I think it was an over the hill Ellis and before the brutal uppercut Shavers landed a jab. Otherwise it was a good KO.
A lot of militant old school fans (the type that refuse to see any good in the modern generation) have a certain set of beliefs which which they cling to like to do otherwise is to break some holy taboo. These beliefs have very little to do with reality and everything to do with preserving a sort of shared view of things that can never be questioned. One of these is that Shavers was a devastating one punch knockout artist despite there being no evidence that he was anything more than a dangerous and above average puncher, able to get the respect of most everyone he fought without necessarily getting the KO on them. He certainly punched hard but no harder than a lot of HWs of recent times, and there's nothing on film to suggest that he was a better one punch KO artist than a Wlad, a Lennox or a Tyson, all men with more than one verified one punch KO on their resumes.
I do not think it is all speed & mass. There are other factors like being heavy handed, Foreman & Liston were among the heaviest punchers without being as large & fast as many others. Large hands & other factors of leverage & proportion come into play. It is a mystery why one guy might do way better than expected. In baseball it is quite measureable that those who throw not their fists but the baseball or a bat in striking it the fastest or hardest are not the largest either.
It's not really a mystery. The human body is a complex jointed mechanism, and energy from a punch is always dissipated upon impact through any number of weak points. The less you dissipate the more 'heavy handed' you'll appear to be. Guys like Foreman and Liston were naturally very thickset and large boned, so when they punched there was very little energy wasted through the joints/tendons etc. That's why you often saw their punches appear to power through the opponent as if they weren't there, even though the actual speed of the punch was relatively slow. Compare that to a faster guy of comparable size, and you'll often see their punches get absorbed a lot quicker on impact, with correspondingly lesser damage. Someone like Shavesr was a mixture of thickset and quite explosive, with good weight transference, so he was able to get his weight and a good degree of his body behind a shot in a relatively short time. That accounted for the cannonade effect his shots had despite his relatively small stature. I still don't think he was any harder a puncher than a lot of top punching HWs in the past few decades, but he was certainly one of the heaviest for his weight.
I have never heard such an explanation before, thank you. But why would a thicker structure do this, prevent energy loss? Amnd some are thicker than the guys you mentioned-especially often if they are very tall-I just do not think this & technique is everything, so if we had say a lot of giant pro athletes properly trained they would hit harder than anyone every. They would tend to hit hard, but I do not think we have all the factors. The last thing you said about Shavers appears to be a contradiction. At first you suggested he hit as hard as anyone for the last few decades. Then, when sayibg "one of the heaviest for his weight"-this according to your reasoning sems to imply many SHW hit much harder. And even some his size might have hit harder! These are very different things. And the evidence seems to show he hits at least as hard as the former explanation you give.
Youre right. The theory of dissipation of energy is true. I also add the dissipation of rage as variable not to be neglected
Imagine a guy with really unstable joints. When he punches a ton of energy is going to be lost through that kinetic chain via the shoulders, elbows, wrist etc. Now take a guy with solid joints. Much more of the energy he generates is going to be conserved all the way down the line. Generally the type of people with thicker joints tend to be thicker all over. They also tend to be slower and less explosive which can affect their power negatively. It's not an upward trajectory. There are other factors as well, but that I believe accounts for a good proportion of what people mean what they call a guy 'heavy handed'. I don't think you quite understood the last paragraph. I don't think Shavers hit as hard as anyone, I think he didn't hit any harder than a lot of decent punchers such as Brewster, Rahman, Butler etc. But for his size he hit extremely hard, since a lot of those guys from the 80s and 90s were around 220-230. I do think some SHWs hit harder, and many HWs like Tyson and Tua, but those were all exceptional punchers. Sahvers I believe is a notch below that, but considering what he weighed that's nothing to sniff at.
You might be correct about the solid joints & transfer of power. It is an open question whether & how much that structure compensates for being slower. I believe it can be one route to being an extreme powerhouse. I was confused because at first you said Shavers hit as hard as anyone for teh last few decades, but it seems your other statement is what you meant-just relative to weight. Why do you doubt all the boxers who said he hit the hardest? Ali, Young, Tillis, Cobb, Norton & Caldwell come immediately to mind. Guys he beat & lost to, there should be no agenda operating here. And they also fought bigger heavier men than Shavers, such as Foreman. We cannot use KO effectiveness as a measure, since *so* many other factors go into it, & we know Shavers was limited in endurance, technique, chin & finishing skills. In fact I believe he once had the highest KO % ever-& after many fights-but no matter how hard you hit, if you are limited in other ways it will go down when you fight the very best men. Perhaps especially from the golden era. I do not know anyone who fought him who picks someone else as the hardest hitter. I do acknowledge that there may be occasional SHWs that hit harder-& it is very difficult to know. But just like throwing or hitting a ball, the athletes that create very fastest & furthest efforts respectively are sometimes not very large. After a certain point, sometimes a smaller guy can generate more speed, technique heavy handedness etc... And following the law of diminishing returns, it may be that exceptional cases like Mantle, Ruth & the legendary Steve Dalkowski in the case oif a fastball could be near or the very best ever at purely these purely physical measures.
Wlad, easily. Far larger than Shavers and one shotted several SHWs, a feat I've never seen Shavers pull off. Hell he didn't even have one punch KO power against the smaller heavyweights that he faced. Shavers was still a murderous puncher though, If everyone says you hit harder then Foreman then you have to be.
Shavers is from before my time but those who are more familiar with him does this post have any real merit?
It's irrelevant because Shavers has almost 60 stoppages not on film so of course we don't have near the amount of video evidence we do with countless others who have almost all of, or most of their career on film. Imagine looking at dozens of Shavers KO's we've never seen, loads of them quite early. There would be many devastating scenes.
