hardest hitter of all time?

Who do you think that may have been Janitor?

 

For my money p4p, i would go with Lennox, at 250lbs the man had an explosive punch..


Runner up Foreman...

 

Joe Louis, Rocky Marciano,Dempsey,Tyson,Lewis,Baer,Foreman for the elite punchers who were Champions

 

No Riddick Bowe, Herbie Hide, V.Klitschko or W.Klitschko?

 

I think Foreman too. But hell, Shavers hit hard and so did a few others. Not sure its worth the argument trying to split hairs on. There's no way of actually proving your answer anyway. Probably just become another circular argument.

 

Then theres fighting Freddy Askew who was blown out in 1 round by a young Foreman. I asked Fred about it and he said he grew up on a farm in Tennessee and one day was kicked in the head by an enraged horse. At first they thought he was dead and he didn't wake up to the next day. Freddy said George hit harder.

 

Hide not in there, Bowe had power but not many quality guy KO's more of an attrition win over EH, Vitali more technique and size, Vlad fits in there but most of his quality fights have gone the distance but he has shown one punch power with both hands against Chambers,Brock,Austin, Byrd

 

I recall this from long ago. Old Scrap Iron also took some big blows from Quarry, wonder if the man is still with us?

 

Why not Hide? He did have a **** chin but had very fast hands, dynamite knockout power and he was a world champion.

Vitali has the highest KO percentage of any Hw champ. The fact that he liked to stay on the backfoot and box his opponents in some fights doesn't change the fact that he had insane KO power in both hands when he unloaded.

Bowe was a quality power puncher.

 

The original post: whether a man "wound up" or not thus WOULD he hit harder with different technique is a totally distinct question than who did hit harder. Foreman interestingly both had wide punches but some thing he could have gotten more power with more leg action/closer in shots. I cannot tell if his style was best for him or he could have possibly hit even harder.

Shepherd & Gomez I had to look up, both were born in 1919!

I cannot see it at all likely that a 250 lbs man hit the hardest lb. for lb.: even if he hit near the hardest, the extra height & muscle would make it prohibitively hard to be literally best lb. for lb. This has been explained elsewhere, size can increase exponentially, not power, hence for example the lighter Olympic lifters can raise much more per lb. than the biggest, even though the super HWs move the most weight. So a 250 lb. Lewis or Klitchko would need to hit with over 1/3 more force than Rocky in the mid 180's, & that will not happen.

Besides anyone who might have been completely obscure, I gotta go with Shavers.

He commited so fully, those long arms & huge hands were fearsome levers, & he seemed efficient in only one thing: generating power.

He got to the top level in The Golden Age with a questionable chin, limited endurance, unimpressive technique & defense: just based upon remendous power.

Most persuasively to me, MANY who faced him & the likes of George & Sonny said he hit the hardest.

Ali. Holmes. Norton. Lyle. Tillis. Cobb. And I do not recall who else.

Young Quarry Ellis Bugner...Did any of those guys say anyone hit them even as hard?

Guys seemed to agree whether he beat them of lost.

Did anyone who faced him pick others to hit as hard or harder? Not that his fights tend to last the longest or he hit the cleanest.

There is no plausible reason to believe that all these men are not correct that he hit the hardest.

Then the only thing that there is a good chance of is a much bigger fighter, like a giant from the last generation, could produce more force.

But as we know at a certain point it is at best diminishing returns for producing power.

The fastest pitchers are not the biggest guys even amongst pitchers, even sometimes not particularly large.

I do think the 'big '90's guys had top shelf power, even the old Foreman, Morrison, Tua, Bruno, Lewis, Ruddock...

I still favor Shavers, but unless we could drop them (or Galento, Sullivan, Baer, etccc) back in the 70's, we cannot have a firm idea from subjective comparisons.

Looking at his record, all of his 68 KOs came within 13 years, that means just with KOs he averaged over 5 a year. Busy.

But when a guy appears to hit w/such frightening power & most all he faced said he hits the hardest, I must go with Shavers.

 

Who the hell knows?

Everett Martin said that Bonecrusher Smith hit harder than Foreman and Bowe. It depends on so many things. Shavers, Lison, and Foreman were all deadly punchers, but the latter two were better finishers than Earnie.

 

It is tough to say. The hardest puncher ever could easily have a .500 and a shaky chin. Based on what we do know though, I think its between Wlad, Earnie Shavers and Mac Foster.