If MOST 90s-2000s punchers hit as hard as Shavers, how would we know?

That's fair.

In addition to all that, the main issue is that 215 is a random ass pull number that has no meaning whatsoever to the sanctioning bodies. To my knowledge, there isn't a single boxer, trainer, or manager who cited that specific number as some sort of cut off point for what is considered a large heavyweight.

Even on this very forum, people often cite 230+ as the cut off while others say 220+ and some say anything above 200 is the cutoff. There isn't a consensus because it doesn't exist. And by it, I mean a super heavyweight division. He knows this, but he thought he was being clever by using some number to prove his point, but if we look at the best opponents 215+ that shavers faced his power was definitely there. His original claim was that his power fizzled out against men that size and it is simply not true.

 

No he named Lyle Williams & Cooney Jointly as the hardest hitters he faced, as you can see on the Letterman clip on youtube.
Allegedly hung up on Earnie's pleas to fight saying he hit too hard.

 

Excellent Post!

Also most of Shaver's fights & many KO's are not even captured on film.
If he could do so well with limited technique & endurance & many who faced him fought & lost to or beat much later, bigger fighters, & virtually everyone says Shavers hit the hardest...

Then best we can say is *maybe* a later SHW sized guy or two hit as hard or slightly harder.
Or maybe not. There are diminishing returns after a certain size, & sometimes freaks of nature come along who produce more power than anyone without being huge.

The exception would be for something that largely depends on pure muscular size-often unnaturally extended by PEDs.
Moving the heaviest weights, & throwing heavy things.
It does not apply for something much more reliably measured & more similar: how far someone can throw or hit a ball.

So Shavers may well have hit the hardest.

 

Exactly, shavers problem was NEVER size alone. Otherwise he definitely wouldn't have stopped large durable men such as Williams or Bugner. The most skilled opponents such as Holmes or Ali he couldn't finish off because they had elite defense, ring IQ, movement, etc. Shavers was a sloppy finisher too as you said.

 

You quoted saying Shavers as an example for Ali's chin, thats why i used Sanders. Vitali had an iron chin and had never been dropped, though Sanders rocked him violently. Ali had a solid chin but he had still been dropped by sub cruisers. Fact is Ali is better than Vitali and had a great chin but Vitali would not be getting dropped badly by Henry Cooper like Ali. Cooper being what 185 ? 190 ? Unless you think Ali's chin got better after exile or something

 

Ali's chin is far more proven than Vitali's. That's not even debatable. Ali was messing around with Cooper and paid for it getting caught with a good shot he didn't see coming. Do you think Cooper hits harder than Liston, Foreman, and Shavers?

 

Easy we got video

 

Good point never have i believed earn hit the hardest its easy to see he didn't

 

That doesn't add up never has joe dropped ali cause of tech

 

@Glass City Cobra I call you out!!!

 

We’d still be picking up the bodies if they did.

 

Absolute non-sense.

 

I meant did, not could, although thats the truth. Shavers came short over half the time against the bigger guys he fought.

I find Shavers power to be very thudding and good but overrated nonetheless, just my opinion.