Greatest Achievement By a Heavyweight

[lufcrazy]

Originally Posted by Unforgiven

George Foreman's comeback is miles better than Vitali's imo.
The man was walking around at 300+ pounds for almost 10 years, came back at 38 years old starting with tomato can opponents in carnival tents, training in his basement. It started out as an odd backwater curiosity story, no one predicted it would lead anywhere at all.
You can even ignore the Moorer win, or anything past 1991 - going 12 rounds with champion Holyfield was enough to make it an unbelievable story. Like a Rocky film.

Vitali had a great comeback, but he spent those four years in shape and getting his shoulder rested and surgically fixed. He had a team around him priming him for a comeback. He had the WBC beckoning him back.

yeah vitali is more successful with his comeback that's why I rate it higher.

Originally Posted by Senor Pepe'

George Foreman,,,,,,,

Beating himself in October 1974.

Never been done before or after.

Ali set a bear trap and Foreman willingly fell into it.

[Unforgiven]

Second only to Tony Galento's 50 hot dogs before winning a fight, I think when Muhammad Ali turned off the light switch in his hotel room and was in bed before the room was dark.

These are unparallelled achievements.

[locard]

Originally Posted by Unforgiven

George Foreman's comeback is miles better than Vitali's imo.
The man was walking around at 300+ pounds for almost 10 years, came back at 38 years old starting with tomato can opponents in carnival tents, training in his basement. It started out as an odd backwater curiosity story, no one predicted it would lead anywhere at all.
You can even ignore the Moorer win, or anything past 1991 - going 12 rounds with champion Holyfield was enough to make it an unbelievable story. Like a Rocky film.

Vitali had a great comeback, but he spent those four years in shape and getting his shoulder rested and surgically fixed. He had a team around him priming him for a comeback. He had the WBC beckoning him back.

GTFO, Foreman returned and spent years fighting vile bums before a lucky punch to jelly jawed Moorer (who was kicking his ass before that punch) made him ¨champ¨ again, he was never a relevant force in the 90's, in the biggest fights he was just awesome as a punching bag. He didn't return after a 4 year layoff to utterly DESTROY a WBC champ without breaking a sweat in his first match, and become the most feared man in the division even to this day

Vitali's comeback is the best in history

but ofc, Foreman's comeback is more impressive for nostalgists, K2 haters and soap opera lovers

Originally Posted by Unforgiven

I think when Muhammad Ali turned off the light switch in his hotel room and was in bed before the room was dark.

Prime Ali did that every night.

[Unforgiven]

Originally Posted by locard

GTFO, Foreman returned and spent years fighting vile bums before a lucky punch to jelly jawed Moorer (who was kicking his ass before that punch) made him ¨champ¨ again, he was never a relevant force in the 90's, in the biggest fights he was just awesome as a punching bag. He didn't return after a 4 year layoff to utterly DESTROY a WBC champ without breaking a sweat in his first match, and become the most feared man in the division even to this day

Vitali's comeback is the best in history

but ofc, Foreman's comeback is more impressive for nostalgists, K2 haters and soap opera lovers

No, you're wrong. You're missing the point. No one's come close to doing what Foreman did. Bowe tried something similar, and slipped up on his 2nd fight after a SD "win" against Billy Zumrun.

Vitali was in training when he retired in late 2005, pulling out of the Rahman fight again. Three years later he was fit enough to beat Sam Peter at age 37. And he beat a few other contenders after that. And, yes, he's more formidable than the old Foreman. yeah, that's great. But he wasn't coming back from what Foreman came back from.

Foreman was completely out of the game for 10 years, after an awful bad performance, walking around 80 pounds overweight being a preacher. He had no business even coming back to be a sparring partner or a 'punching bag', nevermind going the distance or knocking out Holyfield or Moorer.
Fighters don't come back from ten year lay-offs, not even slightly.

Ali's comeback was better than Vitali's anyway.

[blagovech]

Joe Louis 25 consecutive lineal title defenses a record that hase not been broken since

[dmille]

Foreman KO10 Moorer

[HOUDINI]

Foreman coming back to ko the true hwt champion to regain the title 20 years after losing it. You just don't see this kind of thing happening in any major sport.

[kmac]

foreman regaining the title 20 yrs later comes to mind but i think douglas over tyson deserves a mention. another great achievement is how a 5'6" man had top heavyweights run away from him. (langford)

[Seamus]

Originally Posted by Unforgiven

No, you're wrong. You're missing the point. No one's come close to doing what Foreman did. Bowe tried something similar, and slipped up on his 2nd fight after a SD "win" against Billy Zumrun.

Vitali was in training when he retired in late 2005, pulling out of the Rahman fight again. Three years later he was fit enough to beat Sam Peter at age 37. And he beat a few other contenders after that. And, yes, he's more formidable than the old Foreman. yeah, that's great. But he wasn't coming back from what Foreman came back from.

Foreman was completely out of the game for 10 years, after an awful bad performance, walking around 80 pounds overweight being a preacher. He had no business even coming back to be a sparring partner or a 'punching bag', nevermind going the distance or knocking out Holyfield or Moorer.
Fighters don't come back from ten year lay-offs, not even slightly.

Ali's comeback was better than Vitali's anyway.

Foreman lost to, or at the very least had some help from the judges against damn near every decent heavy he fought in his comeback...

Stewart
Morrison
Holyfield
Schultz
Savarese

He won exactly 10 seconds of his fight versus Moorer.

So, he has the best 10 seconds of any comeback ever, but not perhaps the best comeback ever.

[Asterion]

Ali followed by Louis. I also respect a lot what Holmes did, his unbeaten streak is the longest of any heavyweight.

Foreman and Vitali Klitschko had great achievements too. Foreman had a shit comeback career and was slow as hell, but had a lot of perseverance and ended up regaining the titie in 1994. Klitschko returned to fight after 4 years of inactivity and still dominated and beat the shit out of most of his opponents.

Who cares if Tyson beat Berbick at 20 or 21. His career ended 3 years later.

So:

1. Ali winning the title in Zaire.
2. Louis reign and 25 title defenses.
3. Holmes undefeated between 1973 and 1985.
4. Vitali Klitschko / George Foreman comebacks.

[TheSouthpaw]

[quote=Unforgiven;14277832]Johnson beating little Tommy Burns wasn't that great, imo.[/quote

I heard that !

[zadfrak]

How about a shout for Mike Weaver?

Vietnam vet. Never had a promoter backing him and was a regional California fighter suffering numerous early ko defeats to assorted opponents. Then he fights Tate in John's backyard and once again was a big underdog. Just like Mike's earlier fights when he stepped up. And Tate is flat out dominating him.

There he is miles behind in the fight. If it's golf, he needed 2 consecutive holes in one for the 17th and 18th holes to win the match. And somehow he did it.

And he did it as conclusively as the sport has seen for all the marbles--the heavyweight championship of the world. He ruined John Tate. And this was a true rags to riches hollywood type ending for a guy never taking the easy path.

[zadfrak]

The other guy is the cinderella man & Weaver is kind of a current times equivalent of that. But Braddock winning the title from another heavyweight slugger deemed unbeatable was as big of a journey as anyone's. Massive underdog. Funny how the heavyweight puncher's are always the guys deemed "unbeatable" and yet they tended to be the guys getting licked--Foreman/Liston/Tyson/Baer/Dempsey even.