Shavers: NOT the hardest punching heavyweight of all time

He was a consistently hard puncher that threw haymakers like nobodies business. Watching him against Lyle, and any other fight you can get your hands on you can clearly see that the man had some serious power. The hardest? Maybe not, but he deserves to be up there with the best of them. I mean, Rocky Marciano was considered a hard puncher (if not the hardest) and has physical attributes that boggle the mind.

I think that Shavers had similar power to men like Foreman and Liston, he just lacked the ability to deliver. But when he did deliver it was over.

 

Let's put it this way: The hardest puncher in any division may be some unknown tomato can, not good enough in any other area to become known. That's talking about pure brute force with no statement whatsoever about how they find the target with speed/skill, etc. Shavers seems to have the best case for hardest hitting name heavyweight, to me, but with the hopefully obvious understanding that he is nowhere near the level of Liston and Foreman in other areas. Only power.

 

That's the only thing that gets me scratching my head a little bit. I have no doubts whatsoever that Shavers was truly devastating in terms of raw punching power (and if Magna Nasakki, whose posts I trust, vouches for it, I'm not about to doubt him)...but other guys besides Holmes have gotten off the deck and absorbed monster shots to either finish the fight and/or beat Shavers.

It probably doesn't help that he was a a surprisingly bad finisher if the other guy wasn't knocked cold. With power like that, guys shouldn't have been able to get off the hook once Shavers got to them, but it turned out to be a bit of a recurring theme.

 

I agree but you have to remember that fighters often like to cliam the guy they beat hit/went the distance with harder than the one that just whacked them out. Two classic examples I can think of:

Henry Clark said the hardest puncher he met was not Shavers (who blasted him out), not Liston (who minced him) or even Foreman (whom he sparred with) but...Eddie Machen and guess what? He just happened to beat Machen.

Jimmy Young claimed Greg Page hit harder than Gerry Cooney. :yep


...and while we're on the subject of Shavers, Tillis said Tyson hit harder than him. Maybe it was just a case of Mike landing better, cleaner punches in the respective fights.

 

Tillis has said both. After the good effort against Tyson, he went onto claim Tyson the hardest puncher, but years later in an autobiography he said Shavers was the hardest puncher who ever fought.

Shavers punched as hard as anybody. I don't think it's humanly possible to hit much harder. He'd hurt anyone if he caught them right, including Ali and Holmes. But he was far from the most effective puncher out there.

 

Tyson and Liston look to me to be the most destructive punchers ever. People dont like mentioning Tyson because he is too mainstream. But he sent many a huge ****er flying or reeling with even just a jab. Liston, i only came to appreciate recently, he hit like a truck, one blow no matter where it landed would move his opponents whole body. Both men utterly destroyed people

 

This thread has a bunch of weird avatars.

 

Why couldn't he finish opponents if he hit so hard? Surely if he was the biggest hitter of all time people would be severely impaired after getting a good shot from him and he'd get the TKO eventually.

Gloves these days have more cushioning and are safer then ever, but the modern day bombers get there men out of there pretty quickly.

I just fail to see how a man of his era, where training and diets are far less scientific can compete with the men of today.

21st Century athlete's have Far better diets and better training techniques and are more athletic and far stronger.

 

I think that we have to acknowledge that Shavers hit harder than Foreman in terms of raw power.

There are just too many common opponents testifying to it to dismiss them all.

I am equaly satisfied that Max Baer hit harder than Joe Louis for the same reason.

 

I think he is, he's a complete powerpuncher and in terms of raw hayemaking powerpunches he has some of the best technique of the big punchers. He turns his punches over better than the likes of Foreman to get more torque into them, so I certainly think he had more power than Foreman. He sits on his punches well to get the bodyweight shift from 1 side of the body to the punching hand - something Foreman doesn't do either. He also has punchers shoulders and back from hitting tires with sledge hammers. He had a great teacher in Archie Moore so it's no suprise he's a great puncher.

KO's are about many things other than power, placement for 1, being able to throw a constant barrage of punches, timing, being able to throw from a variety of ranges (ie short compact as well as wide long punches), being able to throw punches your opponent can't see coming and thus couldn't brace themselves to take them. In terms of punch output, short punches and not telegraphing, well Shavers wasn't too hot on those

 

who did ken norton say was harder foreman or shavers?

 

Its one punch power that people consider him to be the best at. his finishing ability and overall skill let him down at the highest level. when he connected flush, very few survived

 

In terms of simply raw punching power, how highly do you guys rate Max Baer?

 

He didn't finish them because he got too wild, which was already mentioned. That's why I said that Muhammad Ali has KO wins that are better than any of Foremans, but Foreman was clearly the harder puncher. It almost always comes down to not who has the most power, but who has the better technique, timing, speed, accuracy, those sorts of things. That's why most people say Shavers was the hardest puncher, not the best puncher.