Foreman is being mythologized here. For all his strength and power, he was equally as plodding, wide open and inaccurate with his punches. Tyson could easily get to him with his speed and delivery. None of the guys that beat Mike came at him with no defense, and that's exactly what Foreman would do. Those guys took a beating. Of course with Foremans power you never know, but it's not as cut as dry as people make it out to be. Peak Tyson was a hell of a lot more dangerous than the fat Frazier Foreman bounced around the ring.
The guys who came and took the fight to prime Tyson could at least touch him. Tucker, Ribalta, and Ruddock all got shots in. George will get his shots in, and Mike will crumble.
Tough call. Speed and power verses strength, size and even more power. One thing l saw while watching the Lyle fight is that in a war Foreman's not quiting. And since he was rusty, he was pretty easy to hit. l think that George looks slow and ponderous but l also think that when you're in the ring with him he's faster and more methodical than he's given credit for. The one thing l can't get out of my head whem l think of Foreman is the Moore fight. No matter how many times l watch it it looks to me like he barely touched him and yet Moore fell like he'd been shot. Anyway these comments are leading up to me leaning towards Foreman. Not fighting scared is one of the deciding factors.
A past it out of retirement Holmes who trained about 4 weeks. Not as good as the Holmes who mounted a serious comeback a few yrs later.
Very good point, Van. But try replacing the names Lyle with Douglas and Foreman with Tyson and the sentences still make sense. Mike took a one sided shellacking vs Buster for the most part and carried on taking it. Lyle was a bigger hitter than Buster but, unlike Mike, at least George was having success himself to keep his morale up. Both men could suck it up. I think George gets overrated here and, when he's not being eulogised, Mike is underrated. Talk of his short prime undermines his achievements but his prime was a lot longer than Foreman's. I just watched Foreman v Norton and I couldn't help but feel that Tyson's lightning attacks would have little difficulty getting through that version of George. Foreman v Norton was an awesome performance but was it more impressive than Tyson v Spinks? It depends who you rate more highly as a heavyweight. 74 Norton v 88 Spinks. Same age more or less, same size, more or less. Norton naturally bigger but Spinks p4p the better fighter. Both were utterly intimidated. Of course Foreman might do a Frazier on Tyson but one thing he'd need to do differently is keep Mike down. For all the talk of his awesome power, George needs to live up to it and close the show because if this fight lasts five minutes, at some point Tyson will land something and, if he does, it will be a whole different ball game than playing basketball with an out of shape, half blind Frazier or a terrified Norton.
I think many people seriously misunderstand Foreman's fighting style. People need to study his method more. If there's one thing Foreman was good at it was manhandling shorter men. Ones that came at him are not going to win. Foreman had that characteristic way of catching an opponent by the shoulders and either punching off of that or pushing the opponent back and then unloading. Sometimes he'd spin them or prod them off balance. His strength was freakish. Tyson's tailor made for him, as Tyson simply came in low and quite square on, even as he was weaving in his shoulders would be square on, he's not hard to find for Foreman.
Norton is far more proven at Heavy for mine. I doubt Spinks could have beaten quite a few of the top contenders tho some were disgustingly inconsistent. Holmes actually rolled him in the rematch in reality. The only way Spinks was going to beat top contenders was by spoiling ala Holmes 1. Holmes was woeful in that first match and way past prime in the second tho he still won imo. Foreman would have terrified Spinks. He may have got past Shavers with his superb defense and inate skills. Shavers was very one dimensional.
Ive always never liked how people always quickly dismiss Tyson chances against Foreman in fantasy fights . People make it seem like Tyson has no chance in hell and its a 100% guaranteed loss . Anything can happen in boxing and Tyson was way better than Frazier . But I agree as well that Foreman takes Iron Mike out in 6 .
Good points, but don't you think that Holmes was way past his prime when he fought Tyson? Even in his heyday, Larry wasn't a really big puncher, whereas George was phenomenal. He lifted Frazier off his feet with his power!
Even Cus D´Amato said Tyson would never beat Foreman ironically that's the same thing he said about Patterson vs Liston and Patterson gets destroyed in 1 Round. Patterson was way faster than the slower Liston and even faster than Tyson But i think some people will never understand and accept that Tyson was not invincible and styles makes fights. Foreman´s style will be a nightmare for any Swarmer in History Foreman early KO