Arnold discusses Wilt's strength...

[Tumakapac713]

The older the player the more overrated he is. People will always say, that Wilt>>>Shaq,Dream, Whoever and that Cousy would probably dominate the hell out of today's NBA )) It's like this in every sport. I bet in 50 years time people will be saying that Dwight could lift 800 and dunk from 3 point line ))
And yeah, there's no way he could bench press 500, people who claim he could don't know a single thing about body building and human body.

Most peoples' rankings on this board have Shaq and Olajuwon ahead or right on par with Wilt and I haven't seen anybody claim that Cousy would dominate in today's game.

[BostnStranglr22]

We are not talking about men from ancient Greece being on par with the athletes we see today, we are talking about less than a half century ago which is totally reasonable to believe especially when corroborated by men that are still living.

Yep, Harvey Pollack was the man that wrote the 100 point sign that Wilt held up. He was the 76ers statistician at that time and he still works for the 76ers this present day. He has seen all the greats for the last 5o years in the NBA so he knows the game.

Moses Malone was an awesome center for the Sixers, you are talking about a guy that put up about 27 ppg and 17 boards winning the mvp and Pollack said that Wilt would have dominated him. He has no bias there because both guys were 76ers greats.

Also you have great basketball minds that were teammates with Wilt like Billy Cunningham and Jerry West that say he is the most dominant player ever.

I don't know why Arnold called him cheap because Wilt was well known for donating tons of cash to Philadelphia area charities.

[BJ43]

One of my favourite Wilt moments, his reaction to Glen Rice beating his AllStar record for points in a qtr

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vShi7hQSL1k[/youtube]

**skip to the 10 min mark if you only want to see his reaction

Points in a half....

Correct, he broke both, except I was wrong the qtr wasn't held by Wilt, the half record was wilt's though so yes I should have fixed that

[Johnny Firpo]

Nobody will say Dwight could bench 500 pounds and dunk from the 3pt line because nobody has ever seen him do either of those things! When it comes to Wilt these are not Bible stories of 2000 years ago, people that are still alive and not insane are saying he did these things, they saw him do it. I 100% guarantee nobody 40 years from now is going to say Dwight was dunking from the 3pt line but the cameras were never rolling when he did it.

Remarkable freak athletes did exist on our planet in the 60's and 70's, we are not in a genetically exclusive period of time in which we have exclusivity to amazing transcending athletes. Bob Beamon held the long jump record by a wide margin for over 20 years. Alexander Karelin is still widely regarded as the hands down best wrestler that's ever lived. Nobody thinks Sidney Crosby is as good a hockey player as Gretzky, Lemieux or Orr even though he clearly has access to better nutrition and training methods.

We are not talking about men from ancient Greece being on par with the athletes we see today, we are talking about less than a half century ago which is totally reasonable to believe especially when corroborated by men that are still living.

Great post, agree with 100%, even though i'm sure some of Wilt's feat are a little bit over exaggerated here and there. Still, i agree with your post's premise 100%.

[Beard]

He's the most amazing physical specimen to ever be in the NBA - by a very wide margin - and I don't have any reason to believe anyone will ever surpass him.

[bledredwine]

People currently have the lowest recorded testosterone of all time.

If anything, people were stronger then. Look at the NBA in the 70s.... those guys were swole as hell.

Players like N. Archibald? WTF.

People used to go out more, there was less technology... they walked and traveled to do everything. No way are we the strongest now. We have a greater population, but IMO the average person is not as strong OR as smart (for instance, we have no idea how they built Notre Dame and all of these cathedrals even with our technology and advancements)... I'd be willing to bet that the greatest athletes existed centuries ago.

I mean, you had guys like this. That's straight up veins and brute strength, solid muscle, not the high-reps soft muscle you most often see. Those guys were lean then like Bulls.

[Serge28]

sum-up?

Dude, it's a 3 minute clip! Are you serious?

[KembaWalker]

Its crazy to me how people think Wilt or KAJ were overrated. a 7'2 stiff with a mediocre jumpshot like Hibbert is a max contract player in todays league, but Wilt and Kareem couldn't dominate?? LOL

[moocow007]

Here's some of Andre during his younger years...he was extremely well known even before his wrestling career hit full steam.





Much like Wilt and Arnold, Andre also apparently was very much into picking up the ladies.

[Wet Js]

When I first read the title of this thread, I was anticipating the OP meant the strength of Wilt's "stilt"

[Frank Mulely]

Wilt is the Paul Bunyan of the NBA. Gotta love it

[Scubetrolis]

wilt chamberlain doesnt look strong at all...he looks skinny in every picture i have ever seen of him.

[Ming Kong!]

wilt chamberlain doesnt look strong at all...he looks skinny in every picture i have ever seen of him.

College and pre-Lakers days yes, but he got big, around310-320lbs in his later years in the league:

[Doctor MJ]

There are legendary stories of Andre the Giants strength too. I can't help but wonder if they tried some feats of strength to see who was stronger.

Andre the Giants strength legends are actually WAY off. I'm someone who is skeptical about any Wilt feat in general, but I do think he's pretty much the pinnacle athlete we've ever seen. Andre on the other hand had a disease called Acromegaly which among other things causes serious issues with weakness. This isn't weakness in the sense that he can't lift a suitcase, but rather in the sense that one will have serious issues holding up one's own body given the great amount of weight it has to support. The muscle strength does not grow proportionally with the size. So he's strong, but not nearly as strong as you'd think given how big he was.

[Dipper 13]

wilt chamberlain doesnt look strong at all...he looks skinny in every picture i have ever seen of him.

November 29, 1965

NEW YORK (NEA)—The cop guarding the door to the Philadelphia dressing room in Madison Square Garden spryly ducked aside when Wilt Chamberlain charged in at halftime.

"Whew! Don't ever want to get in that man's way," said the special policeman, who stood a foot shorter and weighed 80 pounds less than Chamberlain. 'He may look tall and skinny, but let me tell you he's one big, strong man."

Chamberlain reminds me of the story of the guy who mated a wild bull with a tiger," the cop went on. "The guy didn't know' what to call it, but when it growled, he listened.

"It's much the same in the National Basketball Association. When the goateed 76ers' superstar so much as moves a muscle, somebody else twitches. "Wilt can make it as easy or as tough on you as he wants," said Ray Scott, the Detroit Pistons' burly 6-10 center-forward. Sure, he expects guys playing against him to play as hard as he does, and he respects you for it.

"But any guy who wants to play, 'who's boss?' with Wilt had better forget it," Scott laughed.

"He's so strong, so tough and so basketball-wise that he can bruise you up under the boards and make it look easy."

Chamberlain, it must be noted, has never fouled out of an NBA game.

Scott recalled a time he outmaneuvered Chamberlain beneath the bucket to snatch a rebound. Or so he thought.

"I was holding that ball just as tightly as I could, and Wilt reached over me and grabbed it away with one hand—just like that!" Scott said.

Did Scott learn anything from that experience?

"Yeah, I learned not to be surprised if it happens again."

The New York Knicks' 6-11 center, Walt Bellamy, no weakling himself, says Chamberlain's physical strength is his greatest asset in basketball, not his height, which is 7-1, nor his reach, which is way up there.

"There are a few players who can jump with Wilt," Bellamy said. "There's no one, though, who can outmuscle him for the ball, or consistently out-position him under the boards, or impede his dunk shot and his driving for the basket."

Bellamy claims that on "pure physical strength," Chamberlainis in a class by himself in the NBA. "The gap between Wilt and the next strongest player is a big one."

Jimmy Brown, the great and powerful Cleveland Browns fullback, one of Chamberlain's close friends, calls Wilt "the strongest athlete in the world, bar none."

Massive Wayne Embry of the Cincinnati Royals has said of Wilt: "He has muscles he doesn't even know about."

And so on.

Granted Chamberlain is strong, but, just how strong is he? Is it true he can clean and jerk 435 pounds; does he workout regularly with weights; does he agree with Brown that he's the strongest athlete in the world; has he ever met a man whose strength compares with his?

"Compare, compare," Chamberlain snapped back at the questions. "Man, why does somebody always want to compare me with something or someone?"

Wilt has said those questions come under what he calls the"goon bit" and made it quite clear once again he's tired of answering them.

"You see me on the court. You know I can play ball. Everybody knows what I can do," he said. "As far as my strength goes, let's just say I'm strong and let it go at that."

Fine, Wilt, Anything you say, fella.

[D.Brasco]

There are legendary stories of Andre the Giants strength too. I can't help but wonder if they tried some feats of strength to see who was stronger.

Andre the Giants strength legends are actually WAY off. I'm someone who is skeptical about any Wilt feat in general, but I do think he's pretty much the pinnacle athlete we've ever seen. Andre on the other hand had a disease called Acromegaly which among other things causes serious issues with weakness. This isn't weakness in the sense that he can't lift a suitcase, but rather in the sense that one will have serious issues holding up one's own body given the great amount of weight it has to support. The muscle strength does not grow proportionally with the size. So he's strong, but not nearly as strong as you'd think given how big he was.

I've been somewhat skeptical of andre as well for the same reason i've never been sure how strong he really was. His back pains were so debilitating during his filming of the princess bride he needed wires to be attached to the little girl he had to pick up. However do you believe arnold about how he and wilt used to pick him up so easily? not so much if wilt could but andre?

Arnold at that time was probably a good 220 lbs+ (he was 235 lbs in his bodybuilding days) so it wouldn't be an easy task to lift him up as easily as arnold says these guys did.

Paul white the big show is known to be quite strong but he had his disorder taken care unlike andre.

[Kabookalu]

Hank Stram was asked if Jerry Rice was the greatest WR he ever saw. Stram said “2nd best…. I had a guy come to camp one year and ran a 4.4 40yrd dash in dress shoes. He was faster than Rice and had huge hands that could catch a football like nobody I ever saw. He was the greatest leaper I ever saw and he could go up and get a pass that nobody could defend.” Dick Enberg then asked ” Why couldnt anyone guard him?” Stram said “because he was over 7 ft tall” Enberg then answered “Why didnt you sign him?” “He wanted to play QB” “What was his name?” “Wilt Chamberlain”

[bledredwine]

^^^

see?

There are simply too many credible witnesses for the Wilt stores to be BS>

On top of that, we have pics of him jumping insane heights, even in game at older age.... and then all sorts of quotes.

It can be exaggerated, but there's just way too many of them to deny them all. The 100 points might as well be a fib as well, but it was seen by thousands of people with NO denying.

And about Andre the Giant: There's a pic of him in this thread right there with four well-sized women on his two arms, not even flinching. That's EXTREMELY difficult... that requires incredible arm strength. It's not like they're on his back.

[D.Brasco]

That pic was posted on another forum and the consensus was that it was likely staged. The back two women were likely on a shelf.

Here's a simialr pic that was staged with the big show. if he was really carrying these girls his fingers would at least be digging in their thighs.




I am very curious on how strong andre was though because i've heard varrying opinions on him. with pro wrestling its hard to get to the truth.

[bebopdeluxe]

no one cares about wilt these days, put mcgee in his era and hell score 200

thats insane disrespect. I really like McGee but Wilt would have dropped 40 on him without breaking a sweat.

theres really nobody in the league right now that would have given Wilt an even matchup inside.

Very much THIS