His power seem's frightening. So, tell me... Who is his best win? What's his best KO? Must see fights of his are? How loaded was his era? Where do you rank him amongst the LHW greats of all time? Could a prime Bob Foster had success at CW had it been around?
Unbeaten at LHW. Only got beat at heavy. Beast at LHW. Right up there, near top ten lock. His wasn't an era resplendent with talent (some good fighters though), but it was resplendent with great chins. He broke them. Chris Finnegan, only ever stopped on cuts, Foster broke him and stopped him. Frank DePaula was stopped on two other occasions, but Foster turned the trick in a round. Cracking uppercut. No softening him up, no tenderising just "blam". Henry Hank lost thirty plus fights in his career, but only Foster stopped him. Tessman was only stopped once by concussion, and it was Foster. "Punch Resistance" just didn't seem to mean anything when Foster was in the ring at LHW. He's arguably the ultimate argument for the biggest punchers being unsurvivable. He was a freaky-deaky puncher. He summed up his own style as "jab, jab, jab, then wham!" which sounds simplistic for an ATG, but it's not far of. So hurtful with either hand. However, although he was technically adept he wasn't a true technician, so when he stepped up, bereft of his freaky-prehistoric-bird size advantages he was unwound by bigger men (though he does have a lot of KOs against lesser men above 175lbs) so I suspect he wouldn't have been as great at 200 as many of the ATG light heavies. But he was a wonderful, wonderful fighter.
Just watched a HL Reel of the man himself. Christ almighty, that left hand! His left hook was atomic when it landed. That was a fight-ender! His left hand overall seemed 10/10. His dimensions/frame definitely are weird (he remind me of a deformed Hearns) but he made it work for him. How popular was Bob back in the day? I'd imagine his fights were pretty much unmissable due to his power & style. People rave about Julian Jackson (and rightly so) when it comes to punchers, but this guy definitely deserves a mention when the conversation is about punchers. Brutal power.
I've always liked his fight with Andy Kendall, when he gets fed up with the butting and elbows and decides to end the fight.
Yeah, great post, this. One of the other killer things about Foster was his skill as a sneaky puncher and trapsmith. Moore-esque in setting an opponent up for ko shots that they didn't see coming.
