You meant to say...He *would not* handle Ali's or Lyle's well? Or did Louis fight them secretly when in his 60's? That might account for his trouble. ;-)
Young's wrestling (but Foreman was supposed to be soooo strong), defense, and punching is why Foreman ran out of gas. It's on camera, Young was lighting big George up and frustrating him on the inside. At some point you have to give credit to the man in the ring.
Because having slow feet and fighting at a laid back pace could potentially make things even worse. Johnson was not as slippery as Young. They were different defensive fighters. Young tried to make you miss by centimetres and tire you out at mid range with erratic movement and then threw jabs and counters. Johnson smothered and wrestled you while breaking you down bit by bit, conserving his energy for the later rounds, leaving the opponent a sitting duck. He had better clinching and strength than Young, but he was't as good at dodging blows or countering.
Only Louis and Marciano stopped him while he was a full time professional fighter. He also beat a ton of punchers. His durability was a lot better than the stats suggest. No, but that doesn't mean that he couldn't.
George Foreman (IMO) would be countered to death by Louis if he wanted an early night. "Young" Foreman is the most laughably overrated HW ever big durable boxers who could fight a bit exposed him badly a diminished Ali and Young lit him up even Jimmy stood toe to toe with Foreman at times.
Your chin isn't going to suddenly improve past the age of 30 just because you are training full time. The only thing that can improve is your defense and technique. He isn't a particularly durable fighter. I don't see how that can even be argued. That's why he had such a tricky cagey style in the first place. Yes he beat some punchers and he also lost to several. In fact his record against punchers isn't that good overall given that he lost 2x to Louis, 2x Rocky (including a 1st round loss), Simon, and Layne. That's 6 losses to punchers. I could see him befuddling Foreman the first few rounds but I don't see him surviving once Foreman finds his mark and lands something big. So the odds are against him then. He was stopped by a former middleweight Greb and nearly taken out by a very inactive cruiserweight sized Dempsey.
Again, Johnson didn't have slow feet. Johnson was really hard to hit though. Again, watch him past prime against Moran (granted, not ATG or anything) making Frank missing time and time again. It's true that Johnson relied on clinching more, but he wasn't Wladimir - he had excellent reflex and he rarely got hit cleanly. Also, for all criticism about Johnson's pace, he was definitely more busy than Young. I can see Johnson from Jeffries fight giving Foreman a lot of troubles.
This is why I intimated in my earlier post not wanting to bet against Johnson. He was a really tricky dude, and I don't think Foreman would be too happy fighting him. Not sure he'd lose, but...
Walcott's problem early in the pre war era was not his lack of durability. It was the fact that he simply didn't have the time to train for a fifteen round fight. He seems to have been doing well against Simon, until he ran out of gas. Walcott cleaned out an era populated with punchers. Yes he lost to Layne, but it was on points. As for Louis and Marciano, you could argue that they were both much more than merely punchers. Greb and Dempsey might not have been big, but they were pound for pound greats, and obviously very different kinds of fighter to Foreman. It might have been instructive to see Tunney fight George Godfrey, or an older version of Wills, but we never got to see that.
I agree with some of what you wrote but your chin can improve. See Wlad and even the guy we are talking about Foreman. Although I certainly couldn’t tell you the science behind it there are examples.
You could make that same argument about Foreman to. Walcott's record against punchers is decent but not exceptional, and it doesn't instill me with a lot of confidence picking him against Foreman. 0-2 against Louis 0-2 against Marciano 2-1 with Ray 0-2 against Fox Loses to Simon and Layne Pair of wins against Sheppard and a win against Gomez
I never used the words picking or confidence, but you are selling Walcott's record against punchers short. Lee Q Murray was a hard punching southpaw, whose speed and power was sometimes anecdotally compared to Louis's Sheppard was the Ernie Shavers figure of the era. Lorenzo Pac, who he beat while a semi professional, was something of a Mac Foster figure. Why would Fox be held up as one of the top heavyweight punchers that he fought, even if you made no allowance for circumstances?