Punching power: Earnie Shavers or Wladimir Klitschko

I might be mistaken but I believe Chuvalo said that.

 

Nope, that's not quite how it works. Clearly you don't know much about boxing. There's a big difference between being able to deliver that power punch cleanly and accurately enough to turn the lights off a man then to just have him feel your power.

People routinely make the mistake of thinking club fighters probably often can't punch. It's generally an issue with skills. Club fighters potentially can have top level power, they're just not good enough or fast enough or skilled enough to deliver that power. I wouldn't say Shavers was a better puncher than Wlad because of speed, accuracy, etc. I would say he was a harder puncher, though. If you can't discern the difference outlined then no one can help you.

 

Oh I can discern the difference and didn't even comment on Klitschko just simply said that if Shavers was such a savage puncher he would have been able to finish someone off of note with one punch. Because that is what Heavyweight power punchers do. He didn't.

 

Jimmy Young was a tough, slippery fighter. Stopping him was something very significant.

 

What PTP said was right though and you can mention the same technique issues with Shavers. He hit extremely hard but look at his technique and stamina. Both were poor. If he had the technique of someone like Larry Holmes, he could have been a world champion but the fact is, he was wild and poor technically, which meant he didn't stop as many good fighters as he should have.

Given the fact he only had raw power without much finesse, stopping 69 opponents from 75 wins tells me he was a huge puncher.

 

He KOed nobody of note. Heavyweight power punchers are able to stop upper tier fighters with one punch. He couldn't. It is as simple as that.

 

I'm a G! To slick, to black. Neither ever was able to lay a glove on me so I don't really know which one punches harder. FACT!

 

You're confusing 'punching power' with 'boxing ability'. A boxer with all the power in the world will never knock out guys he's not skilled enough to hit clean.

 

What do you say regarding the testimony of fighters? Ali, Cobb, Holmes, Young, etc...?

Why would Ali pick out Shavers and not Foreman, whom he not only took gruesome body shots from but knocked out. He could've picked Frazier too, who dropped him. That would make him more heroic. No, all these fighters tended to say Shavers was the hardest puncher they ever fought.

Now, you can densely continue with the "Who did he KO?" mantra. If seeing a fighter knockout top quality opposition easiest, you would think Tyson might be the hardest HW champion of all time. Boxing fans know it generally takes speed, accuracy, technique, and follow up combinations to generally deliver a quick KO. Tyson had all of this in excess, which is why the eye test isn't enough for us to make the judgement call on how the hardest puncher is. Shavers had raw power in spades, as did guys like Bob Satterfield, and Julian Jackson. The biggest difference here is Shavers is probably the worst of that bunch. The technique, speed, accuracy, and stamina weren't always quite there. Why would he stop higher caliber fighters then he already had? He wasn't a higher quality fighter. That's why he wasn't stopping Muhammad Ali, Larry Holmes, and Jerry Quarry.

 

Perfectly said.

 

Tex Cobb had a superb chin.

[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LZROK-t5Pmo[/ame]

 

You said what I said far more concisely, Jack. Doubt it would get through, anyway.

 

dealdeal

 

Wladimir is clearly the harder puncher.

People who think otherwise are deluded idiots who don't know **** about boxing.

Just because you sport a black and white avatar and all your favorite boxers retired long ago doesn't mean you know **** about this sport.

 

Very good post.

It's 4am and I'm knackered, so I'll keep this point short. Even if Julian Jackson or Mike Tyson didn't have immense power, they would likely have still been around the world level, and Tyson in particular would probably have been a world champion on his skills alone. However, the sole reason we know about Earnie Shavers was his power. He lacked a chin, he lacked technique, he didn't have much stamina and he was lacking in many other areas. The one thing he had though, was his power. To make a name for yourself against some of the best fighters of all-time, in one of the greatest eras of all-time when you rely on only one thing? That is saying a massive amount about that one asset.

Nobody is going to argue that Shavers is some great fighter. He wasn't but if he didn't have monstrous power, we wouldn't be talking about him today because there wasn't anything else about him which was world class. The one thing he had, the one thing he relied upon, was his power and it took him an incredibly long way.

So, yeah, critics can talk about the fact he didn't knock out the big names of the division at the time, the likes of Larry Holmes and Muhammad Ali. That isn't an indication of his power though. The fact he was even able to get fights with those guys despite his failings, is the reflection of how impressive his power was. It carried a very limited fighter to the top.