Lennox Lewis (1999) vs. George Foreman (1973)

You can’ pick !ewis with confidence here because of his chin,But if he survives the onslaught in the first half of the fight, he could win a decision.But that remains to be seen.I ma leaning towards Lewis but not with any confidence

 

Well, do you not think Ali's got better with age? Were you as durable at twelve as you are now?

 

Maybe not iron, but he had a very strong chin, if you fight vitali, Mercer, Morrison, Bruno, tua, ruddock, Briggs, and don’t touch the canvas your chin must be good

 

Hmmm, never heard of matured fighters beeing more durable....

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Foreman Ko`s Lennox in the middle rounds

 

I think Foreman would be all wrong for Lewis:

- Foreman was a huge puncher, definitely harder hitter than McCall or Rahman and with more tools - not just right hand, but left hooks, uppercuts and body punches

- Foreman had granite chin. How many granite chinned opponents did Lewis knock out? I mean real KO/TKO, not cuts/mental breackdown stoppages

- Foreman had a great jab. Lewis always had big troubles with good jabbers

Well, you can say Lewis won't need a KO to beat Foreman and you probably would be right. But he would need avoid getting hit and I see it problematic task. Even Ali couldn't avoid getting hit by Foreman

But you can't completely count off a fighter as great as Lennox - he was big, strong, hard puncher, had good skills and one of the smartest trainers of all time in his corner. Plus he was incredibly effective in holding, on Wladimir's level actually. I think holding might be a huge part of the fight - IF Lennox would be able to hold Foreman, his chances would increas dramatically. But that's a big if

 

I'd pick Foreman. He had a way of overwhelming opponents early. I don't think Lewis had the defense to keep him off. Lewis's chin could be a problem too. I don't see him picking himself off the canvas as many times as Ron Lyle did.

 

This will be a fire fight from the get go because Foreman will force it..............Foreman has under rated boxing skills btw but this is not gonna have a effect here because the fight will be decided by the better chin.......Foreman can take at least some of Lewis's best and keep going vs Lemmie who cannot take the same in return, his achilles heel is his chin as evidenced getting stopped twice by ONE shot by absolute mediocre fighters.

 

True that Jimmy Young and Muhammad Ali beat a 1970's George Foreman, but both exploited a glaring weakness that George had, and that he had a stamina issue. Lennox Lewis though tall, strong, could be tagged with a right hand, Hassim Rahman, and Oliver McCall exposed Lewis jaw, no excuses of a lucky punch, twice? George in 1973 would not let Lennox start at all. He would have pushed, shoved, and would have overwhelmed Lewis, jab or no jab, It would not matter. Foreman also used the art of intimidation, taught to him by Charles Sonny Liston. Once Lewis gets tagged he could forget it, because George would unleash a whirlwind of some hard nasty punches meant to not let his opponent not get set. I have seen both of them fight, but Lennox two losses were nationally televised, he was stopped twice, not the opinion of the fans, by the way that does not count on his official boxing record, but by the referee, who was selected by that Boxing Commission. I see 1973 George landing his brutal right hand and putting an end to this affair. That George hit harder than Rahman and McCall by the way. We are not talking about a bald headed George who sold grills on television, but a tough mean nasty mean boxer who walked around with his dogs that would bite and a scowl on his face like his hero Sonny.

 

1-Show me a single fight or even a round where someone kept Foreman off of him with a jab and not moving that much.

2-I didn't say young foreman had better stamina, i said the PACE that he set with his brutal slugging+ the body shots means a chunky guy like lewis will gas rapidly if he doesn't get george out of there. He was gassed in 6 rounds with Vitali and collapsed in his stool multiple times. Lewis wasn't built for long drawn out slug fests, that's why he went after ruddock, Briggs, and Golota immediately because the longer it lasted the worse his chances.

Read what you just wrote.

Foreman already had 50 fights, hundreds of rounds of sparring, hitting the bag, etc BEFORE he came back as a fat 38 year old man. So using your own logic it would make no sense that he'd be extremely durable after an additional 30 something fights when he was much slower with worse reflexes and even more wear and tear.

If foreman started his pro career extrmely late in the 90's Id agree with you. The fact his chin stood up to the large 220+ heavies of the 90's indicates it was always that good, he just usually ended things before he had to take too much punishment. The only logical conclusion is he had better defense and was more cautious, not that he defied basic biology and was somehow more durable as a middle aged man with tons of wear and tear before he had even laced them back up. You do know foreman had been boxing since he was like 19 as an amateur right?

Yes he did. Frazier had very fast hands. And like you mentioned Young. He also said Holyfield wasn't quite as fast as Ali but had very good hand and foot speed and had sharp punches.

I'll take his word for it since film demonstrates Ali is undoubtedly one of the fastest ever. The point was Lewis has nowhere to run, and Foreman had better reflexes and ring cutting ability than people give him credit for.

Endurance and chin are 2 different things.

Yes the extra weight made him harder to outmuscle and absorb a single shot better, but he had less adrenaline and recovery too. It's a trade off.

When he was in his 20's he literally just absorbed Frazier's hooks and Ali's right hands like he got smacked with a pillow, and kept attacking, but once he ran out of energy he was far less durable. He would get rocked harder by a flush power shot but would gather his sense very quickly. As an old man, he almost never got hurt or rocked, but when he did he was very wobbly and hid behind his cross arm defense.

These are all excuses. I never said Holyfield had less power, I said his hand speed and aggressiveness had gone down a notch. That's quite evident comparing his fights with bowe, Cooper ,foreman etc in the early 90's to his fights with tyson, Ruiz, etc in the lare 90's to 2000's. He also had way less KO's stoppages and knock downs other than before and was almost a pure boxer puncher/cagey spoiler. Younger Holy was a sharp counter puncher/slugger hybrid.

Foreman got hit way more by a younger holyfiekd. Tyson was stopped by a shopworn Holyfield. That's the bottom line.

Excuses. Ali didn't take frazier seriously at first, but he got dropped badly. Norton broke his jaw. Do we just pick and choose when a fighter's durability is put to the test when it's inconvenient?

By that logic we can just ignore both of Lennox's brutal ko losses since he "wasn't being serious".

Same chin, same body. And it happened to all the opponents in the 70's too. It's not a coincidence.

People have the weirdest cognitive dissonance with Foreman like another identical guy stepped out of a parallel universe. It's the same ****ing Guy. Actually, worse in a lot of ways.

Did You miss the part where Lyle gassed himself out trying to stop Foreman? It was like watching a sick old man trying to shovel a drive way. He was the proverbial immovable object.

A better fighter wouldn't have tried so hard to stop him and would have tried to box and win a clear decision after those knock downs. He realized way too late foreman wasn't going anywhere.

When was foreman in a boring fight where somebody simply kept their distance and effortlessly outboxed him???

I am not denying Lennox's skill. I Actually favor him to win believe it or not. But this is pure fantasy.

 

Foreman by ko

 

Lmao!!!

 

Prime Foreman never fought someone with the size and boxing skill of Lewis

 

Neither fought anything exactly like each other.

The closest thing to a Foreman type boxer Lennox faced was the shorter Mercer who wasn't as skilled, was even slower, had worse defense, and didn't hit as hard. Some argue Mercer won that fight. Incidentally it was the jab that gave Mercer the most success and Foreman had a an excellent heavy jab, one of the best of all time. Lennox always struggled with good jabs actually.

 

Now whats that? Maybe ask who fought more "anything close to"?

1992) 6`3" 231 1/2 Razor Ruddock
1993) 6'3" 238 Frank Bruno
1995) 6'2" 227 Tommy Morrison
1997) 6'4" 244 Andrew Golota
1998) 6'4" 228 Shannon Briggs
2001/02 6'2 1/2 236 Hasim Rahman

Where exactly are the six Lewis-like opponents on Foremans 70s record?