There really are only a handful of one punch KO artists at the championship level. Julian Jackson comes to mind. Even Marciano was more an attrition guy, as has been discussed in these parts.
It's my belief that no boxer, no athlete, and to my knowledge, no famous individual, i.e., celebrity, has ever transformed them self so radically, in switching gears, personality, image wise as George Foreman did. If sincere, which I'm sure that it was, it was truly remarkable,...if it wasn't, then it was the cleverest, most effective marketing ploy ever seen in the public eye. All I know is that back then, in the 70's, I was always struck by what a sullen, intimidating monolith that he was. He didn't talk much or seemed to have much confidence in his verbosity...I remember seeing him being interviewed on the Mike Douglas Show (Douglas many times had Ali, Frazier, Louis, Dempsey, SRR, etc., on his show)...and Foreman seemed affable, relatively speaking, but he wasn't a great talker. Then came the transformation...was he kidnapped by aliens or something? Did they give him a personality makeover??? Foreman is/was amazing....not only did he have a metamorphasis image/personality wise, but he's since revealed himself to be a better talker, more lucid, that is, than his celebrated ring adversaries of his time...and in possesion of an intelligence that trumps them as well. Remarkable man, Foreman,...and to answer the thread question,hell no, his power hasn't been overrated. So he's more of a "blunt trauma", sledge hammer type of guy, and not a one shot, sharpshooter like Foster, JJ and Danny Lopez, to name a few. Foreman was massively powerful, and somewhat imprecise...he had terrible technique, but his punches were just devastating, as they were driven by dint of his awesome physical power...and Chuvalo's thoughtful ****ysis explains Big George's power perfectly.
I've got an old copy of a B.I. magazine with the headline 'A side of George Foreman you've never seen before.' In the article, which was the feature story, the journalist (forget who now, sorry) told how he and George spent quite a bit of time together, even riding together in the writer's beaten up old VW to get to a boxing dinner. This was after George's 8th fight on his comeback. It painted a picture of a man (George obviously) who although a great public speaker, was basically a quite sensitive, introspective man. He also didn't mind riding 'economy class' despite his popularity at the time and had no airs and graces about himself. George himself has said that he is a born salesman, but I do think that he's a good guy that had noble intentions coming back.
Foreman did not have great explosive timing but ,as he aged he had extremely good accuracy[see the ****ey fight] ,his arm punches dropped guys.
The funny thing about George is that, with the exception of his jab, he was essentially an arm puncher. But unlike many other arm punchers out there, his arms were so thick, heavy, and strong, that even with slow, improper technique, he could still do major damage. Foreman's early trainers always seemed odd to me, in the way they would let him work the heavy bag with these wide, looping arm punches...didn't they think to correct that? But George is an anomaly because he was so damn strong that technique didn't usually matter much.
Agreed. True one-punch knockout artists at that level are far more rare than KO %'s may suggest. For his part, Foreman had incredibly heavy hands. If someone wanted to argue his KO% may be a bit inflated because of his high proportion of fights against knockout fodder compared to rated fighters, that's one thing...but the power was legit. Not overrated in my book.
I think there are different types of punchers. Foreman had that Thud power. Not so much snap power. His power was the read deal I don`t see it as overated at all. Joe Frazier was as tough as they come and he described George`s punches as "wrecking *****"
I'm no Mike Tyson but I find it harder to throw arm punches than to throw them correctly with the snap in the shoulders. Just imagine what Foreman would have done if he knew how to punch right.
Gil Clancy correctly described Foreman as a clubber, a big strong guy who could club you to death and that's what Foreman would do. His technique may not have been perfect but he compensated for that with his strength and heavy hands. Take someone like Joe Louis for example and you have another power puncher who got the job done more with speed, accuracy and technique rather than brute force. In the end both got their share of KO's...different means to the same end....just power expressed differently.