Thank you. IIRC, the power (speed/strength) requirements for a quality shot put are similar to the power requirements of a good punch. But it's been a long time since I looked into it. If you prefer, you can instead use as examples the guys who professionally break concrete in karate competitions. Or just imagine an amazing athlete who obsessively trains just to punch a stationary object really hard. The point would work either way; I'm not picky.
I would be interested in these details if you dig them up. I can see how broadly the size, stregth & explosiveness are usually the biggest part of both of them. But I dunno, that would suggest that all the hardest punchers would be-or could be-really big, heavy guys. In muscle & body fat. Maybe. But there is a certain alchemy of the kinetic chain, in part involving I sense a difference in proportion of speed to absolute strength. Throwing a 16 pound ball is different than just using your body. Also, part of the force that a PSI meter might not measure well is being "heavy hande"-in large part that is even just the size of the hands. I am unconvinced that the biggest guys could throw or hit a ball further &/or faster than those who have set the records or are around the very top. This goes beyond the law of diminshing returns above a certain size. I could supply more detail here, but they are overwhelmingly not massive. Of course, it could always be that both these skills are rewarded more in other sports, that huge guys tend not to have the hand eye coordination to hit as well, AND that being Shaq-sized is much more rare. But there seems something special about using just your body, or propelling something light such as a bat or ball... Google "Steve Dalkowski Sir-the consensus among many who played or managed in the Big Leagues is he threw the hardest EVER. You will also see a strong indication that there exists a rare ability to use the kinetic chain hyper-efficiently, intuitively (he had a 70 IQ & was an alcoholic & not big in any way)...Combined with freakish shoulder flexibility & wrist snap. Sometimes it is not merely mass X accelration. Or other odd physiological factors as above allow some to add to part of this equation.
This is a very good post and I agree with you. You understood perfectly what I meant, the ideea of someone being able to hit harder with one shot against a stationary target. But I agree with you about functional power.
AWESOME! Earnie tasted so much leather he could start a saddle shop against Jerry Quarry ,Yet Don Dumb-ey only wanted to talk about Earnie hitting Quarry! 6 months later Joe Frazier does the same to Quarry, Dumb-ey interviews Joe and only wants to talk about Frazier getting hit low!!
Cool post! I remember being told at an early age that punching was a snapping, not a pushing motion. Even Foreman tried to bring his hands back as quick as he could, though it's apparent from most of his kos (especially Old George) there was still some pushing there. Before I heard that, I had a jab like a falling old school safe...that rarely landed past the opponent's gloves. When I started bringing it back and forth like a whip, everything changed. I not only landed more, but my opponents were running from me. Same goes for all the punches, the more snap the more effective it is, not to mention giving you less opportunity to get hit. Check out the right that Holmes first dropped Marvis Frazier with. There was hip rotation for sure, but watch how fast he brings it back. Frazier went down like he was comatose.
“Every time he hit me with a jab, it was like getting hit with a night stick. His right hand was like a sledgehammer. It felt like a whip cracking against my head, a lightning bolt stinging me. I kept telling myself this is unbelievable, this guy is the real deal. At some point I think my body went into shock and I felt no more pain." - Ron Stander
When will people understand that doesn't winning against the hardest puncher he faced does not mean his lying. You need to lost against guys with overall skills to lose, not just power. Look at Julian Jackson for example, great puncher but not a great fighter. Hard punchers and abilty to knock people out are too separate things, Cooper had Ali hurt but we all damn know that Cooper is nowhere near Shavers power. It takes timing, accuracy and precision to knock someone out. There are a bunch of examples: James Toney had McCallum hurt which JJ wasn't able to do as much as he did. Thomas Tate survived an assault from JJ who got one punched by RJJ Toney one punch the usually durable prince charles williams who fought punchers like Johnson and Sosa Johansonn destroyed Machen with one punch who would later get his *ss beat and went the distance with Liston, Williams, Folley and past his prime he took a beating from Frazier Wlad never drop Peter just like McCline did, when he fought Peter past his prime the kayo seems by exhaustion. Michael Moorer stopped Alex Stewart who would went the distance with Foreman 4 years later taking all of Foreman's assault Thomas, Witherspoon and Page stopped James Tilis, the guy who went the distance with Tyson The only guy genuinely dropped a Prime Holyfield is Bert Cooper, something even Foreman can't do Smith had Ribalta hurt much more than Tyson did to him Ali is the only guy who kayoed Foreman With all these.. do you think Toney and Roy hit harder than JJ? Do you think that Joahnsonn hit harder than Frazier, Liston and Williams? Do you think that Cooper and Moorer hit harder than George? No right?
And if you're saying all of opponents says Shavers becuz he won against him, so what about Foreman? Mccallum? Liston? LaMotta? Ray Robinson? Holyfield? Tyson? Joshua? Pacquiao? Winky Wright? All of these guys won against the hardest punchers they faced? Do you think they're lying? If you don't think so, why do you believe Shavers opponents are lying?
if you wanna say that Shavers doesn't hit harder than some people I can consider that, but he's power is not overrated, look how many people said he hit the hardest: People who said Earnie Shavers hit the hardest: Muhammad Ali (fought Foreman, Foster, Frazier, Cooper, Liston and Lyle) Jimmy Young (fought Foreman, Lyle, Cooney, Norton and Sims) Larry Holmes (fought Tyson, Weaver, Cooney, Norton and Bonecrusher Smith) Ron Lyle (fought Foreman and Cooney) Leroy Caldwell (fought Bonavena, Williams, Lyle and Foreman) James Tilis (fought Morrison, Tyson, Weaver and Bruno) Joe Bugner (fought Frazier, Lyle, Bonecrusher Smith, Bruno and Cooper) Charley Polite (fought Frazier, Bob Foster, Merritt, Williams, Patterson, Foreman and Cooney) Tex Cobb (fought Bernardo Mercado) Ron Stander (Merritt, Coatzee and Frazier) There's also a lot of people who lost against Shavers which is Young, Norton, Polite, Bugner, Caldwell and said Shavers hit the hardest. What more do ypu guys want? Henry Clark? (fought Norton, Liston, Folley, Merritt and Mercado) This content is protected
That’s so coincidental. I only reread an article on Stander a day or so ago to refresh on Ron’s verbatim take on Earnie. As the fight has been described, Earnie dominated the first two rounds and really stuck it to Ron, as Stander himself has testified to. As implied, not a fight in which an inferior skill set prevented Shaves from landing a sufficient number of punches to fully unleash his power effectively and, if it were at all possible, knock out, stop or, at the very least, put his man down. I wonder how Ron might’ve described Jeff Merritt. Like being surrounded by a gang of 20 thugs beating him with iron bars perhaps? The shots ain’t pretty but they did rip Ron’s head this way and that, rendering him a stumbling mess, ultimately causing him to hit the deck yet again. This is all I have ever seen of the fight, syncing it with written descriptions, this appears as the 3rd KD in round 2. The ref steps in and it appears all over, Red Rover. However, it is written up that, immediately thereafter, the ref advised Merritt’s team that he had stopped the fight AFTER the 2nd had ended. As such, the fight was to continue and did so after a measure of delay. Shortly into rd 3, Merritt picked up where he left off, sending Stander reeling into the ropes with the ref stopping it for good on that occasion. This content is protected
