I will add: it was hard to leave some guys out, but due to space, i wanted to have Ron Lyle, Bob Satterfield, Ken Norton, Riddick Bowe, Gerry Cooney, Gerrie Coetzee, Mike Weaver, Luis Angel Firpo, Young Stribling, Cleveland Williams, Deontay Wilder (obviously), Tyson Fury, Mac Foster and a couple others who had bestial power, but I was constrained. It seemed unfair to leave some of the ones on my list out. Maybe i can do a secondary poll with those included?
Too right,Fergy. Shavers' right hand power matched anyone's but his left was little more than average by all accounts. Foreman and Liston had crowbars backed up by dynamite in BOTH hands.
I agree that Shavers´ right (especially the uppercut that took out Jimmy Ellis and Norton) hand bombs are arguably the strongest single punch in heavyweight history. His left hook pales in comparison but surprisingly the of all the punches that put Ron Lyle down was a hook: Happens about the 50 second mark This content is protected
No-one i can recall took Lyles soul like that with a single punch. Obviously that left hook was DYNAMITE. Look at the way he drops. If that hook was earlier in the round Shavers would have finished him because man was he a mess. For what it's worth Cobb said every punch Shavers hot you with was power laden. We also have to remember that only a minute percentage of Shavers KO's are on film. He has 70 of them. I wonder how many of the other 60+ involved left hooks?
Why isn't Wladimir Klitschko on the list? Looking at sheer size and his punching power, he may be the hardest hitter of them all.
Would of loved to see Shavers vs Kallie in a battle of the right hand bombers. This content is protected
Can't argue with that Stevie. When you look at what George did to Frazier, battered him all over the place, then smashing Ken Norton to the ground.. Power there, mate.
A fighter can only tell you who hit them the hardest in the fight they had. I might avoid Earnie Shavers in a contest and he never makes an impression on me for a number of reasons whilst Jimmy Young might just knock me dead and you’ll just end up with an odd ring magazine interview. My choice is Joe Louis because he hit hard like everyone else but he’d fight a circle around hitting you with so many hard committed punches his opponents probably felt surrounded.
Out of all those, I picked George Foreman but I’m wondering if perhaps Deontay Wilder should be on that list too.
