George Foreman , overrated ?

One only has to look back at your previous postings and topics as well to see the disdain is ridiculously strong.

You'll definitely find an ally in the local village idiot tho.

 

Is Foreman the one who beat 5 men in one night? Amazin man

 

Not gonna lie...scouring these boxing forums and finding ridiculous comments about Foreman has made me less of a fan of his.

Although I still favor Foreman over most fighters, I used to love the guy. Not anymore. And I wanted to see Tyson-Foreman in 1990 more than Tyson-Holyfield and even Bowe-Lewis. Why? Because both were my favorite heavyweight fighters of all time.

My argument: George Foreman is the most overrated heavyweight of all time.

 

Uh, you never made an actual arguement. This is just a bold statement. WHY is he the most "overrated" of all time?

 

Because people steadfastly pick him over the oh so mighty and unbeatable Mike Tyson

 

Its funny how only certain athletes are "allowed" to be overrated. And this holds true on other forums/barbershop/bar conversations all shared in some weird international unanimous agreement without any of these people knowing each other!

Some athletes are just media darlings no matter how their actual resume compares to others.

 

I hear you.

 

yea, and half of those he was over forty

 

sangria, He was ur favorite fighter? U used to love the guy? And because he is thought of so highly of others u no longer love him? WTF?

 

Cooney, Coetzer, Saverese etc were not ranked in the top 10. In his entire career Foreman appears to have only beat 5 guys ranked in the top 10. His only world-class wins are Chuvalo, Frazier, Norton, Lyle, and Moorer. Lewis beat 12 guys in the top 10 more than twice as many as Foreman. Lewis, Holyfied and Wladimir Klitschko for example have much deeper resumes.

Foreman (Chuvalo, Frazier, Norton, Lyle, Moorer) vs vs Lewis (Ruddock, Tucker, Bruno, Mercer, McCall, Akinwande, Golota, Holyfield, Grant, Tua, Rahman, Klitschko)

 

As someone who's far more a Foreman fan than a Lewis fan, I'll grant you that with no argument. Lewis had an ATG resume, and I don't think that's easily questioned unless someone wants to twist words to a torturous degree. I don't see why Lewis being great diminishes Foreman's greatness. Might mean Lewis ranks higher on some all time lists, which is fine, but I don't see anyone here saying that's not a legit stance.

 

It depends how you define greatness. For me Foreman does not rank as great because he wasn't the best of his own time. He can't rank ahead of guys like Marciano, Klitschko, Louis who dominated their eras. There is no point in time at which Foreman was the best heavyweight in the world. It would be like claiming that James Harden is an ATG when he wasn't the best basketball player of his own generation.

 

I think Foreman is a great fighter.

Knocking out Frazier and Norton made Foreman great at that moment because they were sensational results. There was nobody better at that time since both guys had just beat Ali. It’s right up there with Max Baer knocking out Schmeling and Carnera in back to back fights. Ingo knocking out Machen and Floyd in back to back fights. And Liston knocking out Patterson twice in back to back fights. At the time there was nothing better a fighter could do than scoring those results that emphatically.

There is no real shame in losing to Ali of course, muhammad was after all a very special fighter (a top two of all time) but it went against the natural order of things when George was knocked out by him. It was not supposed to happen.

This should have been the George Foreman era and it was not. Instead Ali proved to be a particularly weak champion in Foreman’s place.

George had already knocked out the guys who beat Ali. In this respect it is like Ingo losing to Floyd, Baer losing to Braddock and Liston losing to Ali. Upsets like you would not believe. Nothing you could forecast.

So then we have the Lyle and Young fights and the early retirement and the low all time ranking for George that went with that for the next ten years.

Then as half the man, Old Foreman relaunched himself. This time around George benefited from novelty value, knowing his own physical limitations, having the experience of having done everything before and still being a very strong man. George was a very wise old man this time who understood the business and he used all of that to navigate himself into the most sensational result in the history of boxing. Which is absolutely incredible. When nobody initially took his comeback seriously this was some feat, a feat of greatness. I accept and appreciate this.

What this isn’t of course is conformation that Foreman established himself as the best heavyweight in the world. In order to do this he had to have beaten Riddick Bowe, Lennox Lewis or Evander Holyfeild. Beating Moorer, who may have been the undisputed champion, Is like Joe Louis beating only Jimmy Braddock without beating all those ex champions or Max Schmeling. Had Joe only done that he would have had a lot to prove at that time. But then I accept Joe Louis was not forty four years old.

Perhaps the equivalent might be old Jack Dempsey going ahead of Joe Louis in beating jimmy Braddock for the title on his comeback having avoided Baer, Schmeling, pastor, Retzlaf and Tommy Farr. then Dempsey taking the title on the road, defending only against Jack Roper and Johnny Paycheck.

Folks might still marvel that Dempsey won the championship back after all those years but nobody would be under any illusions about who the best fighter in the world Really was.

 

Oh come on ..yes he had his fault's, just as Johnson, Dempsey, Marciano and yes . Muhammad Ali did.But he's a massive part of heavyweight boxing history. Take out Foreman from the 70 s and to a degree the 90 s and we lose a lot. He played a great role in the history of boxing .The smashing of Frazier and Norton .Ali coming back to beat him. The war with Lyle .The strange fight and goings on with Young. The crazy comeback in his 40 s .Going the distance with Holyfield,knocking out Moorer to win back the lineal belt 20/years after losing it !!.
Foreman ,for all his fault's is a living part of history .Not sure how can be critical over that .