If Foreman beat Ali

If he won the rumble, then his comeback to win the title 20 years later would be enough.

 

I think for Foreman to beat ALi he would have had to meet better contenders on the way up than he did.

He was good enough to beat Liston, Floyd, Mathis, Quarry, Middleton, Bonavena, Bugner, Martin and Terrell on the way up but he didn't fight any of them. Three wins over that group would have provided more experiences like the Peralta fight to draw upon in the kind of competative fight a driven Ali always would have gave George.

Instead he went to Zaire thinking he was superman because Norton froze, Frazier was in bad shape and Terry Sorrell and co did not provide enough resistance on the way up.

The talent was there of course to beat ALi but he had bypassed the required seasoning to realise it.

 

Maybe not. Foreman was expected to win and for me this is by far Ali's greatest win given the circumstances. Ali probably wouldn't have been regarded anywhere near as highly as he is today, may not of got another crack at the title and potential retired soon after the RITJ. Louis would still be ahead of Foreman for me. If he'd beaten Holmes just before the turn of the 80s as well as Ali then it's a strong possibility.

 

If George would have paced himself I beleive he would have won. Ali wasn't rope a doping by choice, he was forced to because George was masterful at cutting off the ring. If he had been more selective with his power shots, come in behind his then underused shotgun jab and continued to go to the body that fight would have been his.

It's a shame he couldn't get a rematch with Ali.

 

He cleans out the division.

At the time, there really weren't any can't miss type guys. Lyle had that late start and lost to Quarry badly. that might have kept him out of a title shot for awhile. Holmes and Bobick and Wells even, were at their infancy stage and took quite some time before they were fighting a live body.

So what you had for title contenders was mostly older guys on the way ourt like Frazier and Ali. And it would have been very difficult selling a Norton rematch. Bugner was the name mentioned as an opponent if Geroge won the Ali bout, but often times names mentioned don't get a shot. Maybe Shavers but he'd have needed more wins/ko's against top flight opponents and not the 3rd tier guys.

Maybe a Stevenson bout could have been sold. But it was not a strong era for up and comers and George really didn't have much competition as far as contemporaries. But it really wasn't a minefield out there.

So he would have definately had more scalps and it would have taken quite some time to unseat him. A guy like Young would have never been in a position to get a title shot and that match would have never been made or sold.

But Muhammad ruined what a lot of folks thought was going to be a long run by George Foreman. And don't forget, George was a big favorite going into that fight. Not the other guy.

 

He most certainly was, and the ropes were loosened for him to be able to.

 

He would probably have gone down as the GOAT.


There's no way that he'd have beaten Ali in 1974,though. Muhammad was still too fast and sharp for him

 

:huh how's that? He'd have been given little credit for beating a previous champion 7 years past his prime

 

George losing to Ali was not the natural order of things. Young champions never lost to older champions before. but George fought a terrible fight.

You are right the 1970s was short of new faces. Frazier, Ali, Quarry and Bonavena were left overs from the previous decade. SHavers and Ron Lyle weres as old as they were.

Bugner, Foreman, Norton and Middleton were the new guys with Holmes and T. Stevenson coming up behind them and should have been launched onto the championship scene around 1975.

ALI getting there in 74' (and Stevenson never turning pro) upset the Apple cart of what should have been the natural order of things. It should have went Ali, Frazier, Foreman, Stevinson, Holmes but there you are.

However had Foreman been made to fight the outstanding contender of 1972 he might not have ever fought Frazier...

 

I disagree that Foreman fought a bad fight. This was the same man who slaughtered Frazier,Roman and Norton. It was simply that he was n't equipped to deal with Muhammad Ali.

 

Natural order of things...was there a disturbance in the force when it happened?

 

Foreman did what worked on the other guys. It was a terrible tactic he used. Whaling away like that until he was exhausted.

He would have been more equipped for Ali if his fights before getting to the title had of included more names than just "chuvalo".

There was an excelent mixture of rated opponents available in 1971 and 1972 that could have brought Foreman to a more mature well rounded level. His attitude was line them up and knock them down. Being fed guys who stood in front of him led George to believe that was all that was required. He was young. I think Middleton and Bugner or Quarry and Terrell would have been better prep than the guys they dug up between Peralta and Frazier.

 

something like that.:good