Do you consider Old Foreman a "real" heavyweight champion

Like most say, beating moorer definitely ensured championship status, he just didn't retain or defend it for very long and very quickly became a paper champ.

 

Indeed. He beat Moorer KO10, who beat Holyfield WMD12, who beat Bowe W12, who beat Holyfield W12, who beat Douglas KO3, who beat Mike Tyson KO10, who beat Michael Spinks KO1, who beat Holmes W15, who beat Ali KO10... and so on.

He didn't have a great reign but he was the HW Champ. He won the IBF and WBA belts from Moorer but was quickly stripped of the WBA belt for not defended vs. Tony Tucker. Seldon won the vacant title by beating Tucker KO7.

Foreman defended the IBF belt vs. Schulz, W12. The fight was very close and Foreman did not want to give Schulz a rematch. The IBF stripped Foreman of the belt due to this.

Foreman had no belt but was still the lineal HW Champ. He fought Crawford Grimsley next, W12. In Grimsley's next fight he lasted 10 seconds vs. Jimmy Thunder.

Foreman's last two fights were very competitive bouts. He beat Lou Savarese W12 and lost to Shannon Briggs L12. Briggs went on to fight Lewis for the WBC HW belt. Many had considered Briggs the lineal HW Champ after his win over Foreman.

I thought Foreman beat Briggs and should have went on to fight Lewis regardless of Foreman's age or the fight odds. It would have meant more than the Leiws vs. Briggs fight.

 

Belt holder. Great accomplishment to come back and beat some good fighters, but not a real champ.

 

I agree, a champion should always defend his title when a challenge arrives unless he is injured or something like that.

 

Typical of many of the heavyweight champions of the 90's particularly the latter part.

 

He beat the man (Moorer) who beat the man (Holyfield), who beat everybody. He was Lineal HW Champ when he beat Moorer... like it or not!

 

any legit big heavyweight like Bowe,Lennox,Foreman, Tua would stop Moorer. He was undefeated but not a great champion at all. The Morrison fight was for the belt which in 1993 when they fought was legit enough if I recall, and Foreman could not get to Morrison. Foreman was a strong fighter but I was never impressed with his second career. Fighting handpicked guys and then losing to 2/3 of the heavyweight champions he fought, and 2 of those guys started off below heavyweight like Evander and Moorer.

 

What the **** does lineage mean anyways?

So what if foreman is the lineal belt holder when you have bowe holding the wbo, tyson holding the wbc/wba and moorer holding the ibf.

 

As REAL as it gets.

 

Well, it's like Michael Spinks going into the Tyson fight... Lineal HW Champ but not the best HW and the belt he had now belonged to somebody else.

 

Yes I think you have to consider him such. He was the weakest champion however.

 

you have to give him credit for, years later, dominating a very strong contender in briggs

 

Yeah that's another example when lineage meant nothing.

Especially considering spinks blatantly lost the rematch to holmes and didn't fight a ranked hw after that until tyson anyways.

Even worse than foreman's status, however is briggs's status considering he blatantly lost to foreman who by then was as big a paper champ as it gets.

Being the lineal champ used to be a big deal when boxing thrived on the idea of one champ per division and you had to beat him to take his belt.

It was even a big deal when there were two belts so you could track who the "real" champ was (although there's some bad lineages even then such as serrano being sfw lineal champ whilst arguello was sfw wbc champ)

But in today's world the big prize isn't lineage, it's unification and even if that means one guy lost his belts outside the ring, the one who unifies will be recognised as the true champ.

See tyson in 87, tyson in 96, holyfield in 97, lewis in 99, jones in 98 etc.

 

no

 

Yes, of course..(revisionismatsch)