NO !!! You didn't get the point I was trying to make, and that is that Shavers managed to land his best punch on Ali, while Foreman didn't. Foreman could also wind it up like Shavers did, but he never managed to catch Ali with such a punch. Therefore, Ali cannot gauge their punching power properly.
You're the one who's trolling. Either that, or you need to get your eyes checked. Yes, but to the body, not to the head. On that we can agree.
Yes, he did, but to the body, not the head. Foreman missed most of the punches he threw towards Ali's head. He only had glancing blows and a couple of decent shots that managed to get past Ali's guard, but nothing with his full power. You mean decades of stupidity, of people repeating some stupid unfounded myths and moronic view points without bothering to check for themselves.
I did not wrote the article, though I agree with many points that guy makes. On this I disagree. IMO Shavers had a better delivery and punching technique than say Marciano and Foreman. Especially young Foreman, who threw too many wild swings/punches, and just hit air. No, we should not.
He did land flush to the head, if you don't see it then you just don't want to see it. Which makes you willfully obtuse. And lol!
I saw the fight again. Yes, he did land a few punches (like I already mentioned), but he did not land in a similar manner to Shavers. Shavers managed to hit Ali with a few shots where he could plant his feet properly and could put his body weight behind them. Foreman could not land in such a manner, thus vastly decreasing the power of his punches.
Why state only what you believe absent any rationale or evidence to back it up? I went into detail on why it makes zero sense to describe power based upon KO result. Naming many factors that allow KOs invokving various skills, punching abilities, indirect facilitation of being able to survive to score a KO... Besides even context related details such as era & opposition. Someone could theoretically hit twice as hard as any human but never knock anyone out. So it is completely unscientific to only use KOs, or the weight of opponents, to presume to calculate power. The article claiming Shavers, who may have hit the hardest ever, & at minimum is the best candidate for greatest power below modern sized HWs, makes virtually a clincially insane claim that Shavers was "feather fisted". I never heard the claim that Shavers was a better puncher than Foreman & Marciano. Your Foreman could be wild, but also managed to cut off the ring & frame shots/push guys back good enough to KO 37 of his first (undefeated) 40 bouts. His jab could be excellent or MIA. Still, at least you can make an argument there... But again, why on earth merely disagree that we should not strongly consider the virtually universal reports about Shavers being the hardest hitter fighters, World Class fighters, many large & fought big modern guys, active from Liston through Tyson's time, believe? IF you could show that it was only those who beat him, or only those who were not put to sleep (so remembered that more than sudden KOs that whitewashed memory, then you might have a case. But is strains credulity that absolutely everyone-with no rationale involving sense perceptions being altered, self-interest or other psychological factors, OR a plausible contrary agenda...was either lying or wrong.
What I'm getting at is this: Common opponents between Foreman and Shavers rate Shavers as the harder puncher. You may be correct that the ultimate reason for this is that Shavers had the opportunity to sit down on his punches more than Foreman. Ok. That's fine. But if Shavers was able to sit down on his punches so regularly compared to Foreman that everybody rated Shavers the harder puncher, that suggests something to me. It suggests that functionally -- practically -- Shavers was a harder puncher than Foreman when it came to actually applying that power in the ring. Sure, Foreman might theoretically have hit harder with one shot...if he could set up the opportunity to wind up and swing like Shavers. But for whatever reason, Foreman couldn't / didn't do that in the ring. At least not with consistency. As a result, when you fought Shavers, you were probably going to get hit with consistently harder punches than you would from Foreman. In fact, you basically seem to agree that Foreman's punching delivery system had issues: Not only did Foreman hit air, but he would also swing from positions where he didn't have much leverage. I'm sure there are plenty of guys who could have hit harder than Foreman or Shavers if somebody just stood still and let people whack away. But a big part of judging punchers is asking: "How hard can they actually *land* their shots?" EDIT: Let me also put it another way. The top shot-putter in the world could probably hit harder with a single winding-up shot against a stationary target than Earnie Shavers could. At least if you gave the shot putter enough time to practice. But he would not be able to land those kinds of punches in the ring against a moving, uncooperative target like Shavers could. That kind of functional punching power is the only thing we really care about in these power debates. And the best source for learning how hard Shavers could hit an uncooperative, moving target is to ask the moving targets he punched.
Also, I suspect it's probably clear already, but picking Henry Cooper to be the hardest puncher ever was me being deliberately silly.
You'd still be wondering what he'd say after he'd said it. Have a look at his quotes on page 1. Man was as mad as a box of frogs.
Ultimately, he said Earnie Shavers was the most powerful puncher he ever faced, and Mike Tyson punched like a hommasechsuel. lol
Good post again! The only quibble I have is I have no idea that massively powerful athlete-& many very tall & long-could hit harder than a Foreman & Shavers. Muscle & leverage count for a fair amount. But like throwing or hitting a baseball far, they are only part of what is somewhat of a quirky genetic gift of explosiveness. Some of those huge elite athletes would not hit hard at all-for a pro HW. Even if well trained. Others would, but being massive & great at tangentally related skills would not necessarily put them in the league of Foreman & Shavers.