This content is protected He also got shutout on the cards by Tommy Morrison Tyson, Bowe, Lewis all would have murdered the senior citizen in the early 1990s.
agreed in a sense but i like his 90s fights better mainly because he was diminished...in the 70s he either ran his opponents over in 2 rounds or lost (the ali loss being pretty good fight actually). in the 90s there was always the air of excitement...is this fat old man gonna die? Is he gonna knock the other guy out? Will that suddenly iron chin hold up? made for better fights imo
I have been rewatching his post Lyle -Pre-Young bouts and George was getting his act together nicely .. he was using his jab, controlling his punching and fighting much better than the wild freak show of the Ali - Toronto 5 - Lyle bouts ... his fight against Scott Ledoux displayed exceptional power .. LeDoux had a cast iron chin and Foreman iced him .. he threw massive bombs against Agusto and forget what he did to Joe the second time , just nasty and brutal ... you really have to wonder just how stupid his management could be to put him in against a safety first cutie/spoiler like Jimmy Young in a tropical weather climate ... he did not have to take that fight .. he was the big name .. it was terribly stupid match making and it likely had a major impact on the heavyweight division for two decades to come ..
i was so excited when I finally got a bootleg of foreman/lyle. i'd heard about it for years, how amazing it was. and what i saw was....not
He tired after 8 rounds of fighting though. I just think its stupid to say this was his absolute physical prime, in a fight he lost, its going against common sense. I think he looks better against Frazier than Norton [ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W9q7mvc6bsY[/ame] Theres the Frazier fight, Joe comes straight at Foreman and tries to push him back, George doesn't like this that is why he is pushing him back its not an attempt to get him to the ropes. And watch as soon as Foreman hits Frazier he keeps him on the back foot, and watch his timing and accuracy, for a crude swinger he didnt miss much. Now Ali [ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JQyHUth-65E[/ame] He dosent attempt to cut off the ring at all, well he does but its an awful attempt, Ali pretty much backs up willingly to the ropes, and you will notice as soon as he wants to Ali spins off them ropes no problem. George did hardly any effective pressing to the ropes as you say, and as for catching the punches, he caught them well with his face, the only shots he blocked was the pawing jabs from Ali. And another thing look at his accuracy and timing on Ali, he's got more chance of hitting Howard Cossel at ringside than he did Ali with them shots. OK, the styles of each figther could play a part of it, but Frazier had a decnt defence and Foreman was tearing right through it, but he could hardly touch Ali at times.