no coincidence he would ko everyone on that list....

[smeck]

LEON SPINKS.

Poor guy looked stupid, acted stupid outside the ring. And IN the ring was lucky his flailing managed to overwhelm an older and unprepared ALI. And ALI got the title back from the partying simpleton.

Bowe, probably second, with all the dumb things he did outside the ring. But being one of the few heavyweights I ever met, I can't rank him #1! He also was a bit straight-faced sly. He signed a photo for me and said, "OK, that'll be ten bucks." Just to get a reaction. A second later, he did that "just kidding" smile. He didn't seem that low I.Q. to me.

Third would be Tyson Fury, because you have to have a low I.Q. to be proud of being a Gypsy while trashing ***s. As in: "be brainwashed by all the Zionist, ***ish people who own all the banks, all the papers all the TV stations. Be brainwashed by them all.”

No surprise this idiot had drug problems and was a mental case for a year or two. For the record, the biggest banks in the world are in China and Japan, along with HSBC (CEO named Burke) and JP Morgan Chase (CEO named Dimon) and Bank of America (CEO named Moynihan). No ***s. As for the newspapers, Murdoch ain't ***ish. Very few movie executives and TV executives these days, too. So for Fury to run his mouth like that was pretty dumb.

[Luccio]

LEON SPINKS.

Poor guy looked stupid, acted stupid outside the ring. And IN the ring was lucky his flailing managed to overwhelm an older and unprepared ALI. And ALI got the title back from the partying simpleton.

forgot about leon.
yeah he always seemed kinda dumb.
always had that functioning wino/druggie vibe...

Bowe, probably second, with all the dumb things he did outside the ring. But being one of the few heavyweights I ever met, I can't rank him #1! He also was a bit straight-faced sly. He signed a photo for me and said, "OK, that'll be ten bucks." Just to get a reaction. A second later, he did that "just kidding" smile. He didn't seem that low I.Q. to me.

why would you think bowe is dumb?
didnt seem dumb in interviews around the time of the holyfield fights....

unless you are simply and ignorantly judging him by his accent and speech pattern.
kinda racist.....

Third would be Tyson Fury, because you have to have a low I.Q. to be proud of being a Gypsy while trashing ***s. As in: "be brainwashed by all the Zionist, ***ish people who own all the banks, all the papers all the TV stations. Be brainwashed by them all.”

No surprise this idiot had drug problems and was a mental case for a year or two. For the record, the biggest banks in the world are in China and Japan, along with HSBC (CEO named Burke) and JP Morgan Chase (CEO named Dimon) and Bank of America (CEO named Moynihan). No ***s. As for the newspapers, Murdoch ain't ***ish. Very few movie executives and TV executives these days, too. So for Fury to run his mouth like that was pretty dumb.

yeah fury is dumb as a potato.

but to be fair he never went to school.
and his mother and father are brother and sister (probably)

[QueensburyRules]

i'd like to hear the logic behind that statement...





disagree. wilder has one of the better ring iqs in heavyweight championship history.

wilder clearly has a better ring iq than mike tyson, anthony joshua, rocky marciano, joe frazier, ken norton, andy ruiz, joseph parker, chagaev, povetkin, akiwande, jess willard.
jack johnson, jack sharky, primo carnera, herbie hyde, francisco damiani, tony tucker, gerry coetzee, ernie terrel, floyd patterson
sony liston etc

and i think its no coincidence he would ko everyone on that list....

- -You talking Deyonce the bronze Bambi who beat Stiverne for the TBA short notice title?

Who fights for peanuts vs AJs dollars?

You from Dumb World too?

[PRINCEKOOL]

i'd like to hear the logic behind that statement...





disagree. wilder has one of the better ring iqs in heavyweight championship history.

wilder clearly has a better ring iq than mike tyson, anthony joshua, rocky marciano, joe frazier, ken norton, andy ruiz, joseph parker, chagaev, povetkin, akiwande, jess willard.
jack johnson, jack sharky, primo carnera, herbie hyde, francisco damiani, tony tucker, gerry coetzee, ernie terrel, floyd patterson
sony liston etc

and i think its no coincidence he would ko everyone on that list....

Deontay Wilder drops rounds consistently, he is not hard to out box 'These are the facts, everyone on this site and within boxing know's this'.

[Luccio]

- -You talking Deyonce the bronze Bambi who beat Stiverne for the TBA short notice title?

Who fights for peanuts vs AJs dollars?

You from Dumb World too?

what the hell are you talking about? 😂

Deontay Wilder drops rounds consistently, he is not hard to out box 'These are the facts, everyone on this site and within boxing know's this'.

i dont think you understand what "ring iq" means..

joe frazier and mike tyson were even EASIER to outbox...

[smeck]

why would you think bowe is dumb?
didnt seem dumb in interviews around the time of the holyfield fights....

unless you are simply and ignorantly judging him by his accent and speech pattern.
kinda racist.....

I was noting others in this thread, who kept mentioning Bowe. I think some of them were referring to Big Daddy's problems outside the ring, and times when it seemed he was out of it; not really thinking straight. That's why they rated him as one of the dumbest heavyweights.

But you noticed that I said that when I met him, he seemed fine to me. So I placed him second.

A lot of people do judge by race or poor grammar. Just because somebody isn't a polished speaker doesn't mean he's stupid. Some, like Tyson and Ali, became more skilled and educated as they got older. Their initial passion to learn everything about their craft extended to wanting to learn more about religion, for example.

I spoke to Larry Sloman, Tyson's co-writer, and congratulated him on a great book. He told me, "That's all Mike." Meaning, unlike a lot of ghosting, Larry didn't do research and then use Mike's "voice." What Mike said in interviews with Larry was pretty much good enough. Larry just edited and smoothed it out, but Mike spoke in complete sentences and very colorfully too. Mike's recreation of his encounter with Blood Green is hilarious. Larry apparently just had the recorder running, and didn't need to do much polishing.

But we can hear that sometimes when Sugar Ray, Big George or Paulie are behind the microphone. They speak very well, and a transcript would be good reading.

It's a stereotype that the Southern drawl indicates a lower IQ than a Boston accent. Smart people know that IQ isn't everything, and that street smarts mean something. Sometimes simple words get the point across better than five-syllable college words. Sometimes a C&W song can be poetry, and a Redd Foxx or Moms Mabley can be as sharp as Mark Twain.

George Plimpton was as erudite as could be. He edited "The Paris Review," and spoke in a Princeton way, if not Harvard. I was very glad to meet him, and get his autograph on his book about boxing. For all his expertise with language, he loved to quote the world's shortest poem. It was from Muhammad Ali: "Me? Whee!"

[QueensburyRules]

- -Ali was so dumb that his HS had to make several exceptions to pass him.

Helped him get out of the draft when he couldn't pass a basic military intelligence exam.

Today he could never be Ali. They'd have him on Ritalin for hyperactivity and he'd be diagnosed with something akin to dyslexia and dosed up for that.

Off camera young Clay could be insightful and though sprinkled with local idioms, he spoke clearly and obviously reasonably intelligent. More importantly, he gained much wisdom as he aged and altered many of his views. Nobody was ever more generous, but occasionally he could be quite cruel to those closest to him, still a bit paradoxical.

Bowe and Wilder not only thugs, but dubble dumb thugs and never seen anything to contradict that. Bowe at least had a hi IQ thug manager who understood his limitations to match him brilliantly to secure one of the largest contracts in athletic history and brought in Futch to teach him some basics.